Good Morning Laissez Faire, Good write up and very good discussion. I can tell you been deep in the trenches trying to make this money scalping. I agree with everything you said because I scalp and I know the emotional, probability, statically, thought process needs to be profitable and the big loss that comes with trying to get that high win rate. From my experience alone, which is not alot screen time, there no way (IMO and experience) really around it, from a discretionary view, need big risk and small profit targets to scalp. The one thing about scalping is it feels good. Here are a few things I realize as a manual trader trading day to day with NO historical proven edge tested No historical proven edge tested means, I did not and will not back test anything. I am a guessing trader trading my current trading skills for 1-2 hours per day. 1. picking 1 stop loss and picking profit target per trade is best. 2. Scaling in scalping will eventually set you back really big on that one lost. I do not like it. Sorry @volpri, I tried it man. I tried it. Scaling in with 5 contracts, that one big loss was killing me. hard to recover 3. Trading in real time and taking good guesses and gambling is best. 4. As a scalper, it is so important to take alot of trades in practice and learn to fight in the trenches to keep the account going upwards. 5. Alot of scalping has to do with time availability to stare at the chart. Scalping is the only way I am trading going forward. Scalping meaning my risk will always and forever be bigger than my rewards. Some where between RR = 1 and RR= 0.5. RR = 0.33 makes climbing out of that hole harder and mentally drains the brain. Thank you.
According to you, "good guesses and gambling" is the same as "picking" one stop loss and a profit target. And if "good guesses and gambling" AND "picking" are both best, what does that have to do with staring at the chart? Take a guess, pick a stop, take another guess, pick a target. Then walk away from the chart. Your thinking is confused.
I been scalping since '92, yea 30 years. If manual don't use stops, targets up to 8 ticks, very low losing % of under 4%, same patterns everyday, don't trade much of high volitility. Been trading same variations of signals, have answers before questions, nothing surprises me any more. Have automation but once a week I do manual, fun left long ago, just boring experience. I know stats well, over 30,000 trades of same signals over and over and over. If I had to do over again, would have stayed in long term commodities, then I wouldn't have accumulated over 100,000 hours of screen time. Have lived through everything at least twice. Nothing surprises any more. Very lonely endeavor. I backtest everything, foolish not to do so as I carry 300 lots of ES per signal.
Hello tiddlywinks, What I mean is, use your trading experience (from starring at screen or study) to pick a fixed numerical stop loss and profit target and take your best guess on the entry for the next X,XXX to XXX,XXX trades and then measure the performance to see what happens.
Measure the performance?? You've stated you do not and will not back test anything. You are a guessing trader. Therefore, your performance measure is simply, did your stop or your target take you out of the trade. From there it's on to the next guess. Not being argumentative, just trying to point out the jumble of your thinking.
Hello tiddlywinks, Yes , exactly, I am a Guess Day Trader or Take My Best Guess Day Trader indeed. I trade with no back tested proven edge. I just trade. Thanks
I dig reading your posts. You're still kickin, so hat's off. Here's a spooz post that I found interesting thought that you might too. Maybe those thousands of hours screen time are informing your 'guesses'?
Hello easymon1, Thank you for sharing. I agree with spooz. I do not have a trading plan either or track records or any of that stuff. Yes the screen time is required to learn to take good guess.
That's an interesting quote from spooz. My experience hasn't been the same though. Some days it almost seems as if they market is set in stone on what it's going to do or at the very least has a really high probability to reach a certain level. Yesterday and even more so today was the perfect example of that. Now how it attains that goal can be the dynamic and more tricky part, even if it's obvious on where the market is likely to go there are so many participants to be taken advantage of. For example some people will be greedy and front load the trade and if enough people do that, it becomes beneficial for the market to pull back, flush them out and than pick up their supply at lower prices. At the same it's getting shorts to add in(which adds more fuel to the upside move later and also provides additional supply to sell into as they get forced out). Lastly it makes other people generally question there position and potentially sell their long prematurely as it moves up due to the previous shake outs. Again today was a great example of this as it was playing out exactly like this right up until near end of the day before they ripped it. I see his point you need to be flexible, because nothing is 100%. At the same time when I can clearly and objectively define the likely macro context for the day. It is helpful for me personally to trade in that direction.