Index futures scalping

Can you say this more plainly please?
Focus more on your exits more. You are missing an essential portion.

In farm terms you don't plant a crop without a, growing, harvest, storage and sale plan.

Based on your responses in this and other posts, it is best you do more work before anyone, including me or MB, give specifics on what to do because you would not understand the details enough to customize it for your situation and avoid the short falls.

NO person should be giving you tools that could contribute to getting crushed. Right now, everyone worth their salts, is thinking "martingale blow up". 5 ES contracts with a neglected exit plan means sub optimal risk management. We are trying to protect you from yourself, even if you insist it is not necessary.

Good competent traders don't suggest things to other knowing they are not ready and are live and using futures.
 
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Focus more on your exits not on your P/L and entry. You are missing an essential portion.

In farm terms you don't plant a crop without a, growing, harvest, storage and sale plan.

Based on your responses in this and other posts, it is best you do more work before anyone, including me or MB, give specifics on what to do because you would not understand the details enough to customize it for your situation and avoid the short falls. NO

I already know my exit on the "P" side. That's why I need backtesting software to play with several variables to find out the best spot to put the "L". I have to put it somewhere unfortunately.
 
Please show on this chart where you buy

Wouldn't it be easier to show where I couldn't have bought? I could have bought anywhere other than a few spots that didn't get a profit in 30 minutes. That says nothing about whether it could have made a profit in 60 or 90 minutes, or even 12 or 24 hours.
 
I already know my exit on the "P" side. That's why I need backtesting software to play with several variables to find out the best spot to put the "L". I have to put it somewhere unfortunately.
Last comment from me. You just bolstered my points. You think 1) you are 1/2 done, 2) P and L are separate exit solutions, 3) are missing more than 1/2 and don't know it. 4) not really in the ball park yet alone in the game, more like in the parking lot getting a game guide.

Not trying to tear you down, but to give honest feedback. Been there, done that several times. Keep on trying and consider looking outside your trading paradigm, 4x times.
 
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Wouldn't it be easier to show where I couldn't have bought? I could have bought anywhere other than a few spots that didn't get a profit in 30 minutes. That says nothing about whether it could have made a profit in 60 or 90 minutes, or even 12 or 24 hours.
First of all, you do realize the bar color is determined after the bar is closed, right?

Second, each of those bars are seconds long as in 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.

Third, as was mentioned already micro-scalping like that is best done by a bot.

Fourth, do you go short?
 
This is the reason I'm searching for a backtesting program as mentioned in https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/index-futures-back-testing.370606/

(Mods, feel free to combine these 2 posts if you want)

Here's my story trading S&P500 Futures since the end of August. I was doing really well, usually holding 2 contracts at a time, but sometimes 3. I would make trades just based on the overall market sentiment (always bear during this time), but not hold anything in advance of major news releases, although I would try to "ride the wave" in the immediate aftermath of a major release (CPI, NFP, etc.). There were some losses, and some times when it would go the opposite way for a few days before turning positive.

Overall, I profited about $29,000 in that time. Until...

This recent "bear market rally" (or so I thought at the time), but then I realized that market sentiment had changed. Now I think we're in a bull market. All the negative things forecasted for the future have been priced in. So I lost -$31,000, wiping out all my gains and then some. I've since made back $5,000 doing short-term trades.

I have come up with a new strategy that I think could fit my situation. I'm going to enter trades based on market sentiment direction, and then place a limit that is just 1 point above/below where I enter. This will profit me $50/contract.

At this point, I'm willing to buy 5 contracts at a time (initial margin = $71500, maintenance = $65000). This gets me $250 profit each time I win. So far I have a 100% success rate, and the worst performance took 12 hours to close for a win.

This may seem like I'm just earning pennies, but the reason it can work for me is that if I can iron out the flaws in the plan, I would be willing to invest more. It is not unreasonable that I could put $500,500 in my account, which would allow me to enter into 35 contracts per trade, which would be $1750 profit per successful trade. With 252 trading days per year, that's $441,000 profit per year.

The obvious flaw is that I have nothing in my strategy to tell me when to sell for a loss. Obviously I will lose eventually. But if I place my stop-loss too close, that will eliminate some trades that otherwise would have been wins if I were willing to hold onto them longer. This is what I planned to use the backtester for.

Thoughts?

Hello farmerjohn1324,

Yes, I agree with you on this.

You have to take the small profits in the ES markets to calm the mental and win alot.

If you try to manual swing trade for big profits, you get the drawdown and work very hard to recover and have to think alot while in drawdown. We need high win rate to feel good day to day. Or be stress trying to swing trade for home runners and letting the winners run thinking.

It feels good to win every day of trading.
 
First of all, you do realize the bar color is determined after the bar is closed, right?

Second, each of those bars are seconds long as in 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.

Third, as was mentioned already micro-scalping like that is best done by a bot.

Fourth, do you go short?

Your questions make me believe you don't even understand what I'm trying to do. Not to mention the fact that a 30-minute chart is irrelevant to me.
 
Last comment from me. You just bolstered my points. You think 1) you are 1/2 done, 2) P and L are separate exit solutions, 3) are missing more than 1/2 and don't know it. 4) not really in the ball park yet alone in the game, more like in the parking lot getting a game guide.

Not trying to tear you down, but to give honest feedback. Been there, done that several times. Keep on trying and consider looking outside your trading paradigm, 4x times.

Thanks for no advice under the guise of being "too advanced" while providing no proof of anything you do. Awesome metaphors though!
 
Hello farmerjohn1324,

Yes, I agree with you on this.

You have to take the small profits in the ES markets to calm the mental and win alot.

If you try to manual swing trade for big profits, you get the drawdown and work very hard to recover and have to think alot while in drawdown. We need high win rate to feel good day to day. Or be stress trying to swing trade for home runners and letting the winners run thinking.

It feels good to win every day of trading.
Sorry, but no, no, no and no.

You need bigger wins and smaller losses, not more wins than losses.
Win rate by itself means nothing (except maybe give you the illusion that you are making money, until you don't!).
Getting a high win rate is very easy (I can give you losing strategies with 97% win rate!).
The best way to make money almost every day, but to lose it all at some point, is to do what farmerjohn is currently doing (but trying to solve).
 
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