I suppose we are all traders - more or less pro. But maybe not scalpers. The problems with scalping are: 1. Many (but small) losses. 2. Small (but many) profits. Look at Mark, a very good trader/scalper. But he did'nt get much out of the big moves, which can go on for many hours or even days. He's only very profitable, because he's trading very big. How much would he earn, if he only had money in his account to trade 1 or 2 contracts? I suppose that the real "top dog" traders are swing traders - and not scalpers? I also think it's a lot more difficult to be a swing trader than a scalper, because you have to "read the market", and really be a market timer. How many has the brain to do that? Not even George Soros - allways. But for beginners it's OK with scalping.
Ah well. No more insights then. Fine. I can wait... Whoever knows anybody suitable is encouraged to invite that person to the thread. I'll be back when somebody competent picks up the rope - Such as velocity_trader or his like. Have a nice time! Scientist.
I strongly agree that dax , like the cac40 are great markets for scalping, intraday trading. I use some correlation models between dax and US which are the locimotive. I also use a dozen models to create my signals. Returns have been 72% since sept 2002
That makes no sense IMHO. First off, neither Mark nor me are very profitable because we're trading very big. We're profitable because we trade very often / frequently. That is a huge difference. So what's wrong with trading 1 or 2 contracts? A decent scalper can make $500 a day per contract trading the DAX, particularly with lower quantities of contracts. Mark very often only trades 3-6 contracts at a time, and can still do over EUR 3K by end-of-day. And isn't that a nice return on a single contract? If it ain't enough, you can keep adding more later. Show me which swing trader can do these kind of returns. Only in your dreams. LOL! Disagree even more. You think you don't have to "read the market" and "be a market timer" as a scalper? You must be kidding me. "For beginners it's OK with scalping" - Strongly disagree!!! You go and try scalping if it's so easy, and compare it to swing trading. Good Luck. In my world, traders start with position, then go to swing, then day trade and after quite some time, eventually evolve to the proficiency of scalping. Comparing swing trading with scalping is like comparing sailing a boat with flying an F-16. It's not even in the same league. Thanks for the comments, though. Let's just agree to disagree. Scientist.
Hello Like scientist said it's hard to explain how we scalpers read the depht of market to enter and exit a trade. It's like you develop a feel or "instinct" to read the fills and the order flow. As it is something you can hardly put in words I will tell you some scalping techniques that don't work (at least for me ) on the dax. 1) queue management gave me a very poor return. On the contrary this technique is a good money provider on FESSX. 2)Try this well known tech to locate a safe place to be short. Generally when you put your order between two blocks (let's say 30 contracts at 3923 your short order at 3924 on a 4 pack contracts and there is another 30 block at 3925) chances are you will run to cover with a loss of 2 or 3 ticks. 3)Dax is maybe the hardest contract to scalp because there is a lot of very good players to compete with. When you american traders want to scalp a european contract you come to the dax. When european traders want to scalp a contract even if they are french english or spanish they come to the dax. 4)When you get caught in a spike (it often happens on the dax) don't hesitate to cut as fast as possible because a 5 points loss can turn to a 15 points loss in a couple of seconds of hesitation.. Good luck and be careful.
The shorter the time frame the more difficult to trade and ES is the most difficult of all yet half the posts on ET are about scalping ES! The people out there hyping the eminis are certainly doing their job well. I traded DAX and ESTX50 for awhile and liked them very much but I found it much easier to trade ESTX50. My problem was the hours. I just could not adjust to getting up in the middle of the night but Im no spring chicken. I love the challenge of trading ES, tho.
Regarding volume... with roll trades I refer to trades where one future expiry is traded against the other (e.g. Mar vs. Jun) which is going to show up in the volume although it doesn't have any market impact. Generally the DAX is better to scalp and it isn't, as it has a lot more noise than say estx but can be one hell of a bitch.
OK, but maybe it would be a good idea for the scalpers to hold their positions a little bit longer? But I suppose we all have to find the style which suits us best - scalping or not scalping.