CL is very crowded. The smart money does not trade crude outright, they trade the strips, or calendar spreads. Those markets are huge and very liquid. Very few people are punting on direction. Even Fisher himself doesn't trade Crude anymore because of the noise. They only trade the spreads. Opportunity is a very subjective word. The only reason you say that is because of the leverage, not because of the product. I can prove this through correlation. Crude is as correlated to risk assets as anything else. It's just more levered. If I asked you to day trade the USO etf, you wouldn't do it. Not because you think it's a bad trading product (it's the same as crude oil), but because there is no leverage. It's the same reason why people like trading the 3x ETF's. If I had to choose between CL or TF, I would choose TF. But if you put a gun to my head and made me trade CL everyday, I would trade the calendars over the outrights. Much better trade in my opinion. And probably why most prop firms, including MBF, trade them.
Insert: "scalp for show, spread for dough" ...fits nicely. I'm Scalping for now, but looking to take a look at the puzzle pieces and piece together some dough! On some days, I take at look at some spreads that I was watching and they resemble some really clean holds. You know when you catch that great stock that just runs and you don't take any heat and it just runs in your favor gradually throughout the day. I've seeing many good spreads do this on chop days!
Hey Mav. Got some questions for you if you don't mind. Has the ACD method been your primary methodology? How does it differ from the techniques you used before you adopted the method? I assume you used price action before, even though you're trading spreads. My library put a hold on the Fisher book for me. I'm looking forward to analyzing the methods, and purchase it if necessary. I go out to Bucktown to visit my brother often. PM me if you're ever wandering around. Maybe we can grab some coffee and bullshit for a few. Take care.
Over the years I've traded every style under the sun. But by trade, I'm a price action trader. I can't get rid of that. I've been working on ACD for about 5 years and over that period, ACD has gained influence a little bit more each year. I've experimented with lots of different ways of using ACD and still do. You could say, I'm an ACD practitioner. I will continue to evolve going forward and find new ways to use and apply ACD. I'm always up for a coffee.
Till I find a better way to trade like you suggested spreads, calendars, I prefer an instrument which moves 250 ticks every day, has VOLATILITY and LIQUIDITY. And of course leverage is nice. I do not consider 100 ticks days to be a scalp. Maverick74 has been trading for 15 years, I only 3 years. Based on my experience and expertise, CL is all i can handle. But I appreciate showing us the way of other possibilities like spreads, calendars etc.. I am following your advice that ACD is like playing tennis, the more one practice the better one gets at it. I do realize that I have been so focused on CL that I feel like i can not trade anything else. I know price behavior of CL which is way beyond ACD. It took me , 4000 hours to get CL under control and I feel like where would i get another 4,000 hours to get handle on another product. In short due to my focus on CL exclusively, I have boxed myself. As my capital grows, I will need to get out of this box.