Is Scalping possible?

Quote from nononsense:

What a load of crap in this thread.
Dreaming of scalping in allegedly black box saturated markets with watchemecall "pro" traders mingling with "retail" traders trying size with money management voodo.

There ain't such a thing like scalping, swinging and the like. Only winning and loosing.
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Excellent contribution. Thanks for straightening us bunch out.
 
Futurestrader71,

I wonder how many contracts a new prop. trader can do per trade? I understand there is a lot of variables that you must look in but let's say an average. Thank you.
 
Quote from pctrader:

Futurestrader71,

I wonder how many contracts a new prop. trader can do per trade? I understand there is a lot of variables that you must look in but let's say an average. Thank you.
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Not sure I understand your question. A new prop trader shouldn't trade more than 1 contract at a time. He needs to be profitable and consistent with that contract before anything else is considered. Based on his average daily profit with this contract and his other stats, you can figure out when he is ready to go to 2 contracts. 2 contracts are actually easier to trade because they provide additional opportunities and options in any given trade. You can really let profits run with 2 contracts because you can scale out of 1 and have a free trade and just let it go. With 1 contract, you are either in or out. The speed at which more contracts are allowed depends strictly on the trader's performance, product volatility and his daily loss limit. Almost all traders at big prop firms are pushing into trading bigger too soon and end up digging a nice hole for themselves. Most don't make it out before they quit or get fired.

I hope that answers your question.
 
scalping exists and is not a joke. I scalp automatically and I have seen others scalping manual( One with 200 000 Bund RTs a month).

With usual conditions you should forget !
IB + regular Exchange fees + worst: Spreads you pay when you are doing marketorders. Nobody is able to survive such a cost structure with scalping.

What concerns the order book topic :

I guess my computer sends and cancels 10 orders and only one out of ten will be filled.

Index Arbitrage guys will always have many orders placed far away from the current price. If the price is coming nearer they usually cancel it.


regards



regards
 
Last december I bought 10 puts on the schatz and then placed orders to buy one futures at the strike price and then at every half point interval to cover the full five point range. Every time I got a fill I would put an order to sell at a full point above were I bought. What I found would happen is I would see on the chart that a trade had taken place a half point below my order and I didn't get get filled. When trying to scalp this is a huge problem. What was happening is that large traders were making big deals over the phone and then reporting them to the exchange and using the exchange for clearing. This makes a lot of the data phoney. Anyways I ended up making a whole bunch of trades and losing about 30 euros.
Trying to scalp the schatz is tough. The half ticks don't help much ethier.
 
Scalping at the retail level only made sense during the short period of the late 90’s when the Nasdaq’s level II was so incredibly inefficient that teenagers were making millions. Today it’s 2005 and those days are way gone.

Unless you can find a new market inefficiency to exploit before anyone else, as a retail trader, you are left to bet on the future direction of price.
 
It is my belief that you can make money in "efficient markets" or if you will in todays market. In fact I have done it myself. You do not even need an "edge". You can even do it with a retail account. One of the keys is to have a positive attitude. It would be very hard to make money if you woke up every day and said "this sucks I really wish it was 1999". The other thing is do not look for breakouts. All these pouters come on here and say "are there any markets that trend" and "my brokers told the market makers where my stops are so they can gun it". Most importantly do not use stops if you would like to keep you money(Buying cheap option is infinitely better).

Try this; tomorrow afternoon at buy either a 1205 put or call on ES depending on which one is out of the money. Buy the option at around 4pm. If you buy the put place an order to buy the future at say 1204.50. Use a bracket order so when you get a fill your sell order at 1206.75. The software may force you to enter a stop so make it 1100 so you know it won't get hit unless four horsemen come riding over the hill. Now go to sleep. Say you sleep 12 hours and wake up at 5am. Congratulations you a bit more than $100 richer. Now place an order to sell your option. Go have a long breakfast and come back at 9:30 am to see you got a fill.
Sure beats whining about what year it is, doesn't it.
 
its posible if you trade listed stocks and learn to read those specialists...

in the futures markets today its harder cause its 22 hour markets, there's a lot of "profit taking' almost 0 opening-closing gaps and more pros comming to the field..
and 75% is doing in the screen, and thats means "a lot of flippers"

i think you may need to adapt you'r pivots, instead opening-close, you shlould using hourly pivots..
4 example, do you pivots hourly and learn the ACDs..

pay attention to the hourly charts (some markets still under the floor mafia,so try to adapt you're style)..

4 example, the US dollar indez is a pure open ouctcry Euro/gold play, if you learn to read this floor, then you'll may get a edge in the EU/USD game.
 
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