A couple of years back I used to be in a chatty intraday futures Skype group with a few friends from a private forum. The "is averaging beneficial or a bad habit" discussion would come up. What was notable was the three of us who were highly correlation aware (and doing very nicely) all did it. It would annoy the other few lads who just traded crude or the ES etc. I and the other two guys saw the market as a big river with each instrument as just a current within for an imperfect analogy. From my own perspective entry 1 & 2 etc. are distinct entities. I see each as a separate trade entry with it's own justification, just two trades that happen to be long on the same instrument. OK, yes they often merge on exit though I could as easily make my 2nd or 3rd entry on another instrument in an arb or hedge. So I would agree that trading only one instrument averaging is more of a psychological support than a rational strategy. Trading a bunch of them as sets of a whole, it is workable. Probably very unclear there but most people who trade correlation etc. might get it.
Stupid, "having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense". It would have been far more 'stupid' for me not to prioratize my possibly injured wife. She is a very calm person. Missing the target opportunity was a consequence of my considered choice to not use an ATM template for this little experiment. Stupid 2, sure Florida man... tell us how it really is from what you have heard is all I can say to that. Unless you have a depth of practical experience in scalping not evident yet.
Crap shoot. If your trade didn't work, it didn't work. That's it. You think the market gives a damn about your trade and that it will turn just because you're averaging? Think again.
This looks like the 3 bar close strategy - lower sequential closes on three bars, higher close on fourth bar - BUY open next bar, set profit target, stop loss. Open of next bar is the close of the previous bar. Not bad for a scalp if you can get in close to the open of a bar. Problem is the rotation on a 5 minute bar on the NQ can be very wide, stopping you out before you get to the target. Have you written a code to test it?
It could work perfectly until you get a 10 point move in literally 3 seconds (as seen multiple times even in the peaceful months), when your stop limit will not work and your stop market order will give back prob. the profits of previous 10 trades altogether, this is especially damaging psychologically.
I think you and I are talking about the same thing, and agreeing upon it, but not understanding each other, man.
I was travelling to the country place late last night and pondering whats up with people so afraid of limit orders slipping. Ok, in writing I use a "disaster stop (limit)" intending to mean using limit order as a stop but of course it looks like a "stop limit" which is a different kind of order. As is a stop order. Not a Stop Limit (hybrid market/limit with an offset) which can slip if things get crazy. It has been a while since I used Ninja's default Chart Trader panel & right click on chart to place a trade etc., I had my own coded ages back. I don't care about my disaster limit order being visible as it is far away from the more nearby price retail stops. And yes, price needs to push through that target level, fill on touch is not needed, this is not a problem at all. And yet again, I'm not recommending anyone trade futures like this, just showing someone something.
It is all by eye on 5 minute bars (enter & exit within the same bar) so if it looks like what I guess sounds like & used to be know as "the five finger boogie" this is coincidental. I first heard of that name for this fractal pattern from a Larry Williams talk. I can do the same on an hourly chart, maybe even a daily though it is helpful to have the 5 minute to see horizontal support, various diagonal lines and other structure. I'm not the only one I know who has a feel of the leading edge of price. There is a distinct pattern, call it a Wyckoff cycle, 'accumulation' leads to a 'spring' which is last chance salon to exit or be left behind. Even without a DOM of some kind after a long time you have a feel of it. Of course one could see the detail on a 10 second or fast tick/volume chart but there is a sweet spot for enough info vs noisy fast charts distracting you and for me it is 5 min. As we know the markets are fractal, patterns which exist on the large timeframes is also on the smaller if more noisy.
You have to be very careful on your Ninja ATM strats. Make sure your stops are market orders, not limits.
I never normally use Stop Market orders as said two posts up. Only straight Limit orders (not Stop Limits). Swings and roundabouts but my starting strategies as a noob were Limit entry and exit so I stuck with it. I don't use Ninjatrader Brokerage mind you though I have an account. That is just for any assistant I'm training in to play with live orders. Starting with Ninja as a platform was a bad move (friend was using it..) shortly before they bought Mirus however I liked the charting (had a lot of code done) and it was not that difficult to get the connector working to the broker who I was running my bots with (not Ninja based).