Scalping Index futures

[slacker]

Quote from dandxg:

Both Button( from what I have heard) and Ninja with Zen Fire ( which I use ) are excellent for scalping. X Trader is very good too.

Do you always use market orders to scalp?

Thank you

 

[apex82]

If you think you can use a sim to produce good results for live trading your in for shock. I have done many systems, auto and manual that take that many trades per day and the Real trades didnt even match 1/4 of the profits of the sim. Good luck with that, you will suffer a drawdown, especially if you are trading the ES. Your best chance of matching fills would be with the ER, but it still wont even be close to the results of a sim.

 

[dandxg]

Quote from slacker:

Do you always use market orders to scalp?

Thank you

Hell no! Never scalp with a market order you will get creamed in slippage. Use a stop limit or a limit on pullback. I prefer limit on pullback in schizo markets like YM and ER2. Sometimes I miss my trade, but sometimes put a SL 1 tick above your entry gets you caught with a fakeout. It isn't a perfect science. Market orders are only exceptable for swing and position trading, nothing else IMO. One exception would be a breakout trade, but that's not my bag. ER2 can slip you bad on market and take your scalp profits away damn quick.

Put it this way, my def of scalping is 3-5 ticks, market orders can take away 2 right there atleast 1 tick gone.

 

[dandxg]

Quote from 5Pillars:

I can manually trade scalps plays with NinjaTrader very easily as the platform is great for that type of trading (Zen-fire feed is very fast for order execution)....but the ultimate is to automate your method if possible and trade with XTrader.


btw, scalping in the direction of the heavy "delta" is preferred!

Would you mind explaing delta for an ignorant greek, please?

I know the greeks rule options, but I don't trade options?

What delta would I look for?

Thank you much.

Dan

 

[mishwar]

Posting here instead of P/L thread as suggested by a member ...
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Can you please help me? The past 32 sessions been testing a combined strategy in scalping with real money Indian Rs. in Nifty Futures.

Total Turnover --- 1 000 000 000
Gross Profit --- 132,000

Suppose you assume im trading that volume for ES (Emini S N P 500), what net profits do i get in the US ? Again, the reason is that I am soon planning to trade in the US or UK. This will help me a lot.

Note that I do scalping average time approx 2-1/2 minutes
(30 secs to 8 mins)

Positive comments appreciated. Negatives factored in. So go ahead. Please help

Thanks
mishwar

 

[5Pillars]

Quote from dandxg:

Would you mind explaing delta for an ignorant greek, please?

I know the greeks rule options, but I don't trade options?

What delta would I look for?

Thank you much.

Dan

Yes.....scalp LONG if the market delta is heavy net positive or SHORT if the delta is heavy negative. If a trader is going to scalp a congestion area and the delta is very negative for the day, then you would only take the SHORT scalps from the top of the congestion range. The market only trends about 20% of the time, so there are unlimited amounts of good opportunities to scalp in the direction of strong delta's.

In trending price movements, you can scalp in the direction of the trend (and delta) on pullbacks within the trend. You would buy/scalp support zones in up trends with the delta in your favor and do just the opposite at resistance zones for down trends.

If you learn market delta and where price levels will be defended, then you can pick areas all day long that you will be supported in your trades by the volume of much bigger trading groups. I would never take a scalp trade unless it was in the direction of heavy delta to my favor (now you will have to do some work and see what heavy delta is.....3500 contracts, 5000, 7500???).


btw, HEAVY delta varies by product traded....my possible examples above were for ES trading. Also, I use my own tape reading tool to track delta all day long realtime....but you can use www.marketdelta.com if you do not want to build your own.

 

[javs5150]

Quote from wonderworld:

I think he is talking about 'renting a seat' on the CME. Cost is $1,500 every three months or $500.00 a month. Have to pay 3 months at a time. Then you get the .88 cent Round Trip. no broker. You trade directly throught the CME. I think. Not sure.

Thank you for the response but I thought he said he traded prop. I may have misread.

 

[javs5150]

Quote from eusdaiki:

I dont consider myself a scalper just yet... but Im trying to become one.
I´ve been using charts, one minute, but I look at them less and less every day... today I only open them for about an hour...

Im using swift´s platform. I trade prop.

I do have a level two but Im more inclined to using time and sales, reading the tape... lvl 2 has too much bs.

As for commisions, they are a problem. But im only paying $0.14 excecution per trade, no matter how many contracts/shares. I also have very cheap clearing, since there´s no SEC fees on CME then I only worry about gateway fees. With this cost structure I can scalp for very few ticks and still come out possitive at the end of the day.

He did say he traded prop.

 

[Trader273]

Quote from wonderworld:

What is DMA? Daily moving average? I never heard it called DMA.

The only thing i know thats called a DMA, is a Displaced Moving Average. If thats what he is using I'm not sure.

 

[wonderworld]

Quote from javs5150:

He did say he traded prop.

Ok, my fault. I overlooked that part. If he is reading this, then he should answer us.