I've been doing this along time. It takes alot of experience and discipline. I know people who make more then 200K a year, I know more people who have lost thousands though. Don't be fooled it's not easy to learn to scalp or trade, for that matter, but it can be done. Remember futures is risky and there are far more losers then winners. The most important thing in scalping I think is discipline. You must get out of losers quick, if you let one loser run against you it can ruin your day. Also you must not get greedy, don't try to make trades happen when the market isn't giving you anything to work with. Also, don't trade size impulsively. Focus on consistency. Remember: "Peanuts make the elephant fat."
Mark, do you put stops in after you enter? I realize you probably don't use them to intentionally take you out of a trade as you probably exit from price action feel, but do you use them for protection in case of a sudden price surge which you might not be able to catch "by hand"?
No I don't. I have got burned a couple times on spikes, but I don't think a stop would make much of a difference where I got out at becuase the exchange doesn't hold the stop orders, the software platfoms you trade on do, at least with Eurex. With the 2 second snap shot quotes that Eurex uses, your stop would go off 2 seconds late, so when one of those spikes comes I just get out where I can.
This depends upon what kind of stop orders you use: Eurex offers native stop market orders. I.e. when your stop is triggered, it will be turned into a market order. Not everyone likes market orders. When you want to use stop limit orders, they have to be simulated, preferably on your broker's server, not your own PC. I do not understand the part about the two seconds: Eurex does have two data feeds: one for the members of Eurex, one for the quote vendors. The two seconds apply to the latter. Velocity Futures should receive the member feed and so be able to process simulated orders without undue delay. Regards Bernd Kuerbs
Hi, in one post you mentioned you were deeply into the psycholological aspect of trading via some books, could you please recommend some for study? I have also come to realize finally that this is last, but most important step to success. best & good trading to you, cosmic
Interesting indeed about the feeds.....could that be an unfair trading advantage? I hope Eurex USA does not try this. Michael B.
I believe market stops are native on Eurex but as Mark says you have to be careful how you place them. Personally I load a stop about 6 points out from where my working stop is, that way if I loose my platform or my internet connection I've got a safety net loaded in the form of a native market stop. Under typical conditions that 6 points is plenty of room for me to pull the stop after I know I've filled my manual stop. Also regarding the capability to make money doing this, it's all very subjective and you have to develop an instinct for this type of trading which will typically come from getting the crap beat out of you I don't know of any book that will give you the answer but I thought that Mark Douglas' "trading in the Zone" is as good as any. Personally I think the desire to overcome the pychologoical issues has to come from deep inside, hopefully you can do it without being beat silly first but many traders I know of who've made it over the hump all share the common struggle of going thru really hard times. Good job today Mark.. personally I got my head handed to me today but then yesterday was a decent day. Seems to me like the past few days have been tough as hell to trade especially during the 1st few hours.
It probably sounds worse than it really is. I think there have been a lot of discussions in this board about data feeds, so if you search you will find a lot of material. Your trading platform will give you real-time bid/ask/last and market depth. The 1,5 - 2 seconds refer to Time and Sales and highs and lows. I'm pretty sure, Eurex USA will use the same software as Eurex Europe. They even use this as sales argument. It is used by ACE now for ZN, was used until recently for the YM. Regards Bernd Kuerbs
I read that Eurex USA will indeed use ACE, but it will be the latest and greatest version which has yet to be put in use.