OMFG! Is anybody here doing the DAX? We've had 80pts drop already... Enough for anybody to take a big piece out... If there is a paradise out there, that's what it must look like... Ooof I think I'm getting nauseous... :eek:
LOL it was a rough guess... Of course I didn't get all of that, either. But the move was parabolic, it would have been silly not to bite a few good pieces out - several times. I think it would have been a lot tougher on ES/NQ, which I'm tracking to trade the DAX, basically. Do you use any tool to show the daily range intraday so far? (other than ATR 1 on a daily chart) letom, I will answer your question later when it's a bit more settled.
"Do you use any tool to show the daily range intraday so far? (other than ATR 1 on a daily chart)"? see attached Quote Page in IRT
Not really. Being a scalper improves it greatly. Do you think I've taken only 3T per trade out of that move??? As I said before, if there is more to take - take more! Being a scalper doesn't preclude you from taking larger trades. On the contrary even, I think what makes a really excellent scalper is the ability to be flexible in this department. As in the case of this fall (or any kind of parabolic move for that matter), everything points at a strong sentiment. The bears are seriously angry, and the bulls very hesitant. When the US tapes turn rolling blood-red on decent size, I sell. And I won't cover until I see speed decrease and the first greens come in! When the first greens come, I cover, generally straight away. A second later or so, price will bounce back, driven by the bears taking profits. Straight away, I put a sell-limit back in a few ticks higher (4 to 12T), waiting for the greens to eat the "late-comers" and take them for a stop run. As the reds kick in again (which they will), I just drop my limit and jump back in straight away, at the market price or up to 2T across the market (WARNING: PRACTICE! YOU NEED PRACTICE FOR THIS!!!). Chances are very high I got a few points extra just doing this, covering right at the "bottom" and selling back in a few ticks above. Most of the time, I do. That's why I scalp. It gives you "extra money". Plus, you reduce risk on-the-fly, because if the "backlash" from the new bottom turns into a reversal or larger retrace to bust a few stops, you don't give all your profits back, or even lose. I hope you can follow me - I'm sure if Mark read this, he'd understand exactly what I mean... Mark, you here? This is the easiest way of making money I can think of. It's the "big freebie" you get every so often. I think any good trader should be able to make ~1/3 out of each trend, and of the daily range, for that matter. If you can't take 1/3 out of a trend, then you're probably doing something wrong, like fighting the market, or trying to call tops & bottoms without being experienced enough. In this case, you should review your approach to the market. Mind you, there are traders who average a lot more than this though. Myself, I'm not even "in the league" with a lot of traders out there. The sensationalism in the "Pit Bull" etc books tends to make one believe that that's "exceptional". It isn't. There are people who consistently make several millions of $ per year, trading e-futures. I think AMT is one of them. Reality is, there are people even today that do much better than "Buzzy". No kidding! Buzzy only accumulated about $20M in about 10 years. I think there are quite a few CME seat members who outdo that. Why don't we know about them? 'Cause they generally shut up! Read "Market Wizards" what it says about Schwartz! Schwager says: "There are many extremely successful traders out there, but most remain unknown to the public. The only reason Schwartz got known is because he participated and won in so many contests!" As for myself, what I do works nicely on a small scale (DAX: Up to ~15 contracts), but as soon as you get larger, you can forget scalping DAX or the like, unless you want to trade the ES/NQ, with tiny ranges, gigantic size and lots of competitive spirit. Buzzy Schwartz would call into the pit, buy or sell a few hundred S&P's, no worries. And we're talking the big contract here. He called himself "scalper", but it isn't quite the same thing we're talking about here.
You sound like you're at a horse race. For someone who's protrays himself as being so much under control of the mental game you sure do get excited
Yeah, it's becoming a bit of a problem for me at the moment. I'm a bit worried there. I didn't think before that this would happen to me (again), but I think I'm getting a bit overconfident lately. The "I'm invincible" syndrome. This is very dangerous, and I'm trying to alleviate it... Do you have any suggestions? I'm thinking about starting a thread on dealing with overconfidence after long and high winning periods. What do you think? If I don't find a solution soon, I will go on a holiday to cool down a bit or sth. That tends to help. There you go Baruch & Co., it doesn't matter how long you do this, it always stays a mental challenge, one way or the other.