i had a rule when i position traded stocks ten years back: book a profit and then do not trade for 3 months. that made a lot of sense because i used to hold my position for 3 months
you have mentioned scalping as your main strategy, but if you wait for all signals to align before getting into a trade then i don't think it would be scalping. for a few ticks move i do not need price to correct or price to behave irrational before coming in line with the trend. You just trade on bar formation and momentum along with divergence both regular and hidden in price and volume. My scalping moves are same as your a few ticks or points. i do not hold any trade longer than a few minutes average trade would be less than 2 minutes. Only some moves that occur more than 2 minutes are once where i am not able to get out profitably and draw down happens. Still those moves are rare since my stops are tight and when i am wrong i lose max of 2-3 points.
clear directional momentum comes only 1% of the time....markets are two directional 99% of the time. if you want to make money every 5-10 minutes learn to trade that, which is staring you in face 99% of the time: this is not easy, in fact people say it is impossible!. i like impossible.... depends what you want.... depends where you want to go......decide the destination and then pack for the long journey ahead....
that is because markets go no where most of the time....but if i see a big move to hell with scalping..... i go where the money big money is
But once you are a scalper its hard to let go off that edge, longer moves have corrections, stagnations and stop runs etc which as scalper i am not comfortable with. Or in other words have no balls for it. ha ha
my aim has always been to understand how the market moves......i do not trade signals, strategies….i trade market movements it has taken me a long long long looooooong time to understand market movements the way two sided markets move.....you guys can trade trends 1% of the time i want money 99% of time
i see where you are coming from better scalp then ride the trend... that is why i tried to understand movements.. once you understand you do not get suspicious or misunderstand i enter trends because it is suicide to scalp trends
so you use a naked chart with no indicators or signals to assist parts of your trades. if so how do trade a scalping method?