I went 3 years as a tick-scalper. I called it "milling money." Conditions changed, and (slowly, painfully, reluctantly) I changed with them, but my heart and my head is still as a tick-scalper. And in selling option positions, I use a bunch of those scalping skills entering/exiting every trade. I have seen a return to a 'hairy-candle' {wicks top and bottom} market in this calendar 2018, and it's *very* tempting to get back in -- but it's a 100% effort, and I just have too much going on right now. But with a 1minATR(6) hanging out between 1.5 and 1.0 since ES cash open, it's very tempting. I might seek TWO ticks, ohwhatthefuckUncleCharley.
You should only use a demo/simulator via the same trading platform of your broker that you would use had you been real money trading. Switching back n forth between different trading platforms from demo to real money can cause anxiety...not good for you when you need to make "trade decisions". wrbtrader
The only price action where I care about volatility is rocket ship patterns of sharp increase/decline and where can I reverse position(half my trading is reversing thru-out day session or take new position counter-trend, or hedge open profits of a position(timeframes of greater than 29 minutes). I trade fair amount of options and most of the time I am a "Buyer" seeking profit(yes, when most people say their tests show it not to be done much, that is direction I study)/or hedging, so volatility means it going to cost me more and that is ok as I have done so since 90s. I have "lived" risk management since 2010 and options since 2014 for profit. None of my back testing concludes that low volatility will fit my tight standards of low losing percentages, but volume does, so I have seen often times where there is little price action then BAMM volume increases and takes off, the market will often show whether few minutes to seconds of impeding move. Now whether the move will be one-two points in ES which is often where I dump half of position of originating signal entry(I average down on every signal) or be twenty points, can never tell, but longer one studies, eventually you discover something that always been there but only now understanding, I never run out yet. I find Al Brooks material too frustrating for me and I become "deer in headlights", I have learned my weakness in my life and when to avoid areas which will dumb found me and if I can't understand it at my age now, most likely it would not fit my concepts of price action. One huge secret of trading, does not matter much what you use for trend, but stay consistent, new traders always bouncing around, forget that, learn how long you should stay in a trade that is going no where instead of taking a loss, find what can be consistently made and not homerun trades, take profit as your rules dictates. Learn support/resistance for entries, but they are there also for getting out and even reversing. Learn to trade with the trend first, scalpers usually the ones who do counter trend most- I was wrong long ago to go that direction first, enough years and live trading, you learn. This is a problem with most who look at the chart, they want a system when I was showing trend, arrows show that price bars are TRENDING by most of the bar is above the 9ema for uptrend. I use a term I picked up as being a "Freebar" where none of the bar is touching in this case 9ema. I no longer give out signals or where I entry as unless you are a scalper, where you get in should be done by the trader. 9ema is not 100%, but what is, this morning showed Megaphone on 2 minute and to me says no breakouts and buy very low and sell very high as price will take out H/L's by a tick min. I stopped with "big heart" long ago when vendors trying to sell ideas or ways. The forum is very diverse and Hedge fund managers here and many vendors of systems and platforms. I tend to like to study areas where most say it is impossible to do.
An indicator isn't required, instead a change of perspective is needed to avoid the erroneous presumption in the question. Its better to pick an instrument and a trading time interval of the day when price is more likely to move significantly than be stuck in chop.
That's why experienced traders speak about the magical 10,000 hours. There is always to learn like you said. To me the first step in trading is "trend". I mean you should know if there is a trend or not. After that you trade an appropriate strategy as it is possible to trade trending markets but also not trending markets. And you should also know when to switch a position strategy from non-trending to trending and vice versa. These switches should be consistently profitable, that's a difficult one. So having every now and then a lucky shot is not good enough. That takes 1000's of hours to realize. PS: the best entry for a trending trade starts often in a non trending period.
there are two types of market: trending market and trading (choppy) market if one wants to make money trading one should embrace the trading (choppy) market instead of trying to avoid it for that one should abandon the mantra "trend is your friend" and learn to work with the support and resistance
there are two types of market: trending market and trading (choppy) market if one wants to make money trading one should embrace the trading (choppy) market instead of trying to avoid it for that one should abandon the mantra "support and resistance" and learn to work with the "trend is your friend" Each trader should find his own way, there are no holy grail rules. Even not if they would be called "support and resistance".