You are making my case for me. Since no one knows where the top is in advance ( I only know as it is happening or slightly after), then trailing stops and letting the whole trade run is what you need to be doing. Everyone is too busy trying to have a breakeven trade at a minimum. That is wrongheaded. It is much much better to have huge winners and absorb smaller losers. Scaling out is newbie at best.
"Scaling out" is inferior behavior
- Thread starter Buy1Sell2
- Start date
You are making my case for me. Since no one knows where the top is in advance ( I only know as it is happening or slightly after), then trailing stops and letting the whole trade run is what you need to be doing. Everyone is too busy trying to have a breakeven trade at a minimum. That is wrongheaded. It is much much better to have huge winners and absorb smaller losers. Scaling out is newbie at best.
<i>"There are reasons all the smartest Big Players...
Are all building algorithmic scalping Bots as fast as they can.
Buy and Hold is sub-optimal in today's decimal, near-zero transaction cost markets."
*
"Have you ever traded 10 positions at the same time, 3 minutes after the open, all manually? Hmmm.... ?"
*
"No. I am a position trader who occasionally puts on a swing trade. I view daytrading and trading at the open as inferior behavior as well."</i>
I can see valid reasons for scaling into and out of complex or compound trade positions as a bonafide money-management strategy.
Likewise, scaling out of emini futures positions for the sake of trading "not to lose" is a mathematical, deleveraging weakness.
In defense of day traders (I 'r one myself) it is superior to swing trading / position trading <b>if said trader is sufficiently skilled</b> to handle that approach.
Most traders here (or anywhere) would "trade" shoes with <b>lescor</b> in a heartbeat. I'm done trading today myself with closed positions of +1pt ER, +3pts ER, +3pts ER and I choked out a stop at par from long 769.10 at the lows before it popped more than +4pts in my favor.
Day trading offers the highest profit potential due to turnover of capital... which is equal parts good and bad. Skilled daytraders can be seven or eight-figure yearly earners with no overnight stress. Unskilled daytraders are the first to go broke, no chance to pass go until skills are developed.
BTW... no computer bot will ever beat a skilled human trader in performance. Those programs are written because said writers of the code simply cannot handle themselves in our arena
All in, all out in the ES & ER :>)
Austin
Are all building algorithmic scalping Bots as fast as they can.
Buy and Hold is sub-optimal in today's decimal, near-zero transaction cost markets."
*
"Have you ever traded 10 positions at the same time, 3 minutes after the open, all manually? Hmmm.... ?"
*
"No. I am a position trader who occasionally puts on a swing trade. I view daytrading and trading at the open as inferior behavior as well."</i>
I can see valid reasons for scaling into and out of complex or compound trade positions as a bonafide money-management strategy.
Likewise, scaling out of emini futures positions for the sake of trading "not to lose" is a mathematical, deleveraging weakness.
In defense of day traders (I 'r one myself) it is superior to swing trading / position trading <b>if said trader is sufficiently skilled</b> to handle that approach.
Most traders here (or anywhere) would "trade" shoes with <b>lescor</b> in a heartbeat. I'm done trading today myself with closed positions of +1pt ER, +3pts ER, +3pts ER and I choked out a stop at par from long 769.10 at the lows before it popped more than +4pts in my favor.
Day trading offers the highest profit potential due to turnover of capital... which is equal parts good and bad. Skilled daytraders can be seven or eight-figure yearly earners with no overnight stress. Unskilled daytraders are the first to go broke, no chance to pass go until skills are developed.
BTW... no computer bot will ever beat a skilled human trader in performance. Those programs are written because said writers of the code simply cannot handle themselves in our arena
All in, all out in the ES & ER :>)
Austin
he sure did draw out our opinion. general consensus is he does not know what he is talking about.
I thought he also said scaling IN is more profitable that scaling out or doing nothing. That's the Turtle Trading method IIRC. Also, scaling in is just another form of cost averaging.
There's always a trader who thinks he is superior to another; in your case, someone can look down in disdain at you "position" traders that sit through swings just to take out a "major" move in one trade. The position trader takes 100 pts out of a weekly move, while this other trader takes out 300 in the same time frame.
He would call you lazy for not locking in gains, then re-entering on pullbacks -- why sit through some obvious drawdawns in your position? Why not also temporarily flip your position to take out some more gains going the other way? Sounds silly doesn't it? Your answer to this is my answer to you.
As someone who absolutely hates sitting down indoors for any reason, the choice to day trade was not one of personal preference for me. I've done the swing trade and position trade thing... in commodities, FX and index options.
The big benefit to day trading for me is structured schedule. No worrying about overnight events. No waking in the morning with very first thought being, "Where is my position now?" No worrying about hedging off risk, or other means of avoiding outsized loss potential.
On the earnings front, today I managed to capture +7pts ER, flubbed an easy +4pts more thru knee-jerking stops and then shorted ER 770.10 = trailed out 766.10 into the recent drop.
Had I made no mistakes, it would be a +15pt session. With one glaring personal error, it is still a +11pt session overall.
There is no way under the sun I myself can make nearly the money in swing or position trading that is possible intraday. So I bite the bullet, spend my time in the chair and hang out here with you guys to pacify my desire to be outside.
<b>DayTrader</b> by fiscal-sense choice; not by preference :eek:
The big benefit to day trading for me is structured schedule. No worrying about overnight events. No waking in the morning with very first thought being, "Where is my position now?" No worrying about hedging off risk, or other means of avoiding outsized loss potential.
On the earnings front, today I managed to capture +7pts ER, flubbed an easy +4pts more thru knee-jerking stops and then shorted ER 770.10 = trailed out 766.10 into the recent drop.
Had I made no mistakes, it would be a +15pt session. With one glaring personal error, it is still a +11pt session overall.
There is no way under the sun I myself can make nearly the money in swing or position trading that is possible intraday. So I bite the bullet, spend my time in the chair and hang out here with you guys to pacify my desire to be outside.
<b>DayTrader</b> by fiscal-sense choice; not by preference :eek:
i never scale out but that's not because i think it is not right, am good at pickin' up tops, especially on exits. still, i reckon sometimes it's the correct thing to do, aka, if the stock u are in is on total fire and u already banked good % gains, but odds are there's still room to go.
as posters said previously there aint no right nor wrong, it's all about personality and style.
as posters said previously there aint no right nor wrong, it's all about personality and style.
Sometimes the choices we must make in life are so hard aren't they?
On the days when ES and ER go nowhere at all... 6.75 hours at "work" here in the chair is much more draining than any brute-force physical labor I've ever done.
Grew up around dairy & grain farms, had my own trucking business when I was young(er). The longest day of physical labor then is not even close to draining as the dead-volatility sessions we've been plauged with for too long now
Grew up around dairy & grain farms, had my own trucking business when I was young(er). The longest day of physical labor then is not even close to draining as the dead-volatility sessions we've been plauged with for too long now