I'm on day 4 of this scalping experiment. Avg loss 2 ticks avg profit 4 ticks. This is the first year my broker ever sent me a Rosh Hashanah card. When I start losing money I'll stop scalping and tell you how to do it. Maybe you'll have better luck.
Some guy is position trading off some system which is no better than a coin flip and he tells you you can't scalp because you might accidently trade off noise. What's that? Sorry I can't hear you. Man it's noisy down here in the tick factory! Well, we gotta go make some more ticks.
Tupac was killed 6 years ago today -- It was after sundown, too. He wasn't Jewish, though (from what I know). aphie
profitseeker, hhmm. what would you say, how much of your trades are +2 or +3 ticks and then reverse ? with that RR of 1:2, your hitrate cant be too high. my hopes are with a fixed target of lets say 2 or 3 ticks via a limit order. my only goal is to hit that target for at least 75% of the time. i set a stop on 3 ticks, just as insurance. when i find the time , i will trade that like you did, as an experiment. trading
No, my hit rate is way down below 50%. It would be better just to lump all 3,2,1 tick loss and 0,1,2 and 3 tick profit into one category and call it scratch. Going for a high hit rate is the second greatest mistake (the first being taking small profits.) That's why this is working for me right now, because anything over 1 handle is relatively large compared to the loss. Hit rate is mostly luck. The idea is to make good luck pay and bad luck not cost too much.
Don't be too naive to think that your software will give you THE edge. May be it will give you some advantages on "slower" traders but for sure that won't be your final edge. The edge is not either in a possible "perfect moving average". The edge is (in) you. I've been where you actually are : "I want to succeed, I know that I'm going to succeed, I know that I can be a 10 contract scalper eating 0.5 pts with 1.5 pts stops, making 1000000 from 5K, developing my own super-trading-soft, etc..." I've been precisely there. Like you I listened to some precious advices with just one ear. I believed that I was stronger than anybody. I made some mistakes. And I lost some money. I developed my own platform too. It is a great tool. But at the beginning I was still losing money with it (less but still some). I tried to have "%=75 / R=1:1" scalping strategy because the 1/1 ratio is attractive (don't force you to let the winner run). If it was so easy... I never succeded at it. Very hard for a newbie (IMO). Commisions & slippages eat your profits. I'm better with a classic "%=50 / R>2:1" strategy. It costs me some ⬠before I came to it. Everytime I came back from paper to real trading, I experienced a drawdown. Bad timing ? No ! Emotions are in place and suddenly your pretty equity curve is going the wrong way. If my equity is going (slowly) up now that's only because I worked on myself (managing my emotions/ego/patience/discipline). In trading, everyone has to find his own way. Go on your own but don't spend too much time on "useless" things. Nothing personal here, I just want you not to make the costly mistakes I did. Start for real as soon as possible. You will understand where the hard work is. Just my 0.02 ⬠I wish you the best.
x-or, Thanks for your thoughts. I'm sure that there are many things that I have yet to experience in the future's market. I have heard over and over from many people that so many are profitable on paper but not when they go live -- and usually because of emotions. What I don't understand is -- if they know they have a system that can work, why get emotional? I just don't understand that aspect of it. aphie Ps: Is your name in reference to a boolean gate?
ddefina, So Mr. Spock would make a good trader whereas Dr. McCoy might make a bad one? Interesting! aphie
Hi aphie, I think the fact that you are intellectually understanding that you have a system that works does not immediately turn off your emotions. They are still there, even if you think that you have an edge. The emotional "drawdown" can be mastered, but not in a second. This is my experience.