Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I've gone down this road a few times and sure, it can work. I may have a few support / resitance levels that are very close to each so I'll open up my risk, but in general, if you're willing to assume more risk that you get in retrurn, the trade is not worth the effort particularly if you're point a click. If the strategy is automated / algo, i can justify it as I place the order and move on to other work.
It can work but again you need to consider all options For example if u are using less leverage then u can make it work but on the other hand if u are using higher leverage then you can face problems when things dont go your way.. so before trading it go over all the possiblities .. if u have a setup pattern that gives u higher winning ratio with this then use minimal to normal leverage and this will work like charm even if u face some bad days .. on higher leverage you will need to be dead on target .. Hope that helps .. Happy trading
I scalp from time to time..... Its not something i do alot, i mainly use my scalping skills instead on refining entries for other swing setups.
If your scalping, the biggest problem will not be if you have an edge, its the fact that when your going for such small targets, that there's very little room for error. You screw up one time, you lose all your earnings for the day, since your stops are larger. And it will happen. You misread something by accident, you don't pay attention fully, you get a bad entry, you get impatient. Its very difficult.
Try doing it with real money, use small size, and you'll see what im talking about.
Broker: Advantage, Trading Technologies, OptionsCity, IQ Feed
Trading: CL, NG
Posts: 1,038 since Jul 2010
Thanks Given: 1,713
Thanks Received: 3,863
Twiddle,
I would highly advise against such a strategy. As Michael H. mentioned, all your day's profits will get wiped out on one mistake. And it will happen. A common mistake new(er) traders make is to take profit as soon as they're in the green thinking that it was "good enough" to only see the trade would have given them two to three times more if they had just followed the move entirely. Remember, trading is all about patience and following your rules. Don't give in to impulses like taking quick profits, etc. You'll be better off in the long run.
TUM TRADES....Tough to get done, but doable. If your new i recommend reading cunparis journal. Every trade begins as a scalp trade. Maybe develop another setup (in addition to your current one). Occurring near a S/R level and just lean your current stop at the S/R and increase your profit target.
Thanks for your replies all, It is a tricky one, most seem to agree that it is not a good strategy, yet some feel strongly that it can work. Very confusing.
So far my experience indicates it may be possible, but I am leaning towards it not being worth it even if it were. As time moves on and my experience grows, the advice of experienced traders starts to make more and more sense, and I start to see the folly in my original thinking. Things like taking profits too soon are classic human psychological foibles and is something that apparently only experiencing live trading can reveal as the bad thing it usually is. It is like you can understand the numbers but unless you experience it, it does not hit home truly, and after time you acheive a sort of clarity you did not have before, which reveals just why the advice makes sense in the first place.
The thing with trading is there are so many techniques for so many situations, and I am still discovering whether things like this are outright "never", or "use in the right situation". Perhaps some times there really is a small profit on offer with such high probability that it is worth taking, but then if the probability is so good, why do you need a larger stop loss?
I have spent a year sim trading FDAX, and it seems to be ridiculously easy to grab 3 ticks at a time. However I am convinced this will change when I go live. But since I have had such success I will at least give it a go for the first little while when I go live.
I recently went live using CFDs however, just for access to the SPI contract, and the ability to have a tiny account so I can ease into trading real money. Trying to scalp using CFDs would be about the most pointless thing one could do, unless the point was to lose all ones money. The spread will kill any chance at profitability. Because of that I gave up my trying to grab 3 tick ways from the futures sim, and have tried to capture trends, with some success.
As most of the adivce given here and elsewhere states, it is probably not worth trading that way in the long run, but I think the best way to learn that will be to lose some money trying it.