Trading Styles for ES

Quote from Point Man:



To make money in the futures industry, you have to do what the professionnals do. SCALP THE MARKET. To properly scalp a market you need to do your homework. Know your levels and have good support and resistance points. Trade the market. Buy breaks and sell rallies.


Okay. You have to understand, I am an Idiot. Can you tell me a little more here. A couple questions -

Who are the professionals? What is a scalp trade for them?

You are saying that if there is a resistance level at 1000 and price breaks this, then take a long position.

I do not understand the concept of sell a rally? Are you saying, if price moves up quickly and unusually (rally) that it will normally correct and this is the setup and you would take a short position.

Also, do you stay long or short until support or resistance levels are violated?

Thanks for helping.
 
Quote from vulture:

In the classical Nitro fashion, I predict this thread reaches 50+ pages...

Visiontrader:

Every shade of gray will be argued in the next few days about this topic. You have really opened up a can of worms on this one...

Sorry. I just want to learn what others are doing out there. I want to know what kind of profit goals others have. I live in my own little world here and don't get out much.

I go by the concept that most people like to help and are honest. I would expect lots of shades of gray to be painted in these replies.

Nice handle btw.
 
Quote from Uni:



Which is silly because style is a personal thang. Mine is plain vanilla hit 'n run scalping off retracements and reversals with respect to pivots and horizontal s/r.

Uni

What's a scalp to you? How many points? What's your risk/reward? How many trades per day?
 
Quote from candletrader:

When the market has failed to decidely show her hand and/or when I feel out of synch with the bigger picture, I am a scalper and will hold onto stuff for only upto a minute (my size is increased bigtime when I scalp, cos my stops are tiny)... when the market action is readily apparent to me, I try and accomodate such action within one of my strategies (trend, reversal etc)...

Do you try to read her hand each morning and hope to establish a position for the day? If so, what are you looking for in points? How do you set your stop loss?

How and when do you determine your position? Early morning?

I assume from your post that when you scalp, you trade several contracts. You said your stops are tiny. How tiny? Are they a lot less than my 1 or 2 pt stops? And what are your profit targets on these scalps?

Thanks for helping.

Do you have positions open for several days or is it a daily strategy?
 
Quote from spreadem:

VisionTrader

Most of my trading in the ES is initiated by sells.

I sell into uptrends, I sell into downtrends and I sell in trading ranges.

This is really interesting. Do you take short positions to capitalize on the "fear factor". If not, why selling all the time.

Do you scalp these short positions? If so, what is your risk/reward. How many points per day/week/month do you hope for?

How many trades per day do you average?

Would you mind explaining to me what a "trading range" is?
 
Quote from ElectricSavant:

Yes, vision.....I trade the open with a directional bias (strategy runner will automate this for me).

My directional bias is proprietary with a 93% winrate. Some say this is luck, due to my low target verses my high stop in points.


Okay. I'm not sure what strategy runner is although I have heard of this. Even an idiot like me can see that a 93% win rate is no luck. Incredible. Congrats on this? You must be a muliti-millionaire.

You are saying that you take a positon each day before 9:30 AM and hope to profit on the morning zig zag. Could you please elaborate on this. How high is your stop exactly and what is your profit target exactly. This is really interesting. Do you take the position just before the open or early morning? After this you are done for the day or do you continue to trade?

Is this Strategy Runner thing helping you take this position?



If I do not get my target in 15 minutes I use a time stop and am out.

You mean no matter what, you are done by 9:45? Or do you mean something else? I have never heard of a time stop.



I use a money management system to pyramid the contracts partly based on account balance, but pull money out of the account to keep the contracts from pyramiding to high. With the money I pull out of the account...I lose in scalp trading the rest of day...LOL

To trade successfully and accuratly from the open you need to automate because of the speed in the AM. My system goes for a smaller target than yours, Vision. I have work in progress to increase my target and yield more profit while reducing the winrate minimally. Due to the pyramiding of contracts the winrate is important to the system.

I have called a few trades in the elite chatroom, but those pro's in there tolerate me only for a few minutes :)

Michael B.
 
There are a thousand ways to trade ES that work.
You have to decide on what works for you.
And how much exposure to risk your account can afford.
Swing trading can have larger rewards...but larger drawdowns too.
Scalping has lower drawdowns, but more chance of failure because of market noise.
And you need to decide the rhythm of the market....length of the trends and have a method for each one.
 
Quote from VisionTrader:

Even an idiot like me can see that a 93% win rate is no luck. Incredible. Congrats on this? You must be a muliti-millionaire.

The win rate need not have anything to do with profits. Depends on the extent of the drawdowns and the profit targets. You can have a high win rate and still be a loser.
 
Quote from bobcathy1:

There are a thousand ways to trade ES that work.
You have to decide on what works for you.
And how much exposure to risk your account can afford.
Swing trading can have larger rewards...but larger drawdowns too.
Scalping has lower drawdowns, but more chance of failure because of market noise.
And you need to decide the rhythm of the market....length of the trends and have a method for each one.

Cathy's correct. To think that you have to scalp in order to turn a profit is simply not true.
 
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