If you are a scalper then .... Always trade only volume instruments (ES) Always fade the entry. Always flatten if it does'nt move quickly Always flatten on a spike Always short only from resistance Always buy only from support If you are not a scalper.... Always ignore my comments If you are a scalper and do not understand the above...... Always leave scalping alone until you do understand. regards f9
50 trades a day? My god you must constantly pitted against that screen in utter turmoil humping nickles and dimes and picking pennies on the screen charts...
I donot like trading a lot, I prefer to drink coffee and eat donuts and watch CNBC. They are the best, Jerry, the best!
restrict trading to volatile sessions... volatility implies huge price swings, huge price swings imply, significant movement in one direction before a retrace. This minimizes stops being hit.
Follow your predetermined proven backtested plan/method/system no matter how much fear or euphoria you feel while in our outside the trade. The rest are jus pesky minor details of everyday trading. Anek
Have any of you watched the YEN before getting into a trade you may want to keep an eye on it, BIG heads up, check it out Take Care, Joe Baker
I was always under the impression that the best markets to scalp are illiquid ones, where the trader can singlehandedly cut a price level and force people to panic. Regardless, I do OK scalping low and medium liquidity instruments and I do believe contrary to your above statement that I have an understanding of what scalping is. Also, "only buy from support" and "only sell from resistance," while I hope you do well following those rules, as far as them being general principles of scalping, I must humbly disagree. A great amount of the money I make is from cutting key price levels when I see a sign that the level will break, and going with the level. Most the time even if a break of resistance lacks followthrough, if resistance is a size order if you go long into it and spray some limits you will capture the market prints from the idiots who used stops. Likewise for whacking bids. Say a stock that trades 750,000 per day - an illiquid stock - is at new lows, down $2 on the day, 25 minutes into the session, 5 red candle bars down... it prints a low of 25.28, and the 200 shares ARCA bid sits there and keeps absorbing stock, absorbing stock, red prints red prints red prints... behind it is a 25.25 3000 NYSE bid, and at 25.00 8000 NYSE and 6000 ARCA, with very little stock in between. You see they keep pounding and printing the 25.28 Arca, he has taken over 5000 shares, and you look at the ES and see it's breaking down below support on the chart and making new lows. Then, you see 25.28 arca goes away after a print for 3700. At that point anyone watching the stock is an idiot not to short the 25.25 3000 bid - as much as you want - and immediately bid down between 25.08-25.01 To me, even though you're not shorting at resistance, trading a liquid market, you're still scalping... though in the setup I described above, to flatten if it doesn't move quickly is an excellent idea. Just goes to show how different people's perceptions of what scalping is can be.
Don't over trade! The vast majority of traders do not possess the skill to scalp tics 50 times per day like Frank does. They still over trade much of the time however. Wait for the best setups with the best percentage of winning and R/R ratios. At least for me, once I learned to do this, my results improved dramatically. It does involve lots of boredom however.
The above question is very easy to answer. Study measured moves and study your own history of trading to determine what a standard move in your direction almost always hits. Once that move has occurred you should have a break even stop in place. For me with the ZB it is 4 - 6 ticks in my favor from either my initial entry or from where my entry should have been. Knowing the answer to this question will revolutionize your trading. It did for me when I first discovered it. It completely changes the way you trade, the way you feel about trading and your daily and weekly P/L statement. In conclusion, here is one way it has helped me. There is nothing more depressing than to be up 500 USD and watching it turn around to being down 500 USD. To add insult to injury, if you don't exit immediately, you'll get stuck looking for any excuse to continue to hold the trade, because you hope it will come back. Don't get stuck in this trap!
I'm not sure any of those 5 points are relevant to trading success. Here are mine: Develop a methodology with a solid, however small, statical edge. Work hard to apply it to as many stocks and markets as possible. The most successful intraday traders I know, almost all do large number of trades (1000s), huge volume (>1M/day) and are fully automated. You need to do the same on a smaller scale (to start with).