NY scalper, I know what you are saying, i am just at a complete loss how you have the time to analysis all of this while the market is moving. I been day trading the YM e mini futures for a few weeks now, and most times my scalping strategies proves to be good, just that by the time I finished the analysis in my head the market has already moved - either hitting the spot before i managed to place the order, or the DOM changed which would require doing the analysis all over again. How do you do all these analysis in your head while be a step ahead of the market? Do you just trade those very illiquid stocks that doesnt move to give you time to think it through? Also what do you think about scalping YM or ES? is it doable?
Gotta love having a single key to cancel all bids and hit everything in the book down 25 cents. It's the only way I know of to take revenge on those robots that penny all my limit orders. Thanks for talking about real trading.
I'm sure it's probably doable, I just know nothing about how to do that. A market is a market, and I seem to be able to trade mostly any stock I spend enough time watching, but I've watched the futures trade and I can honestly say I have no idea how to trade them. I trade really fast stocks, the analysis is simple, I don't think, I just react and take shots, sometimes I'm too jumpy, sometimes I get in too early before people are ready to panic yet, but I (try to) always think one step ahead, and I wait for a precise moment, and when that moment is there, I hit the button and hope to get the fill... when I don't get the fill it means the opportunity was best, usually... of course sometimes I miss stock, then watch it violently move against me and thank the trading gods. I am able to react so quickly to sudden changes in the market (prints + orders) because I am always thinking in my head of every "what if", and I have "what if's" which I know would be very favorable, and on the off chance that any one of those "what if" events happen then I just hit the button. "What if another large order comes in here, what if a refreshing seller comes in, what if they take out the bid at .50 in one shot, will I be quick enough to take those 800 shares at .48 and limit down at .32? Better set that limit key right at .48, put my bid in at .32, and wait for that moment..." is what my thought process is like.
Personally I have always lived an extremely modest lifestyle, so my living expenses are low to begin with. I have always had a few months' worth of living expenses saved up to fall back on, never got into any kind of debt. I have been lucky in a way: For about as long as I have been trading, I have also had an online retail business, which has pretty much paid the bills. If I had not had that, I would have probably worked a part time job instead. I wouldn't have been able to relax in the evenings knowing I was making less than I was spending, so instead I would have taken any job. My frugal approach to life probably wouldn't work for most people: My wife left me in 2004, and now that I have an even smaller place, most girls stop returning my calls once they have seen how I live. To me a nicer place just wouldn't be worth it: In order to keep a girl around, I would still have to at least keep buying her dinner, so I figure I might as well stay where I am and whenever a woman sees my home and consequently severs relations, I just ask out a new one. Like I said before, touching them isn't even worth the effort to me. I guess what keeps me from quitting the whole "dating" thing (i.e. prostitution) is the irrational hope that I might find someone special; or maybe I'm just bored sometimes, or lonely. Whatever it may be, occasionally it obviously overpowers my reluctance to pay for affection. In a way, I have sacrificed everything to trading, or to be more precise, money, and I have not received anything in return, nor do I see myself ever getting any kind of reward out of it in the future. I figure that's just the nature of worldly pursuits: Ultimately it's all for nothing. If I had 10 or 100 times more money, I would still live the same way I do now. There are two views you could take on this: 1. I must be happy because there is nothing I would like to buy, but can't. 2. I must be unhappy because there is nothing I could buy to bring joy to my life. I'm not sure which one of these opinions best represents my own. What I am even more unsure about is how (if at all) the string of failures in my personal life relates to the financial aspect. One more side note: When I would spend 8 hours a day talking to upset customers, my superiors seemed puzzled by the fact that I never showed any anger, or really any emotion at all. I guess they mostly considered that to be one of my strengths, even though it also creeped them out a little bit, especially because I would sometimes appear extremely passionate when talking to them or my peers. Trading has definitely made me a different person. When I take a loss by choosing reason over emotions, immediately afterwards I feel (mildly) successful. Apparently, the same kind of response translated into my other job: When I remained calm and friendly while the person on the other end of the line was unloading on me, I felt the same kind of mild satisfaction of doing exactly what I was supposed to do, despite my emotions.
I just had to say something here. Lobster, that was one of the best posts on ET besides NYOBs for a long time. Good luck to you, and know that others do share your views. Only when a person hits rock bottom do they know what they are made out of.
Thank you, kinggyppo, traderpro, and jj90, for your positive feedback. (I honestly was expecting to get flamed rather than complimented.)
for me,keeping a small balance in my account prevents me from taking on big risks and thereby staying disciplined witha much higher rate of success.