Quote from jas_in_hbca:
I believe I got off plan with stop placement. Some set ups were not the cleanest so I fudged on the stops to being too tight.
Intraday scalping is very difficult because of the focus involved. Small errors with entry levels and stop placement can make all the difference between profit and loss.
Iâll share my experience as applied to these trades, not in an attempt to change your trading plan, rather to explain how I avoid trouble by using the 5-min chart as my main framework, with the 1-min chart for the entries, and having certain rules around these.
Trade 1: On the 1-min chart alone, this looks like a nice little hook long setup, but on a 5-min chart price pulled back to the falling 20EMA (down trend) following a strong push down, then broke the low of the bar whose high touched the EMA. This PA in and of itself is a signal for me to only consider short trades (sadly my offer never filled and I missed the whole thing). Even if price hadnât broken a 5-min bar downside at that point, with less than 10 ticks of airspace back to that 20EMA, even a counter-trend scalp is out of the question for me.
Trade 2: This is a case of mixed signal PA (chop) as indicated by the 5-min price bars again. At the time you shorted, the high of the 7:35 5-min bar broke upside. Even though the break was very weak, the fact that a 5-min bar broke both directions during the 7:40 bar creates an outside bar, which is a "no-trade" filter according to my Chop Protection Plan (see the thread, Help Iâve Been Chopped).
Trade 3: Well, at this point itâs a coin toss, with a very slight upward bias due to support at slightly higher lows in the consolidation. Your stop placement was too tight, too close to an inside bar on the 5-min chart. Really, the bigger issue was that the trend was still down and no side was willing to tip its hand yet.
Trade 4: You bought as the market appeared to tip its hand but really all that happened was price hit the upper channel line of a narrow 1-min channel (connect the lows/highs of the narrow range consolidation). The other problem was your stop placement again. As uncomfortable as it would be, the tightest technically reasonable stop would be below .30, IMHO).
Trade 5: Your 8:15 long front ran me by 2 minutes and 3 ticks, but I wanted to be sure price cleared that pesky upper channel off what looked very much like a Volman tease-and-squeeze play. The whole thing fizzled 3 ticks shy of my profit target, but like you I scalped a bit off it.
Trade 6: I was just exiting the previous long a minute before you shorted here, so my head wasn't engaged in reverse short mode. Decent setup, but the subsequent weak LTL break failed to follow through, which set up a nice bear trap long entry (it's a very nice first entry setup on the 5-mn chart which hit target that time).
Trade 7: Iâd only be looking for shorts here because of the LTL break and now a range below the 5-min 20EMA. Your entry was rather late for a long. Iâd prefer the 1-2-3 early entry off the triple bottom during the 10:02 bar, more airspace to the range high.
Trade 8: Your late entry made stop placement problematic again. Technically feasible stop would be below 94.44. For me, the latest entry Iâd be willing to take for that stop placement wouldâve been the break of the 10:37 bar high. When scalping and using tight stops, precision entries make all the difference in the world. I mess this up a few times every week despite years of experience!
Trade 9: Seems like a very late short entry here. Look back in time and remember the bulls breakout started with that break above 94.45. Previous breakout Resistance often attempts to become support during a pullback and the 5-min 20EMA was just a few ticks higher at that point.
What's helpful for me is to first determine where a technically reasonable stop loss needs to be and make sure I can get an entry price that then fits my R:R parameters. It only takes a moment of losing focus and chasing price to mess this up!
Have a great long weekend!