I know traders have a hard time seeing this but when I add to a losing position, I am increasing the PROBABILITY that I will get out with a profitable trade especially when I double or triple up on the size that I am losing on. Of course it has to be done in the right context. The probability gets greater because of the market probing back and forth. And by doubling up I have shortened the distance price has to now probe for me to not only BE (if I just want out) but to hold for profit too. As a scalper I want to keep a high win rate and be able to capitalize on FOT.
I believe the issue for most will be identifying the current context / market structure - something only learned with thousands of hours (years) of watching bars print. And then even more study / analysis of said charts in the after hours. One doesn't obtain earning power eith the potential to supercede that of brain surgeons without serious time and work put in.
I believe a significant roadblock in pursuing the studies you mention is that many participants are more interested in catching tops and bottoms, for lack of better explanation. Put another way, they are concerned with commish, fees, what the market offered that was missed, and the number of digits of the trade PnL. Of course, it is easy to make a conventional wisdom argument of working smarter, not harder. But trading is not conventional! 10 trades of net 10 ticks each, is no better or worse than 1 trade of net 100 ticks. In fact, 10 trades of net 10 ticks each is more in tune with overcoming the roadblock and the learning of context. It takes a different set of disciplines that are right or wrong only in reference to what the trader is attempting to achieve.
I'm not huh? 1 and 5 minute charts are all I use for entries/exits. What I am not, specifically, is a range trader. Though sometimes that is all that is there. IMO more points are "easier" available, relatively speaking, in the trends. Even on 1-5 minute basis.
I have not traded NQ in some time. I decided to take a few trades this morning. It probably was not a good idea to do it with the size I did it with as I was averaging down quite a bit. Doing so requires a hefty bet that many traders would not want to place bets like this. But it is what it is and this is how I traded it this morning. The NQ can be volatile and have wild swings up and down. IMO it requires a bigger account to trade it if one is going to utilize averaging down. I bigger account size than ES. In addition, the NQ tends to be more directional than the ES and often leads the ES in PA movement. It can be great for BIG and QUICK profits but also entails more risks, usually. I made basically 2 trades. the first trade I forgot to change my PT and SL limit settings before taking it and so I immediately entered and exited before I could change anything. It was set for ES trading. The next trade I went long 1c and when it went against my position, I added another contract for a total of 2cs long. I then doubled down as price was approaching established TR behavior (it was around 18 bars I think) so I added and additional 4cs for a total of 6cs long. I the drew in the TR rectangle and when I determined that it was an established TR (24 bars from the open) I then added 8 more contracts for a total of 14 contracts long. My rationale was I would likely see enough move towards the middle of the TR to get a profit. I exited the last entry of 8 contracts with a good profit and the remaining 6cs I exited at one wack in a second exit. I lost only on my initial entry of 1c. IMO I really don't think small account size traders should trade NQ unless they trade very small and grab it as they get a profit. It can move violently and quicky wipe out a small account. Perhaps they could trade MNQ. A small account can get destroyed in the NQ in minutes especially if using any average down technique. I wanted to show that the same techniques such as TR trading apply to NQ as well as ES. But in my opinion ES is more forgiving to a small trader. It usually has less violent moves. If I figured right counting that small gain on the first trade of the day and counting loss on the first entry of the second trade I netted 485.50 points or so on the session figuring on a one contract basis.
I know the title in the video says MNQ but that was just a typo when I saved the video file. It was NQ not MNQ. I just named the file wrong. I went back to YouTube and corrected the name of the file to NQ as it was not the micro.
@VSTscalper uses tick by tick, that I think is real scalping. You, from my reading your posts, is more trend following?
For you, yes. This is true provided the probability you are right is greater than you are wrong. Otherwise it has a bad outcome. For most of us, once we are wrong, we are wrong and making another similar bet doubles the trouble.
True I am not a scalper in the true historical sense of the word (exchange floor locals led the way) but the only true scalpers any more are HFT's. Neither is VST, he AFAICT is a vendor/teacher. Anyway I think us retailers nowadays refer to scalping as short term day trading. Minutes to an hour or two - trend or range. At least that is how I see it.
Here is a trade I just took. It will be the only trade for today because I was busy running errands this morning so I didn't get to trade this morning. And now I have to get ready for an event this evening so no more trading. I took a quick long trade in the NQ 1c. When it went against me I added 2 contracts. I then exited all three on the next bar making 30 points on a 1c basis (if figured as 1 contract). So that would be $20.00 X 30. That is all I can do today. It looks like the volume didn't get recorded AGAIN! Anyway, I was trying to short with a bracket order and go long with another bracket order. Once the long bracket order was entered and the entry filled I promptly cancelled the short bracket order then on next bar exit the long bracket order with the profit.