This post is The Holly Grail of intra day trading. If only people realized this and adhere to it, there would be a lot more winners.
Why are you sick and tired? Are you sick and tired that I'm making 100%/year on my 6 figure account and only spending 2 hours a week trading it? Are you sick and tired that I sleep in every day and am not chained to my desk watching ticks all day? Are you sick and tired that my stress level is the lowest it has been in years because I don't watch ticks all day? Yeah I'm sick and tired of that stuff too. I, personally, am sick and tired of the scalpers on here telling everyone that the way they trade is so much better than the way everyone else trades.
I am scalping most of the time and I think it's the best way of trading for me because it limits the risk and provides a relative consistency. However, as I am a finance student who would like to get a trading job later, I am a little concerned about the position size limit. I couldn't do what I currently do with 50 or 100 lots (I usually trade the german dax future). But maybe there are some markets where the liquidity is enough to allow big size scalping ? Are there scalpers in banks ? Anyway, I continue to scalp but I start to try to get bigger moves in the market which has also its advantages.
I COMPLETELY agree. It takes a hell of a lot of energy and work to overcome just the trading costs - slippage, commission, on dozens of roundtrips a day, not to mention staring at a monitor for hours on end. In the end, many scalpers would do better working a regular professional job than what they get from their trading. I trade once a morning. A total of about 15 minutes a day. I close out by end of regular market hours. Trading method should be what works for YOU. It is stupid to say scalping is the best method over all others. If someone is happy just owning a few mutual funds and trying to make a few % points over buy and hold, great. If someone is making 100% on 2 hours a week, great. If you scalp and that is your bag, great.
Scalping is great if your accurate the majority of the time. And even then if your position management is poor you'll end up blown out. It takes very few losses in scalping to cost you your profits and then some.
The accuracy part is about discovering what, among all the commonly used stuff, is random and throwing it out. After you do that there is very little left and you then have to work those elements into a scheme that gives you an educated guess about the next bar.
Gentlemen How great is winning ratio by your scalping approach? How great is Risk/reward by this winning ratio ? How great is you profitability per month ? Relevant comment would appreciated .
Could you please help a little bit more ? After a few years of looking into charts I still can´t find things that are not random... I don´t have any guess about the next bar... a little bit of help is very, very much welcome. thanks P.S. I understand we are speaking about the Holly Grail...but any help is welcome.
I'm a noob of 11 months but maybe this will help. Fcuk all the magical indicators, focus on supply and demand. Make note of certain candle formations combined with certain volume traits. These are key for spotting reversals. Candles by themselves don't mean anything but add volume and it's a nice view of what should come. Also, should go without saying but be sure you're using a strategy that works for your mentality. Some people can't scalp and others can't swing trade, it's all about finding what works for your mind. 2 candles you want to pay attention to are the doji after a sharp trend as well as hammers. Added---- OK one more tip, learn to read tape and remember key numbers from tape support and resistance. The tape is true buying and selling so if you know what your doing with it you will know key levels to watch for breaks with heavy buyers/sellers. The market is all about watching the same areas as the pros are and following their lead. Breakouts on low volume are rookies taking the shares off the pro's hands with no clue they can't fuel the next leg.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from pvg80713: Could you please help a little bit more ? After a few years of looking into charts I still can´t find things that are not random... I don´t have any guess about the next bar... a little bit of help is very, very much welcome. thanks P.S. I understand we are speaking about the Holly Grail...but any help is welcome. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is a response you got: "I'm a noob of 11 months but maybe this will help. Fcuk all the magical indicators, focus on supply and demand. Make note of certain candle formations combined with certain volume traits. These are key for spotting reversals. Candles by themselves don't mean anything but add volume and it's a nice view of what should come. Also, should go without saying but be sure you're using a strategy that works for your mentality. Some people can't scalp and others can't swing trade, it's all about finding what works for your mind. 2 candles you want to pay attention to are the doji after a sharp trend as well as hammers. Added---- OK one more tip, learn to read tape and remember key numbers from tape support and resistance. The tape is true buying and selling so if you know what your doing with it you will know key levels to watch for breaks with heavy buyers/sellers. The market is all about watching the same areas as the pros are and following their lead. Breakouts on low volume are rookies taking the shares off the pro's hands with no clue they can't fuel the next leg. " You queried maxpi who said something extremely important. I'm not maxpi and many people (See kiwitrader's recent assessment) do not like my responses. Ignore me if you wish. The market is your partner and it is always informing you. nothing it says may be wasted or considered unimportant. You may simply cast aside what other traders use as rules or what you hear is right or wrong to follow. Any good method of trading is based upon one thing only. Trading is done in NOW and the market keeps moving by flowing continually and the market does not jump around. You, like maxpi, may learn from the market. What is there to see is always one thing. The market relationship of the past to the present (adjacent bars of price and volume coming directly from the market) and the trader relationship of the present to the future (this is seen by four distinct activities on the (Depth of the Market). These things are always there and unfailingly accurate by their DISTINCT precise characteristics. Most people cannot see them. You will begin to see them from now on since you are looking for these things. A person has to be looking to see. Fortunately, the looking is done as an animal would do looking. the animal sees in black and white, no color is necessary. You need only see the present as compared to the near past (markets) and the present as compared to the near future (you and your fellow traders at work). As an animal does, you look for two things: differences and what didn't happen (I call it What Wasn't That (WWT)). To see differences and WWT a mental or actual comparison is all that has to be done. You carefully examine the Price and Volume of the markets and you carefully examine the contracts of the traders that are in view. From examination to examination you see "sameness" and you see "differences" (changes). daily, I view the ES and I see "sameness" most of the time. About 40 times a day I see "differences" coming into view. Others will find fault with what I say because, simply stated, I am unable to communicate to them. Animals look at their world from the vantagepoint of beeing able to survive by the use of their senses. As they sit they either see that things are the same or they are changing if they do change. They are not patient really. what they are is keenly sensitive to opportunies that come from the "sameness" becoming "different" or something is missing from the picture. They see grazing and drinking and movement across the land as "sameness". They see normal behavior as "sameness". They see that they must continue to do what they are doing during these periods. For me "sameness" in the markets and on the part of other traders that I "SEE" , simply means the day is passing and I am making money as price moves, trades are filled for other traders as they go about their business. It is a calm time where I feel comfort, support and confidence. 40 times a day, there are brief moments, when "differences" appear. I will tell you about these "differences" in terms of traders and in terms of the market's Price and Volume. Traders place orders as they go about their business. Their aim is to do several things with these orders. They get rewarded as long as the market processes their orders. I look to see when they cannot get their orders properly processed simply because they are not observant of what is going on. At these times, the market is "speaking" as well. Often the orderly movement of the market is showing "differences and things that usually happen are "missing" and not happening. If you put yourself in my place you notice that I am observing the market in the PRESENT and I am observing the active traders in the near future. You do not do that and you never have. I am only interested in the active traders and the Price and Volume of the markets. I am not using any particular rules that are known and talked about. Rules are not what is important. what is important is to be in the right place all of the time. And, of course, to know that you know it is the right place. There is no stealth involved but it is true no one can see me and I can see the traders that metter and I can see the market's Price and volume. I can usually see my next two trades on the screen and I can see them on ES to about the tic. It is also true that I am very willing to deal with whatever intervenes between NOW and my next trade and the trade after that. I always annotate the near future with boundaries so I can more easily see the future moving into the present and my boundaries moving from right to left accordingly. The traders set boundaries too. So I get to see these clearly and distinctly. There are games being played but they all happen within these boundaries and so they become unimportant and just part of the days "grazing, drinking, and animal group movements". So I view the trader boundaries coming into view and I see the price and volume accept the will of the activity done by traders before the present. It is very smooth and almost timeless except for the continuing execution of the orders at the given pace of the market. I go with this flow. I know I know I am in the market, on the right side of the market and with a position that is the capacity that the market tells me it can bear. There are no edges for me. Why would I want edges? What are the simplest things that are there to observe to do what I do? I feel the DOM walls are extremely important and they usually appreas minutes before the market turns on the given wall. I use three levels of channels annotated well in advance and each serves as a container for the successively slower channel. Channels overlap. A channel continues while its successor is still in it. The fast channels, medium channels and slower channels act in concert when they come to an ending. thet, in effect peel off one ahed of the other. About 40 times a day the fast channels reverse within the envelope of the medium and slower channels. All of this peeling off is preceeded by the activity of volume for me. Volume triggers price in other words. If volume is no longer "sameness" (like either growing or shrinking) I am alerted to the difference of growing ending and shrinking beginning. Sameness for price is continuing price movement. What isn't sameness. In order of appearance it is a hitch and stall then a dip. Each resumes with price translation. I call these internal formations of channels. There are channel endings that usually have pennants (triangles to some). What price and volume give you are adjacent bars that "talk" to you to tell you sameness and differences. What traders tell you is where their orders get so bunched up that some of them are going to be disappointed. It is fun to watch traders tell us what they "want" and we also get to see what they "get". Obviously, all of this is cut and dry. It either is or isn't. That makes everything one kind of mathematical valuation: the binary vector. Binary vectors onlt have one of two possibilities at a given time. You may be able to recognize this as something with 100% probability at ALL times. That is why you do not see any prediction or the need to know or guess what the next bar will be. All a trader has for making money is the PRESENT. You can see price and volume in containers (on three levels as channels and Gaussians) in the present and active traders tell you the near future all the time as they build DOM walls that are where price reverses in a few minutes or a bunch of seconds as the wall comes to the BBid/BAsk.