I have been trying to, in my own way. The first bit was suggesting you not try to scalp the ES for 1-2 ticks. But you will try to continue doing what ye be doing. We spoke of this in PM. Others in this thread thought it was a bad idea also, and as you have said, capital inflow is not a problem for you. So then, the world is your oyster! Keep on going and scalp those 1-2 ticks in the ES! Shit, I am really going to feel for you when the volume picks up in a couple months man! Yer in for a world of hurt! But you should know this! You've been trading for 15 years! *augh* As you will.
When did I say capital flow would not be a problem? I believe I said that when evaluating the profitability of an a trading system that my condition was not relevant. I would need to fund your system with more dollars thus binding it up...vs. trading day margins in which I can make more per 1K. Overnight there are many points that you make that I just do not agree with..I struggle to find any. Have a nice evening and I hope your Long ES trade goes well and Trump does not get fired ending this inevitable bull... ES
I traded the ES through an algorithm that generated signals for Japanese investors maybe 15 years ago...I can't really remember. But I did not trade the DOM then and I have never tried to trade until this thread. ES
What you are seeing on the DOM is the difference between big and smart money. Big money has the margin to put/pull standing limit orders which is offering liquidity to the market. They are passive and their standing limit orders face market orders. The market orders they face are either stops being hit or smart money positioning itself. What is smart money? Well, one useful definition is that whatever is occurring NOW in the market, smart money has already positioned itself and is currently harvesting profits in the NOW. Using that concept, then the notion of what’s happening now can be preceded by what came before just as it can be succeeded by what comes after. Considering all three taken together offers a continuity of context. Big money is not smart money. Smart money’s activity on the DOM is not seen like standing limits are yet can be observed at the bBid/BAsk. Starting with the ten cases of price, draw them, until you can do it from memory. Organize them like to like. What did you discover?
Until he has some good feel and consistency in SIM, why should he go live ? There are simulated environments around these days that calculate your virtual estimated position in queue, so you get simulated fills VERY close to where you would have been filled in live trading. So the fill thing is not a really a factor anymore. Then you could argue about the emotions of trading live. Well, I think for a scalper in the ES or NQ, who goes for daily profit targets of 50 to 100 US$ per contract, with similar daily loss limits, the emotions when starting with 1 contract live will not go too wild, exactly because of the limited exposure this style of trading comes with. So the emotional and psychological pressure coming from SIM to start trading 1 contract should not be very hard for the average guy. So it the simulated fills do not differ significantly from the live fills, and the emotions when starting to trade small with this style are also not an issue, why should he then jump into live trading if he feels the consistency is not there yet. Sure he will probably not lose a big amount, but why should he want to lose anything at all if he knows that he is not there yet where he wants to be ? And a world of hurt when volume picks up again ? There seems to be a great misconception on this forum and the internet in general how very shortterm manual traders (DOM scalpers...) operate. But the way I do it and the way the few others I have seen that trade this way is a very adaptive and flexible one. We are no rigid algos, programmed on a handful of factors, to do A when B shows up. We are a bunch of people that were willing to put alot of work into something, into interacting with the market(s), just because it felt fun to us and we love to do it. By doing so, by all the screen time in front of that boring DOM, treating it like a Super Mario video game, we developed certain skills, just like a player that gets better and better in his game. There are no rigid rules, but alot of experience and a certain feel for the market on the very short term. This experience also tells you when to go in with 5, 10 or 50 contracts. It also tells you if it makes sense to actually scalp for 1 tick. Or to go for larger targets, in a volatile environment. It is clear that a good trader will not stick to a 1 tick scalping target in a market environment like we had in February this year. In fact, in my thread right when the VIX explosion began, I commented on the much larger moves and intraday swings and that you guys should adapt to this and really make hay while the sun is shining https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/love-this-vix-rocket.317890/ So I really dont understand how you come to the conclusion that a scalper will get hurt once volume and/or volatility picks up. It is quite the opposite... we thrive on this ! Look at the futures prop firms in London: the good traders there have average days in average markets, they make some money, they take what they can, but it is nothing spectacular most of the time. Then suddenly there comes a surprising event, a rate hike, a VIX shock or whatever... volumes goes way up, volatility explodes, and most of these traders have their best days and really pile on the profits. You guys should really start to understand that a good, experienced, manual scalper is exactly the opposite of a rigid, unflexible algorithm or trading system. He is a flexible trader who is paying attention to the now and here, and who trys to take whatever the market is offering on any given day.
Exactly correct. Hit the market button with a 2 tick profit and 4 tick trailing stop loss, which converts to a 1-3 the second it moves correctly, and climb on board a fast mover. In and out, sometimes in less than a second. Just stay off the last tick and all other ticks win. Right?
Well I might put on a trade like this, but I might also put on exactly the opposite trade. Sometimes I fade the low, sometimes I might also short the low of the day, expecting a strong breakout, it does not come, so I go out with for example 2 ticks win, or scratch, or get out for example for a 4 tick loss. If it would always be the same, always just put in a bracket with a 2 tick target and a 4 tick SL, then I would really program a simple automated system and let it trade for me and just spend my day at the beach. But it is not that simple, there are so many nuances and interconnected factors involved, that it makes sometimes 1+1 equal 2 and sometimes equal 3 Be flexible, be adaptive, trade what you see happening right now, in front of you. If it is a hod or lod it is something that is the consequence of the market movement in maybe the past 3 hours. It might be ONE factor, but there are others, probably more important ones. You have to WATCH what is happening right now, how it is reacting, interacting, right now. Not what happend 2 hours ago, or where it came from the past 40 minutes. But I agree with you on the speed, the duration of a trade: the best are really done after a few seconds. The longer you sit in a trade that is not moving your way, the more you should ask yourself: why I am still in this thing, and would it not be better to get out now.
The points you make are someone speaking from experience trading the DOM. Any suggestion to go live prior to understanding is counter-productive, premature and will invite trauma. @ElectricSavant , since you’ve been at this a long time might I suggest another avenue that will assist and support you. Simultaneously as you gain familiarity with different toolset’s, another journey lies awaiting. This is one that is focused more on gaining and developing emotional intelligence. You can discover the truth of this for yourself and a great place to start is how do you feel in your body? There is a concept that one can test for themselves and that is that emotions are stored in the body. The body is similar to a tape recorder and has recorded all of the significant emotional experiences you have lived through - good and bad. Given we live in a pain-oriented culture steeped in a Protestant work ethnic - “no gain without pain”, there’s more bad than good that the body is holding on to. Emotions want to be experienced, we as humans want to experience better feeling emotions. Ironically people are attracted to the financial markets for those feelings yet fail to realize them. Instead, their experience is filled with doubt, frustration, fear and anxiety. Many will do whatever they can to NOT experience those unpleasant feelings which are simply experiences of contrast. Experiences of contrast are supportive in that they make clear knowing more of what we want and knowing more of what we do not want. Ed Seykota bridges this with his “Trading Tribe”. Since you’ve expressed a desire for a clean slate, then at some point one must address the stored trauma in one’s body. There are a number of effective holistic healing paradigms for this, Rolfing was my access point. The field has expanded greatly and is known more widely as myofascial-release therapies. Allowing oneself to receive a simple therapeutic massage can be a stepping stone in this domain. The field keeps expanding with my own personal work leading me through an exploration of many body-centered therapies. My current curiosity is in edmr. There’s a lot to explore and in a heavily weighted analytical environment such as trading, being in one’s body is one of the more difficult stumbling blocks to turn into stepping stones. PTSD is a real thing and poor trading can deliver it in spades.