I've done a little with ssf's. I like them, but the liquidity is just not there. It's a great concept. It's a shame they never took off. Maybe they will, with the next true bull market. Do you ever scalp fx or do you know of any good books on the matter? Seems like a super tough instrument to scalp. ie putting 3 or 4 pips on the line and netting two on a successful trade and doing this in a super competetive and highly liquid market. My stage one fx trading experience is leading me to conclude that it might be best to lower the leverage considerably and buy or sell the big obvious trends. thoughts?
After blowing out a few times in the newbie stage, I've concluded that lowering the leverage is the smartest thing you can do. It gives you a chance to make mistakes.. even big ones and still live to tell about it. I'm seriously wondering if my 50:1 account is too much.
I tried scalping EURUSD with a small amount of K this year ($1K), but it was too screen-intensive for me. I'm attaching a page from my trading journal below -- although I did okay, you can see why I don't trade this way. I can forward the method to you if you like. I also have another that qualifies as scalping, but takes bigger profits and is based on a trend-following model. (I didn't invent the model.) I don't know of any good scalping books out there. If you insist on scalping, I would definitely lower the leverage or adjust your position size to cap your losses. I can be done, but it's very demanding physically and emotionally. (I never knew anyone who got rich from scalping...) I trade on the hourlies now and am healthier, not to mention wealthier...but not rich yet myself.
I'm trading at 20x daily now. When and if I get consistently profitable, I will bump it up to slightly more leverage and try an hourly time frame. I'm going to screw around on an Oanda mock account with the scalping. It seems like on the scalping for the markets I've seen so far, you have to put up too much in commission (pip spread) with wild swings that can blow you away. I have'nt even seen what a major announcement or news item would do. On 200x that could be too much. Hey thanks for the link. I'll try out the mock Oanda acct. I've signed up for a local fx interest group. We'll see what insight can be gleaned there.