Just posting today’s scalp trades for Thursday’s market. I quick day and now a quick post. Good Trading to all.
Archive for the ‘Scalp Trading’ Category
Today’s Scalp Trades
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012Scalp Trading the Emini
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012Today’s Trades are below;
Here in this last day of January 2012, scalp trading the emini markets has grown in overall interest the last several years. There are new players coming into this market all time as the opposite is also true with players leaving in defeat.
What does it take to find your way to profitability? It is usually harder than most believe as they are drawn to the often fast action and allure of financial freedom. Sniper Day Trading will attempt to bring some of this into perspective.
Scalp trading is a way to participate in a very large leveraged market with limited trading risk. With margins as lucrative as 50:1 or more for pure day trading margin, it is easy to see why so many feel the lure of participation. That leverage will work for you and against you just the same if you don’t know what you are doing. Using excessive day trading margin is also another reason why traders struggle, as they always trade to their margin limits and increase their losses all at the wrong time.
Knowledge is power and those who have it, can leverage the knowledge to obtain their trading goals. Without a working knowledge of how price action takes place in the course of a day, you will get whipped around and be left for dead when its all said and done.
Limiting your trading risk down to a very small window is in my estimation is a big key to success and stretching out gains when it is appropriate is also important. The key here is, when it is appropriate. How are traders to know when that is? To answer that, it takes us back to knowing how to read the price action charts as you take in time, energy and space as it relates to support and resistance, which is often misunderstood.
Support and resistance in trading is often applied in a way that will cause the average trader to lose on his position because the market has a way to get you in, only to take you out and then on in the original direction, but without you in it. This again has to do with knowing all of this ahead of time and waiting for those false moves for the real move, the one with the limited risk and high reward.
Scalp trading at key energy points will yield you fast acting trading results combined with low risk, giving you the best of both worlds. Knowing when to cover your trade is also just as important as knowing when to enter. You can have large profit in a position only to quickly see it disappear as you are looking for more. That often leads to frustration and more bad entries.
Which brings us to the mental side of trading and that is a whole other issue that keeps traders from gaining traction. You need the trading edge in mind and method. Most do not realize it, but they are the problem, not the market, to achieving the results they seek. The market is there and it will always be there with the participants coming and going, but not having a solid mental strategy in addition to a solid trading strategy or method is where the separation begins.
To many traders become “feeders” for the professional traders and institution as they strip newbies of there capital. The best strategy to not let this happen is take your time and triple the amount of time you think you need before going live in the markets. Get your mental game down and don’t become reactive but proactive in stalking trades as you wait and let them come to you. This is the approach of Sniper Day Trading and reason all of this works. One needs to take into consideration all the points mentioned above and then the playing field can not only be leveled but tilted to your favor, giving you the trading edge.
Small Scalp Trades Today
Monday, January 30th, 2012Today is January 30th and we saw a large trading gap down this morning early on and a recovering market the rest of the day. The action in the daily market has been very orderly with mild price swings in both directions with an overall upward bias. The rally has slowed this last two weeks since I was calling for a top around the 1308 area. That happens to be where we ended up today in fact, 1308.
The market is consolidating its gains over the last 6 weeks and think we should see a change coming up soon. For the time being, we seem to have containment on the upside. The market sentiment numbers will coming out this week, Wednesday morning, as the bullish bias has been strong. It has not been strong enough to signal any significant change and so the market buys its time until everyone is fully invested, then it will reverse on the masses.
I got back to trading today and had an OK day, with a few losses of just a few ticks early on. Later, I missed a large move I saw coming and elected to not chase it. I was left with small scalp trades in both directions to try and pick up my daily goal of which I did. I had to switch screens and view the market from a smaller scalp trade perspective. I shortened up my targets and took what I could get as per the method and finished well. The days trades below.
Scalp Trading & Market Timing
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011Today is Wednesday July 20th and the market took a bit of a pause today. Still good trading opportunities to be had and I picked up my share.
Today, I just went into scalp trading mode as I had 6 trades all for gains, but small. A nice follow through day coming off of yesterdays big day. Small scalp trades are just fine, they add up quickly as long as your market timing is good.
All I have to do is just stay the course and I will see another week of daily gains. I will not put myself under any undue pressure, as I take the days as they come. I have no expectations on what I want and think I should get. Its not up to me to decide. I only need to read what I see and the rest will come out just fine.
The market will only go one of two ways, so it should not be to hard. I say that jokingly. Market timing is so important, it can not be overlooked as it is usually the dividing line between profitability. Good market timing is entering the trade with the least amount of draw down against you while getting the move going in your desired direction. Timing is not much of a problem, as if you have a good trading method to tell you when to enter, you need only follow it and I don’t mean the trading indicators.
Traders need to know why and when prices move apart from the trading indicators that they use or do not use. If you don’t know why, you will eventually get sucked in to the markets mind games and left for dead. On the other hand, if you do know “why”, that will make all the difference in the world. First know why and then you will know when. Do You Know?
Let me post my trades below for today’s session as this will be a short posting. Trade well, trade committed.
The Market Move is On
Thursday, June 9th, 2011Today is Thursday June 9th, 2011 and the market finally is breathing a few signs of life. Currently at 8:45 am West Coast, the S&P is trading higher at 1288.75 +12 points for the session and the Dow is up +100. We will likely see still yet higher prices for the session as the market comes off 6 loosing days in a row, something it has not done for a long time.
I was able to squeeze an hour of trading in today and hope to get back onto a regular schedule of trading my account. Some things in life we just can not control and the health of those you love always has to come first.
Let me post my trades for the day below for Thursdays session first and a few comments after that.
In a separate account, I do have a position on from last nights night trading session and that is still working. I see higher prices and will hold through any pull back. I will give an update tomorrow on how that is going. My entry was 1280 and now have a stop at just 1282. Its my attempt to make up for some of the days of trading I missed and today is the day to give it chance and hold.
In the chart above, you can see the turning points and continuation area’s as marked. This is from the end of yesterdays session to the first hour of today’s session. When trading the markets, all one needs to do is read the price action and trade accordingly. You don’t have to know to much else. We often times can project prices up and down when those reads are clear, but scalping a few points out of the market is just fine. There is no trading anxiety as you are in and out quickly.
I would have like to have had a bigger piece of that move up, but did not want to chase it. I did have an opportunity, but let it go. In one hour I picked up 4 points on three scalp trades on small size, but it counts. One thing I have learned, is don’t cry over what you think you should have had in the session. We have to not let ourselves get greedy and keep reaching. There are sessions that a trending move will add up nicely to you bottom line, but if you are always thinking, “just a little more”, to often you will loose what you have.
One key is to be selective and patient, but don’t hesitate when it comes together. In addition, if you believe to strongly that the market should do this or that, you will blind yourself to what it actually is doing. Stay open minded and just trade what you see. You have to know what to do, for sure, and if you don’t, that could a big problem for you.
Traders need to act in a way that is consistent with there order entries. If you always do different things based on how you feel, you will not like your results. Find something that works and stick with it. Best to all you and good trading.
Trade Decisions
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011Today’s market we saw the Dow up +78 and the S&P futures +11 in a slow trading session with only 1.5 million contracts traded. I traded a good portion of the day today and did finish well, hitting a nice method trade to target for several points. Yesterday I only traded for the last hour and so included both sessions in the chart below.
I have marked up on the screen the “trade decisions” that where identified by a custom indicator that works within the trade method. The small windows circled, are area’s that a trade decision could be made. That window is small, which helps to zero in on the exact entries that a market move is likely to take place. There are many reasons for a market shift within those area’s and that is really apart of the method, but the trade indicators do line up with the method not the other way around.
When you make a trade decision, to go long or short, you don’t want to see the price retrace much against you, that is called a draw down. In making the right trade decision, you won’t see that draw down, but will see a price increase in the direction of your entry, simple enough. The trick is, how to zero in on those holes and pick out the entries that make for the right trade decision.
It is in knowing market behavior and the likely path of price that this is accomplished. Many of us have heard, “knowledge is power” and in this case it can also be translated into money $ .
Market conditions are always changing and with those changes picking the right type of strategy for the conditions is important. For some, learning a pure scalping method is the way to go. It does not have to be complicated, but low risk entries are the key to any good trading method, but few are able to find it. Learning to trade a scalping method where this is the norm are few and far between.
To trade the model I have above, I usually use a 4-5 tick stop and take what the market offers, sometimes it is a lot and sometimes it is small, but the key is to wait until the trade comes together. This is just one screen from a whole picture, no shown, and we know what they say about a picture; its worth a thousand words. In this case that too would apply. The point is, I have another model that is for scalping small targets. there, a trade can be taken with a 3 tick stop and a target of 3-4 ticks on most trades is common. I don’t show this model, as most traders like to take trades for larger returns, but this does exist within my trading method.
This scalping method holds at a minimum a 1 to 1 trade ratio and up, with a high percentage of trade wins. Market conditions will dictate how many trades are available in any given day, but 20-30 trades is not uncommon even with slow or low trading ranges. This part of the method trades in what I call the dominant trend and counter trend within the method.
Trading a scalping method that provides low risk entries, small draw downs under changing market conditions is all more than I could ask for. I find myself trading out of my T-2 screen most often and not the T-1 scalp screen mentioned these days, which is what you see above. Again, that is a small limited view of things but it does paint a clear picture for all to see. I just need to be diligent in following it. Best to you all.
Small Scalp Trades Today
Wednesday, April 20th, 20114-21-11; Very Strong turn-up in the market with the major averages flirting with new highs. We sure did see a big bounce as the next move in the plan of action I laid out last Friday. We are not currently in danger of taking out the last major pivot low, the next part in the planed layout. One day at a time.
In today’s trading I had modest gains with my minimum daily goal met during the New York mid-day session. It was slow, but I found a few pure scalp trades, enough to post some modest gains.
With the market coming up during the night-trading, there was little energy left to make additional gains. The energy level said to play this close. Take what you can, but don’t have huge expectations. Here is were scalp trading can really give you the edge. In a non-trending choppy environment, there are low risk trades, but limited movement. Listening to the beat of the market is possible, by allowing yourself to see and feel the energy or lack of it.
Just being open and aware, of the emotions that are being swung back and forth, all the while utilizing your Sniper Style skills, to pick your mark, spot your target and go for it. Well, today’s trades below before I get carried away, Good Trading
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Wall of Worry
Sunday, March 6th, 2011Where will the stock market go from here? That is the big question on Wall Street these days.
A key number the market will want to honor is 1304 as a danger zone with 1300 as very troubled waters ahead. The market has been rolling full steam ahead since Thanksgiving last year with almost an uninterupted roll to the upside until lately.
The bigger volitility is a sign that things are getting heated up and the market will be expressing that through bigger moves one way and the other until a shift takes place. Many have recently become bullish and others are less worried about a bear market sell off than any time in recent memory. Both of those are a little worrisome, but the market has faced that “Wall of Worry” before as we have seen roughly a 30% increase in the market since last September, the last six months.
There is a lot brewing on the world seen, with the middle east heating up. The price of Oil is not going to make things easy for this economy as it continues to rise. A rising Oil market will make everything much more expensive and trickle through the economy in hundreds of ways that will not end up good for anyone.
I believe we will be seeing an inflationary environment in the months ahead. This is a big cause for the unrest in the middle east. The cost of food is rising around the world. If it continues, which I believe it will, we can continue to see trouble ahead with falling governments and unrest. There is a lot more to the story and one could really get into it, but I will choose not to and leave that for others.
There is always more than one way to see things from the way it is being portrayed. Being a trader we should be trained to see, look and notice the unseen before it becomes apparent to others. This thinking is consistent with many other area’s and world politics is one of them.
As a day trader, the current price of the S&P is a mute point. We should only care from a stand point of seeing a stable economic environment for all those whom it could effect. From a trading point of view, it does not matter what the market does, up-down-or sideways.
That is the beauty of what we do. We should never be married to a direction or a position. Doing so will leave you in ruins. Just reading the current environment to establish what you should do is the way to proceed. This is the same as reading the newspaper, but for many, that paper is in another language.
In my trading for Friday, I did well to close out the week for another 5 for 5 gains. I have been grading myself and always find ways to improve. Being a little short on time early on in the session did cause me to force my hand and try and make something happen instead of letting it happen and taking the ride.
These are just some of the area’s I can always improve on. The mental side of trading is a big factor. We should be able to identify healthy thinking or thoughts that should give us concern. If you talked it out, you may be better able to hear what it is that you are thinking and it may be a way to stop yourself if you find that you are going down the wrong road.
Recording your sessions with a screen recorder or through some of the tools that are available is not a bad idea. That way, you can go back and critic your trading objectively. This is part of the hard work that many traders are not willing to do. Others will not take the time to write out there trading strategy in detail and there work will suffer because of it.
For those who follow a trading methodology, say like mine or anyone else, that part of the work is basically done for you. The work still needs to be done in making that trading method work for you and that will entail finding your own style within that trading method.
It is key to learn price action first. Trading indicators are only a reflection of the price action. Trading indicators can be a good confirmation, but they should not be the main reason a trader takes a trade. Not understanding how this action comes together to provide you with strong clues in future direction will put you at a disadvantage. Learn this, and you put the odds in your favor.
Good Trading to all.
Keeping your Concentration while Trading
Wednesday, February 16th, 20112-16-11;
Today we saw the Index’s move higher again with the Dow up 61 and the S&P futures +8 on this Wednesday session.
The volume was a little better coming in around 1.8 million contracts traded, so that was good. The movement was OK as I did see opportunities as I look back.
In today’s trading, I took 4 trades with one loss for 2 ticks on the S&P emini futures. There was more on the table with a few of the trades I took, but took what came off easily except for the last trade. I did get distracted while I was checking on something and came back to find that I was going to miss the move I was waiting for. It was just a continuation of the first move, but I let my emotions get the best of me. I should have gotten earlier of after the bounce it made to have been a good fill and trade.
Having to compensate for a bad fill is not usually a good idea. It worked out for me here today, but it just as well could have gone up one tick more to stop me out and I would have been looking at a longer trading day in-front of me. I think I could have made that up, as their were some pretty good potential trades later on in the session. The point is, keeping your concentration while trading is essential and getting distracted can cost you money.
Just a short post today, so until next time, Good Trading to all.
Today’s Scalp Trades
Monday, January 31st, 20111-31-11;
Just a short post here today, as I got back into trading this week. The day seemed to be an easy read today as the market retraced back up from Friday’s sell-off. There was a small gap opening in the S&P which was quickly filled as the market started in with some early chop. If you tried to trade any of that for anything more than 3-4 ticks, you were coming up with losses most likely as the first 40 minutes we only saw “choppy action”.
As a scalp trader, money could still be made in that environment if you have precision entries like a “Sniper” getting in and out quickly. Around 45 minutes after the open, the market showed its first signs of a trend, of which I was in part of it.
There was another move up from higher levels as the market went to a trade to target that I called out well in advance while doing some training with my group. I put the training on pause and took the trade for +5,+7 and +12 ticks right to a predefined point at the top of the range.
All in all, I took 4 trades, with one of them flat for some nice gains on the session. I have a screen shot for a quick glance and I did do a video for those that want to see more of the potential trades that the market revealed.
Trade Safe ! Vince
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