S&P 500 & other indexes - intraday. Plus chat

Late trade this one, this is managed differently and slightly more relaxed than usually encountered at the frenzied open.

a. RTH-H 1324.50, RTH-L 1312.50 @ 14:50 GMT
b. CBAVOL about 1.46m at time of starting to watch - busy
c. Price on MP didn't make it below 1313.00 for the last full period
d. Price is remaining within IB, trade facilitation is in a very narrow range - on alert
e. My hypothesis is that it that the RTH-L will continue to hold but if it doesn't it will make a new low and then return back to where I entered.
f. Long, market order at 1313.50 for 1 x risk at 17:03 GMT (1)
g. Didn't hold, don't panic just watch it run for a little bit
h. Seems to be stalling around 1309.00 area
i. Long, market order at 1309.75 for 1 x risk at 17:08 GMT (2), average price now 1311.75ish
j. Little bit of a fight down here, can see volume/base building down here, buyers coming in
k. Here comes the re-test, looks like it is holding
l. Moving back up now - look for an exit around 1313 area
m. There she blows, out market order 1312.75 for 2 x risk @ 17:23GMT (3)
n. 9 ticks profit before commissions (4.5ticks at 2 x risk)
o. MAE from average price 12 ticks, MFE from average price 10 ticks, exit efficiency 43%
p. Soft target hit for the week now.

So kids, the trick here is if you get run over but it is a move to a new high/low (including ONH/ONL) then generally (and I mean on balance rather than absolute), price will return to the previous high/low. This means you can use averaging at the expense of increased risk advantageously on a high probability set-up. Don't try this if you are bad at calling turns otherwise you will get crucified. It is a sure-fire way of grinding your account down. The other alternative would be scale in within your normal risk without giving yourself palpitations

That's me done for the week. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.
 

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That's me done for the week. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.[/QUOTE]

yer - wot about Friday ?

scyving off again ?
 
So busy doing this no time to get in
 

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As it turned out I was out just in time. Phew !!
( out at arrow)
 

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Does anybody do over night bets ?
It does stop me from 1 of my bad habits - of jumping out too quickly.
 
I am up 20 ticks for the week and that signals an early bath for me my friend.

A well earned rest no doubt. :sleep:

This could be the beginnings of a major slide. As the big boys shift their money out of Greece, Italy and even Spain. I would love to take a peek at the inside of the Greek National Bank. Have they bought gold with their bailout money ? I wonder.
 
A well earned rest no doubt. :sleep:

This could be the beginnings of a major slide. As the big boys shift their money out of Greece, Italy and even Spain. I would love to take a peek at the inside of the Greek National Bank. Have they bought gold with their bailout money ? I wonder.

There's a key level at about 1280 on ES - how it responds there will be v.interesting.

As for rest, there is no rest for the wicked ;)

Speaking of wicked, TheLeonard has been conspicuous in his absence.
 
Does anybody do over night bets ?
It does stop me from 1 of my bad habits - of jumping out too quickly.

I started off swing trading but over time found that it interferes with my sleep. I take the odd 2-10 day trade on some of the account if I have a lot of conviction for the move but still find it difficult to relax and invariably end up exiting prematurely.

So that's a no really :p
 
That's enough for today I think. I can't decide if the slide will continue over night or not, so left that one.

See you all tomorrow ( except Robster I guess :))
 
Robster, I'm loving your posts... great to see how you think throughout a trade. As a pretty new trader I find it hard to find info on scalping apart from strange indicator based stuff (don't get me started on my hatred for MA crosses and Fib nonsense).

I am going to buy the Mind Over Markets book you mentioned and learn more. I've often felt this style of trading would suit my personality but didn't know where to start. Couple of quick questions though if you don't mind? What platform and broker are you using? Do you pay any extra costs for data feeds?

I have lots of other questions but don't want to bother you too much! I currently swing trade so will join in posting trades so that its not just one way!

Thanks in advance
 
I had a look but regret to say it is not listed. It will probably move much the same as the S&P 500 though.

And it did, but, me thinks we have put in a near term bottom today so why not take a shot for stocks real overextended to the downside like Cemex, I went fully long in it today CX: Summary for Cemex, S.A.B. de C.V. Sponsored- Yahoo! Finance
This is Cemex ADR in NY, I cant trade it off, but instead I trade off Cemex in Mexico IPC market, they move in tandem.
Take a look at it, has a big beta and could bounce big for next couple of weeks.
 
Robster, I'm loving your posts... great to see how you think throughout a trade. As a pretty new trader I find it hard to find info on scalping apart from strange indicator based stuff (don't get me started on my hatred for MA crosses and Fib nonsense).

I am going to buy the Mind Over Markets book you mentioned and learn more. I've often felt this style of trading would suit my personality but didn't know where to start. Couple of quick questions though if you don't mind? What platform and broker are you using? Do you pay any extra costs for data feeds?

I have lots of other questions but don't want to bother you too much! I currently swing trade so will join in posting trades so that its not just one way!

Thanks in advance

I have no problems answering questions, ask away :)

Mind over Markets will get you tuned into a view of how to model the markets behaviour by modelling it as an auction. It is independent of the timeframe you will eventually trade. Check out John Grady's NoBS Trading if you are interested in trading purely off DOM and FT71 if you want a more holistic view of how to trade auction market theory. I find FT71 more in line with how I trade and he posts up some interesting views which demonstrate a depth of understanding that transcends my exposure to ES.

I trade by looking at 3 things with emphasis shifting on what I am looking at dependent on circumstamces:

1) T&S - this tells me what the order flow is doing
2) DOM - this tells me about the available liquidity that is being consumed
3) Charts - the 1m/5m is most useful when in action but the 30m,60m & 1d for context

So the platform I chose to use was x_trader and I use Velocity Futures. Prices vary based upon number of contracts traded and number of exchanges/feeds you want to trade but to do ES alone with velocity using their baked in x_trader then you are paying about $4.50 per RT per contract. This is of course negotiable. Costs drop significantly if you pay for x_trader yourself and number of contracts hike up but I would not suggest committing to this until it is financially worthwhile.

I have seen the IB have a comparable offer using their own proprietary trading platform so I would probably give that a whirl too as people rate them as a broker.

My personal opinion is that you will have an informational edge by trading an exchange traded product where you have visibility of the order book and order flow compared to the normal retail trading approach of using a chart alone. As markets generally reward you for having better information (providing you know how to filter it and trade it) then it should be relatively obvious why most institutional traders use x_trader and other similar platforms.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on and post some of your trades up here - all are welcome.
 
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