How do you like trading this volatility?

[easymon1]

 

[Laissez Faire]

I prefer years like 2017, because that was the year I switched from CL to studying equity behavior which turned me into a perma-bull. (No more messy trying to short and long the oil each day.) And that mind-set got ingrained in my mind so deeply, I developed a BHR strategy. I failed that plan in 2018 and 2020 by panic-selling at the bottoms.

This one though, for 2022, is a real kick-in-the-teeth because while I could handle the Fed, this Ukraine black-swan is a totally new twist I never witnessed before.

Were you day trading CL?

Funny you should mention CL as I've been thinking about that contract/market lately. I believe around 2010 it seemed very popular to day trade on these boards and even more so than equity indices, but for the last few years I haven't seen much talk of it.

There was a period when at least ES was a very poor trading instrument due to low volatility, so I imagine that's when people gravitated towards other more volatile instruments such as CL, NG, etc.

In terms of volatility and also thanks to these high nominal index values it's been a long time since the indices (including ES) have had too low volatility to make it viable for day trading.

 

[Laissez Faire]

It's been great, but you "obviously" need to cut your size when prices are bouncing around like a ping pong ball!

Obviously.

May I ask what you trade?

If you normally risk 5 to gain 10, but now have to risk 10 to gain 20, but as a result your size is cut in half, the monetary gain is the same. Of course, with higher volatility you have more opportunities within a day, though.

The "ping pong ball" nature of price movements makes it more difficult to trade, IMO, unless you have a method which exploits that price behaviour, i.e., more of a scalping approach. Personally, I prefer to trade cleaner trends, so I might be in the wrong instrument to begin with as index futures can be quite noisy and range bound much of the time.

 

[Laissez Faire]

- the charts and trading platforms will freeze making trading impossible

I've seen you mention this multiple times. Do you have a very complex workspace with a ton of charts running at the same time...?

I've had some issues with NT8, but it's quite possible it's related to some custom indicators I use and an unstable internet connection, but I can say that 90/95 % of the time my charts are running smoothly without any lag and that's during high volatility, too.

medium volatility - good

low volatility - no good
- you can hardly earn $$$ from it

Agreed. I prefer medium volatility. It's more predictable, relaxing and cleaner action. I want my trading to be predictable and profitable. Not too exciting.

But it seems obvious that many of the posters in this thread thrive and perform well in high volatility regimes.

 

[nooby_mcnoob]

So fricking easy to make money.

 

[Laissez Faire]

So fricking easy to make money.

Nice.

Do you trade strictly NQ futures?

 

[KCalhoun]

So fricking easy to make money.

Easiest money in months

 

[nooby_mcnoob]

Nice.

Do you trade strictly NQ futures?

ES, CL mainly recently.

NQ, RTY when market gets back to normal.

 

[nooby_mcnoob]

In case anyone cares, month to date stats so far. Should've, could've made more money but whatever.

 

[Laissez Faire]

ES, CL mainly recently.

NQ, RTY when market gets back to normal.

Why no longer NQ? Too volatile or thin market at the moment? I imagine there's got to be some slippage on NQ if you're moving any size to speak of.