I had to put up with lies, then even more damned lies, and now statistics? *Sigh*
Techniques for Day Trading the ES, NQ, YM, MES, MNQ, and MYM
- Thread starter volpri
- Start date
Here are some things to consider on that last entry of 6 contracts on 9-13-2024 as to why I am willing to double up and average down. I am showing volume at the bottom. And volume by price overlay.
I am not opposed in anyway to using volume. MY handle on ET expresses that "volpri" aka as volume/price. It is that on scalping 1 to 8 points I find I don't need to see volume. And I like to trade PA with a clean chart. That is all. You can compare this chart with the other static chart showing these trades exact entries and exits. I rolled over the contract today and my actual entry prices are gone from the chart. Or you can look at the last video in your comparison. Hope this explains things and elucidates the concepts in blue type.
I am not opposed in anyway to using volume. MY handle on ET expresses that "volpri" aka as volume/price. It is that on scalping 1 to 8 points I find I don't need to see volume. And I like to trade PA with a clean chart. That is all. You can compare this chart with the other static chart showing these trades exact entries and exits. I rolled over the contract today and my actual entry prices are gone from the chart. Or you can look at the last video in your comparison. Hope this explains things and elucidates the concepts in blue type.
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Here are some trades I took today. All profitable. Total points earned was 10 points. I was not able to watch the market until close to 1:00 p.m. Chicago time as I had other things to do. Around 1:19 I made my first trade.
First, let's look at the context (first chart). We can see the open. It traded down the up then sideways. Then it had a BO north in the form of a bull channel (blue). That was followed by a sideways move. Again, to reiterate this is the market cycle. This is the larger context. It got close to that prior high that was made shortly after the open. The entire thing could be drawn in a larger TR if using the high of the day right after the open and the top of the sideways rectangle. That TR that is drawn in in the form of a rectangle can be seen as a NESTED TR within a larger TR. Anyway around 1:19 I took my first trade in that nested TR. At that point the nested TR had at least 20 (had over 30 bars) bars in it so I call it a TR not a PB. At that point I can use TR techniques. ON THAT TF. (time frame)
First Trade: This was a long trade.1c@5693.25 (green) Exit 5695.25 (orange) for 2 points profit.
Second trade: A short 1c in top 1/4 of the nested TR 5696.75 (red) Covered @5695.75 (blue) for 1pt profit.
Third trade: Long 1c 5692.50 (green) in bottom 1/4 of nested TR. Exit 5694.50 (orange) in middle of TR. Profit 2 pts.
Fourth trade: Long 1c @5693.25 (green) Exit 5694.00 (orange). I didn't get but 3/4 of a point on this trade. Sometimes that happens.
Fifth trade: I shorted 1c @5693.75. in bottom 1/3 of the nested TR. I then averaged down or scaled in 2 contracts @5696.25. Why? Getting too close to the close of RTHs (regular trading hours). I don't like trading last hour so I scaled in to bring my exit to where I could make money on second entry of two contracts and BE or make a little on my initial entry. I exited my initial entry @5693.50 (blue) for 1/4 pt profit and my second 2nd entry of 2Cs @5694.25 (blue)for 2pts profit on each of those contracts. I didn't make much on my initial entry but it was better than BE. Averaging down basically makes probability bigger that I can get out with a profit. I know that sounds backwards and contrary to conventional trading wisdom but it does indeed do so.
CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHY?
Summary: 10 points over the span of about 1.5 hours. That is $500.00. Not bad pay for an hour and half of work. No sweat in hot sun digging ditches. Trading small size in the ES. Not going for big swings. Taking what the market gives me. Happy to get a slice of the pie. Offers many TR opportunities in the day session thus affording me FOT (frequency of trades) which is a concept important for a scalper. I am grabbing money as the market gives it to me not waiting for 2 or 3 hours to grab some points. I maintain a high win rate; an important concept for a scalper. This make several days I have shown trades even recording some of them as the action was happening and some screen shots. There will come a losing day but by maintaining a high win rate over time I am still ahead.
Most of the session the market is in a channel or TR on any particular TF. About 10% of the time we get BOs and maybe half of that time strong BOs. So, IMO it behooves a scalper to not ignore TRs. Don't refer to them as noise but instead as FOT opportunities. I trade BOs (strong and weak), channels (broad and narrow), and TRs (broad and narrow) and I use techniques for each of them. However, I know I will likely see more channels and sideways moves during the session. WATCH THAT MARKET CYCLE!
I am showing two 1m charts below of the same trades. I show the first chart it shows the market cycle and nested TR within a larger TR (larger not drawn in). The second chart shows my trades close up.
When trading BOs that (10%) one's initial risk is going to be larger and probability higher but reward has to be smaller. Most of the time. That too breaks with conventional thinking. R:R is not so great on BOs? ANYBODY KNOW WHY?
Understand I detail out the trades..colors..and concept abbreviations for the benefit of new traders that don't yet understand my entries and exits and terminology. That way they can better understand how I trade. Not advising anyone to trade this way. We each have to find our own way we are comfortable with and can also experience trading as fun and a challenge. Otherwise over the long haul we won't be able to succeed.
Maybe tomorrow I can record a video of the trades I take tomorrow.
First, let's look at the context (first chart). We can see the open. It traded down the up then sideways. Then it had a BO north in the form of a bull channel (blue). That was followed by a sideways move. Again, to reiterate this is the market cycle. This is the larger context. It got close to that prior high that was made shortly after the open. The entire thing could be drawn in a larger TR if using the high of the day right after the open and the top of the sideways rectangle. That TR that is drawn in in the form of a rectangle can be seen as a NESTED TR within a larger TR. Anyway around 1:19 I took my first trade in that nested TR. At that point the nested TR had at least 20 (had over 30 bars) bars in it so I call it a TR not a PB. At that point I can use TR techniques. ON THAT TF. (time frame)
First Trade: This was a long trade.1c@5693.25 (green) Exit 5695.25 (orange) for 2 points profit.
Second trade: A short 1c in top 1/4 of the nested TR 5696.75 (red) Covered @5695.75 (blue) for 1pt profit.
Third trade: Long 1c 5692.50 (green) in bottom 1/4 of nested TR. Exit 5694.50 (orange) in middle of TR. Profit 2 pts.
Fourth trade: Long 1c @5693.25 (green) Exit 5694.00 (orange). I didn't get but 3/4 of a point on this trade. Sometimes that happens.
Fifth trade: I shorted 1c @5693.75. in bottom 1/3 of the nested TR. I then averaged down or scaled in 2 contracts @5696.25. Why? Getting too close to the close of RTHs (regular trading hours). I don't like trading last hour so I scaled in to bring my exit to where I could make money on second entry of two contracts and BE or make a little on my initial entry. I exited my initial entry @5693.50 (blue) for 1/4 pt profit and my second 2nd entry of 2Cs @5694.25 (blue)for 2pts profit on each of those contracts. I didn't make much on my initial entry but it was better than BE. Averaging down basically makes probability bigger that I can get out with a profit. I know that sounds backwards and contrary to conventional trading wisdom but it does indeed do so.
CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHY?
Summary: 10 points over the span of about 1.5 hours. That is $500.00. Not bad pay for an hour and half of work. No sweat in hot sun digging ditches. Trading small size in the ES. Not going for big swings. Taking what the market gives me. Happy to get a slice of the pie. Offers many TR opportunities in the day session thus affording me FOT (frequency of trades) which is a concept important for a scalper. I am grabbing money as the market gives it to me not waiting for 2 or 3 hours to grab some points. I maintain a high win rate; an important concept for a scalper. This make several days I have shown trades even recording some of them as the action was happening and some screen shots. There will come a losing day but by maintaining a high win rate over time I am still ahead.
Most of the session the market is in a channel or TR on any particular TF. About 10% of the time we get BOs and maybe half of that time strong BOs. So, IMO it behooves a scalper to not ignore TRs. Don't refer to them as noise but instead as FOT opportunities. I trade BOs (strong and weak), channels (broad and narrow), and TRs (broad and narrow) and I use techniques for each of them. However, I know I will likely see more channels and sideways moves during the session. WATCH THAT MARKET CYCLE!
I am showing two 1m charts below of the same trades. I show the first chart it shows the market cycle and nested TR within a larger TR (larger not drawn in). The second chart shows my trades close up.
When trading BOs that (10%) one's initial risk is going to be larger and probability higher but reward has to be smaller. Most of the time. That too breaks with conventional thinking. R:R is not so great on BOs? ANYBODY KNOW WHY?
Understand I detail out the trades..colors..and concept abbreviations for the benefit of new traders that don't yet understand my entries and exits and terminology. That way they can better understand how I trade. Not advising anyone to trade this way. We each have to find our own way we are comfortable with and can also experience trading as fun and a challenge. Otherwise over the long haul we won't be able to succeed.
Maybe tomorrow I can record a video of the trades I take tomorrow.
When do I decide I was wrong? Basically, when I see that I am on the wrong side of the market. That is, when my premise has been proven to be wrong. In the case of TRs that is when the market trades in such a way against my position of fading the tops or bottoms and doing so in a strong enough way that successful BO happens. At that point I decide I am wrong on fading. I have discussed already in my journal the definition of a successful BO. I will usually exit with a loss and double up in the right direction. On the video a few posts back (post #2012) where I averaged down twice after my initial entry, and on that last averaged down entry, I shorted 6 contracts giving me a total of 9 contracts. If the ensuing price action had been a successful BO I would dump my 9Cs short and go long 18 contracts getting my loss back quickly and perhaps making some. Do I ever get whipsawed doing this? Occasionally, but much of the time the technique works. I may have to do it 2 times or even 3 times to get back my loss on the 9cs. But usually in a couple of trades and often just one trade I have recovered the loss and very often make a profit. I know I sure don't want to struggle the rest of the session trying to get back the 9c loss to end up on a BE day.
I use wide initial SLs but rarely will them actually get hit. I will usually just exit before then. They are mostly there in case something happens to internet...brokerage..or sudden plunge or huge rally.
At the moment I am not open to private discussion. Maybe at a later date.
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I took some trades today, but the original recording is too long. Over 45 minutes. So, I am going to replay the trades sped up and try to make relevant commentaries and show the patterns I drew on the chart. The actual trades will be exactly as shown on the original recording, but I will have to make the commentaries and drawings all over as best I can remember them.
I will do this later on this evening as I have to do something else right now.
I will do this later on this evening as I have to do something else right now.
Here are the trades taken today. The important things to learn here are:
1 When I am wrong, I need to get out, but I also try to recover any paper loss by increasing my position size on my losing trade. That breaks with conventional wisdom. I do as I did in the second trade I tripled up and just a few bars later recovered my loss from my initial entry even though I held the initial entry. I was holding for BE on it but it never got there.
2) When I see successful BOs of the channel, the larger TR, and the nested TR then those are no longer relevant, so I remove them from my chart to keep my chart clean. I do not want to be looking at a lot of stuff to make a decision. I like binary decisions. Long or short. Yes or no. In the market flow or not. I don't want a lot of indicators muddling up my decision making. I only use 1 indicator a 20 period EMA just to clarify market flow and direction and strenght of the direction.
3) To print money again I then adjust to the market direction and flow, and I trade larger size as in those last 2 trades of 4 contracts short respectively. By doing this I increased my profit so as to close out the day +18.75 points.
4) Grab what the market gives me. I did not on the initial entry of that second trade and I ended up losing even more on that entry when I could have had a smaller loss.
I count this overall as 4 trades because the averaged down trade I count as one trade even though the initial entry was a loss.
18.75 points in the ES translates to $937.50 in around 1 hour fifteen min.
Excuse the weakness of my voice. My throat is not doing the best.
1 When I am wrong, I need to get out, but I also try to recover any paper loss by increasing my position size on my losing trade. That breaks with conventional wisdom. I do as I did in the second trade I tripled up and just a few bars later recovered my loss from my initial entry even though I held the initial entry. I was holding for BE on it but it never got there.
2) When I see successful BOs of the channel, the larger TR, and the nested TR then those are no longer relevant, so I remove them from my chart to keep my chart clean. I do not want to be looking at a lot of stuff to make a decision. I like binary decisions. Long or short. Yes or no. In the market flow or not. I don't want a lot of indicators muddling up my decision making. I only use 1 indicator a 20 period EMA just to clarify market flow and direction and strenght of the direction.
3) To print money again I then adjust to the market direction and flow, and I trade larger size as in those last 2 trades of 4 contracts short respectively. By doing this I increased my profit so as to close out the day +18.75 points.
4) Grab what the market gives me. I did not on the initial entry of that second trade and I ended up losing even more on that entry when I could have had a smaller loss.
I count this overall as 4 trades because the averaged down trade I count as one trade even though the initial entry was a loss.
18.75 points in the ES translates to $937.50 in around 1 hour fifteen min.
Excuse the weakness of my voice. My throat is not doing the best.
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Here are some trades I took this morning in ES. I am done for the day. I listed each trade as a separate video trying to keep them shorter. I took 5 trades. On one trade I averaged down. First video link is trade#1 ...second link trade#2 and so on.....The sixth link (red) is a clarification of trades 2-5.
https://youtu.be/b9V7SYaxN6M
https://youtu.be/b9V7SYaxN6M
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Ok I have shown several days of trades. Today's trades grabbed 24.7 points in the ES or $1212.50 over a period of less than 3 hours. And today I was also active trading another account, so I certainly didn't take all the trades in this account that I posted the videos above. Several other trades popped up during today's trading time period. I was busy and didn't take them.
Some trades over these last several days were in the ES and some in the MES. Some on 5m charts and some on 1m charts. Some were shown in the form of screen shots and some in the form of recordings of the screen as the trades took place or shortly thereafter. I think the series of posts started back on my post #1952 August 20th, 2024, if you want to review them. So, several days of posts. All winning days although some individual trades may have been a loss.
Forgive my struggle with recording and my terminology. I am still learning how to record. I think I might type annotations with more clarity than I record live PA and the trades I take, but it is a lot more work to do so. I will be 70 on my birthday so I am sort of stuck on using the word "video" as opposed to saying a live screen recording. LOL At times my voice is weak as I am not in the best of health. My southern accent I can't help as I have used it too long! LOL.
Every day was a profitable day I think, if I recall correctly. I actually only had 1 loss over the course of those days, but I may be wrong on that. So, it could have been more I just don't remember. My point is that a scalper of 1 to 8 points such as myself does not need a lot of movement to make profits.
Grab what the market gives, entering back in if need be. But I lock in those profits. Thus, I maintain a high win rate.
I also showed a couple of tricks as to how I do in fact, get a loss back and start printing $$$ again without waiting for 2 or 3 hours in the session but instead getting the loss back in minutes. Psychologically, this is an important step as it frees up the mind for the next trade and pushes the trade that resulted in a loss to the background in the darkest and deepest recesses of the corridors of the mind. So, I can function without undue stress or anxiety. We are humans, not machine that have no emotions.
I also showed the dangers of scalping in the last hour of the day's session especially if I am looking at possibly having to average down.
I am going to stop posting for a few days as I have other things to do and a trip to go on and won't be back until around OCT 17th. However, if I do manage to get a few days of quick trades I may post some more videos. I trade from a laptop hence the laptop will be with me. Going to watch my granddaughter graduate from basic training in the military. So...we will see if I have time for trading. It is a long way in the motorhome to make it to the base. Then after that I have another event to go to in another state.
Hope this is informative and hope you enjoyed looking at how I trade. Again, just to reiterate I am not advising anyone to trade this way. It did take me a long time and much practice to learn how to trade in such a way that suits my personality.
Some trades over these last several days were in the ES and some in the MES. Some on 5m charts and some on 1m charts. Some were shown in the form of screen shots and some in the form of recordings of the screen as the trades took place or shortly thereafter. I think the series of posts started back on my post #1952 August 20th, 2024, if you want to review them. So, several days of posts. All winning days although some individual trades may have been a loss.
Forgive my struggle with recording and my terminology. I am still learning how to record. I think I might type annotations with more clarity than I record live PA and the trades I take, but it is a lot more work to do so. I will be 70 on my birthday so I am sort of stuck on using the word "video" as opposed to saying a live screen recording. LOL At times my voice is weak as I am not in the best of health. My southern accent I can't help as I have used it too long! LOL.
Every day was a profitable day I think, if I recall correctly. I actually only had 1 loss over the course of those days, but I may be wrong on that. So, it could have been more I just don't remember. My point is that a scalper of 1 to 8 points such as myself does not need a lot of movement to make profits.
Grab what the market gives, entering back in if need be. But I lock in those profits. Thus, I maintain a high win rate.
I also showed a couple of tricks as to how I do in fact, get a loss back and start printing $$$ again without waiting for 2 or 3 hours in the session but instead getting the loss back in minutes. Psychologically, this is an important step as it frees up the mind for the next trade and pushes the trade that resulted in a loss to the background in the darkest and deepest recesses of the corridors of the mind. So, I can function without undue stress or anxiety. We are humans, not machine that have no emotions.
I also showed the dangers of scalping in the last hour of the day's session especially if I am looking at possibly having to average down.
I am going to stop posting for a few days as I have other things to do and a trip to go on and won't be back until around OCT 17th. However, if I do manage to get a few days of quick trades I may post some more videos. I trade from a laptop hence the laptop will be with me. Going to watch my granddaughter graduate from basic training in the military. So...we will see if I have time for trading. It is a long way in the motorhome to make it to the base. Then after that I have another event to go to in another state.
Hope this is informative and hope you enjoyed looking at how I trade. Again, just to reiterate I am not advising anyone to trade this way. It did take me a long time and much practice to learn how to trade in such a way that suits my personality.
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