no effing way i'm swing trading futes in this type of market environment. i'm scalping...in and out like the burger joint. i scalp es with anywhere between 1 - 5 contracts with my trading setup. holding time...anywhere between a few seconds to a min like today 2/17/23. i'm up $912 so far today trading 17 total contracts.
A little background about swing plays... When I ran my mutual fund trading service, I was always looking for the issue that was at/near support on the daily chart (MF trades are filled only at end-of-day, so there is usually significant slippage in both buying and selling). My plan was to try to capture a swing from the bottom of its "normal noise oscillation range" to the top of said range. Each security has a "normal noise oscillation range". For something like utilities, it might be 4-5%, bottom-to-top. For a tech issue, might be 15%, bottom-to-top. Even bigger range for gold and oil. So... here's how it works. 1. You buy some oversold/support price (important to buy near support or shortly after upside breakout in order to control risk) and try to capture a swing if there is going to be one this time. You need to know what is "normal range" for that issue... is it 5% or 15%? 2. You know there will be counters, but you hold through them presuming they will be shallow and NOT test/break your original support entry. Assuming price cooperates and doesn't dip back that far, you hang on through the correction... always with your original stop from entry in play. 3. A way to "measure counters while giving the benefit-of-the-doubt to your swing attempt" is to use something like a "regression channel". For a long, the channel slope would be upwards. So long as the price is contained by the channel, you keep hanging on. If the channel breaks, you probably need to stop and take profits. Another measure would be something like the Stochastic Oscillator (%K). You know the price move correlates to the %K moving from low in its range to high in its range. You give the benefit-of-the-doubt to holding the swing play so long as the %K has not yet reached the top of its range. And you know that the hallmark of a bullish trade is "higher highs and higher lows". If that pattern breaks, you need to be stopping and taking profits. Having to cope with "counters" is what keeps traders on their heels.
Mostly correct about index futures at this time. However TSLA ran from ~$100 to ~$200 in 6 weeks. That was a "playable swing"... other issues did similar.
Hello Scataphagos, Thank you so much for the response. You are correct on this part you wrote " Having to cope with "counters" is what keeps traders on their heels." There is no way around it, the counters will come.
Yes... and our dealing with them is almost always "50-50"... which makes it difficult to make a really big score.
When I day traded I spent most of the day in front of a monitor. I'd then spend a few hours after the market closed researching and looking for the next days trades. I'm not sure of the exact returns because I pull cash out of my accounts as needed. I moved to swing trading and found that I was able to spend less time and make about the same returns. (2 -3%/month) Doesn't sound like much but I'm well capitalized. Time spent is maybe an hour each day. I don't mind sitting on cash for long periods of time while I wait for set-ups. Swing trading allows me to get fully invested in a bull market and sit out the bear markets.
%% SURE is dangerous +risky+ rewarding sometimes; that 's why it may pay/pay well to read an insurance contract. IF i had to buy tqqq\UPRO\ SPXL or ES, XLE, maybe not do that in last half FEB. Would i help sell insurance to a bunch of fake news clowns like ABC?? Yes, even though they cost a co that insures\ billions for thier hamburger SD slander. But i would, if i ran the insurance co, give them a He- double hockey sticks HI/mountain HI price, where they would never buy it from me/ insure price. $60,000\$3k or billions lost, depending on AUM could be way to much; sounds like it was for you?? Of course i have 20/20 hindsight on the fake news bunch ABC; the less clear or defined the trend\ the less , low or no , or none i would do. Have not done SPXL[ SPY extra large]all year. Can be a good bull market mover-trender Bid\ask is about the least of my concerns\ market order exits\swing or daytrade