Quote from Scientist:
Hey Baruch,
I'm trading Forex futures mainly now intraday, and longer-term plays in forex. The reasons were several;
- I like the implications, liquidity, opportunity, lower risk of a 23.5 hour market.
- I like not having to stay up till 6am in the morning (lol)
- I like the ease of trading these things and the associated profits.
Just to name few. Yes, I still do scalping, it's the most profitable style out there, but requires a lot more homework, concentration, focus, screenwatching etc etc. I've come to the conclusion that you can either double or triple your profits by putting in 10X more work, or make half or a quarter of the profits but doing just 10% of the work. With EUR, that is the case. This morning, I put on a EUR long, went out for shopping and a cappuccino with friends down the strip, came back home, took 50 pips per contract, which is equivalent to exactly 20pts on DAX. Sure, I had quite a few days where I made more on DAX, but certainly not with such ease, and a lot more work (and risk) involved.
Well, you get the idea. Bottom line is that I'm coming to the realization that making $X or X% a year isn't everything. Yeah, it's great to be a high-performance trader, but you can really burn out doing it, too. What's the point in having money if you have no time? I was working 12+ hours a day just to maintain what I was doing, to the detriment of relationships, friends, family, love, you name it. That's not life.
Looking at the rest of my EUR position, which went up +90 pips just then - THAT IS LIFE!
I do some occassional scalping though, I have a pretty effective EUR scalping system (it's almost identical to the one I used on DAX), the same for JPY and GBP at times, and I'll do scalping on the ER2 as well. ES is rather rare, for it's not really suitable for scalping, but I like to use it for conviction plays, and / or longer term / swings, since I can literally do as much size as I like, without slippage.
Indicators? I've thrown them away mid-last year, remember? I might have shown an indicator chart on the DAX thread once, to illustrate something, but I think I've stressed I don't use them. I've never used them on DAX at all. But I may have pivots on my charts, particularly ES.
If you like RSI, keep using it. Don't listen to me or others, this is your game, and you need to do what works for YOU! This is absolutely paramount.
System? Well, I have backtested all my approaches by hand on charts to the very last tick for weeks and months, so I exactly know my entry & exit parameters, criteria and rules, but apart from that, I still only look at naked charts. I occassionally use a fib tool to measure things or draw a line or two (like trendlines, channels), but that's it. And no, I don't actively trade the news. I don't know if (how) I could, so I don't try. If the position looks good, I'll stay in, if not I'll exit before news and enter the reaction at a nice low-risk spot.
Regarding stop: I wasn't referring to CHF, but never mind.
Best,
S
Hi Scientist,
Oh, so you are still scalping? One time scalper - always scalper? Maybe you could give some more details about your scalping system?
As i have said before, scalping can be OK, when the market is in a trading range. You can use Slow Stoch 55,1,1 on a 5 min chart to sell the highs and buy the lows - with a 10 pips stop. This should work well - most of the time. But why not go for the home-hitters by trading more long-term?
RSI? Yes, I keep it. It makes me think more long-term. So it can't be that bad.
Fib tools? Do they really work?
PS. I trade the CHF future, but EUR/USD and GBP/USD as spot forex. Maybe that's the reason for your comments about prices/stops?
