Scalping

Scalping is something I believe can't truly be done the way a Paul Rotter does it unless you are a member of the exchange, get the absolute lowest commissions and can afford thousands (maybe tens of thousands) a month in overhead. That said, the retail guy who is skilled at reading the order book is miles and miles ahead of all the momo chart readers looking at the TA nonsense. If you really want to make it in this business I believe you have to be good enough to break through the retail barrier.

Paul Rotter is manipulating the market - you can't do that unless you have hundreds of millions of dollars. As such, a seat ain't nothing but a peanut.

His scalping and our scalping are different games. We are trying to see what guys like him are doing, he's making the plays.

I heard Eurex got pissy with him. I presume that's why the move to Singapore.
 
That said, the retail guy who is skilled at reading the order book is miles and miles ahead of all the momo chart readers looking at the TA nonsense. If you really want to make it in this business I believe you have to be good enough to break through the retail barrier.

Price charts are not nonsense, they are integral part of information about the market, showing who was in control at what time, where and when the balance previously changed etc.

Maybe not well suitable to scalp for 3 ticks indeed, but definitely can be an effective way to trade.

I trade solely off charts, so it's sort of funny to hear that's impossible. :D
 
Price charts are not nonsense, they are integral part of information about the market, showing who was in control at what time, where and when the balance previously changed etc.

Maybe not well suitable to scalp for 3 ticks indeed, but definitely can be an effective way to trade.

I trade solely off charts, so it's sort of funny to hear that's impossible. :D

Thats not really scalping though, more short term trading.
EF has said he works inside the spread, that is the only true definition of scalping.

BTW no one has any thoughts on CME co-location running live?
 
Price charts are a single dimension of information.

With forex, you don't even have volume. More power to you if you make money that way. Still, it has to be said that your blog is showing not much more than textbook TA 101 setups.

As such, I'm still sceptical that anyone can make money that way. But hey - great if you are.

Take textbook concepts such as support & resistance. TA 101 says see a high or low, draw a line & there you have it. Amount of thinking requires - none.

Support means "support the market". Resistance means "Resist further price increases". Such concepts are abstract. The terms themselves are predicitve. They are nice, simple concepts that any idiot can learn in 2 minutes. Perfect.

Now - if people used the word "cheap" instead of support and if people used the work "expensive" instead of resistance. Then they might put a bit more thought into where price may really get rejected and how to confirm that rejection is taking place. They don't because it's a lot easier to draw a horizontal line, trend line or channel.

As it is, the majority of people want to use simple objective tools without having any idea about underlying market conditions. This is why they are doubted by people that took the extra effort to learn what the markets are.

If I had to trade on price alone, I'd be sweating like a blind lesbian in a fish market.

People that can do it are better traders than me for sure.
 
Thats not really scalping though, more short term trading.
EF has said he works inside the spread, that is the only true definition of scalping.

BTW no one has any thoughts on CME co-location running live?

Yes, true. "Scalping" definition is much stretched nowadays, covering all "lower boundary" of day trading, so to say. I agree with you, that working inside the spread is the only "real" vanilla scalping.

Attached screenshot of my executions for yesterday (with exception of one trade executed through a different broker), so that one can see what my trading is like more or less. Typically risk is cut short, but profits are run.
 

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Price charts are a single dimension of information.

With forex, you don't even have volume. More power to you if you make money that way. Still, it has to be said that your blog is showing not much more than textbook TA 101 setups.

As such, I'm still sceptical that anyone can make money that way. But hey - great if you are.

Take textbook concepts such as support & resistance. TA 101 says see a high or low, draw a line & there you have it. Amount of thinking requires - none.

Support means "support the market". Resistance means "Resist further price increases". Such concepts are abstract. The terms themselves are predicitve. They are nice, simple concepts that any idiot can learn in 2 minutes. Perfect.

Now - if people used the word "cheap" instead of support and if people used the work "expensive" instead of resistance. Then they might put a bit more thought into where price may really get rejected and how to confirm that rejection is taking place. They don't because it's a lot easier to draw a horizontal line, trend line or channel.

As it is, the majority of people want to use simple objective tools without having any idea about underlying market conditions. This is why they are doubted by people that took the extra effort to learn what the markets are.

If I had to trade on price alone, I'd be sweating like a blind lesbian in a fish market.

People that can do it are better traders than me for sure.

Yes, that's what my trading is. Plain and simple TA, even primitive. :)

I would not agree that anyone can trade like that in 2-min though. It takes years to start "seeing" patterns in the right way, so that you notice all nuances and that gives you additional edge. Noobs usually come, try it mechanically, of course lose the money and leave whining that "TA doesn't works". Same old story told thousands of times. :)
 
Yes, true. "Scalping" definition is much stretched nowadays, covering all "lower boundary" of day trading, so to say. I agree with you, that working inside the spread is the only "real" vanilla scalping.

Attached screenshot of my executions for yesterday (with exception of one trade executed through a different broker), so that one can see what my trading is like more or less. Typically risk is cut short, but profits are run.

:cool: Works for you thats all that matters.
You may remember I never said anything one way or the other about charts and
short term trading though.
Just charts in relation to pure scalping ;)
 
I enter this trade because:

The overall trade is up, she is forming higher lows, she stalled in a range barrier,
before the break there is a battle going on, the bear do not want to let go, the bulls are joined by bulls sideliners, the bear sideliners do not join in, the bears let go of the rope, at the break I joined the bulls, made 7 pips, 2%.

I do this every day, between 1 to 6 trades a day with a lousy bucket shop.

Guys, is this way of trading, scalping or short term? Or is me that I am going insane?

Not sure anymore.:(

By the way this is a 30 second chart
 

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Mike thats short term trading.
Frequently (wrongly) referred to as scalping.
No worries, its commonly used as a loose description :)

No one has any thoughts on CME co-location then?
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/first-steps/145690-scalping-21.html#post1810494

7 pips target? Short term with 30 second candle? A trade that last not more than 5 minutes? I must be insane then.

Have a look at Al Brooks's: Reading price chart Bar by Bar, The technical Analysis of price action for the serious trader.

He is a real trader, he might give you a good idea what scalping means.
 
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7 pips target? Short term with 30 second candle? A trade that last not more than 5 minutes? I must be insane then.

Have a look at Al Brooks's: Reading price chart Bar by Bar, The technical Analysis of price action for the serious trader.

He is a real trader, you may get a good idea what scalping means.

Scalping (trading) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :rolleyes:
True scalping is working within the spread...
The term scalping applied to short term trading is a generic misnomer.
Not that it really matters, call it whatever you want.
 
7 pips target? Short term with 30 second candle? A trade that last not more than 5 minutes? I must be insane then.

Have a look at Al Brooks's: Reading price chart Bar by Bar, The technical Analysis of price action for the serious trader.

He is a real trader, he might give you a good idea what scalping means.

Terrible, terrible book.

Sorry - but it reads like Al took a big breath and did a brain dump onto the page.

Isn't the whole book written in one sentence? :LOL:
 
Terrible, terrible book.

Sorry - but it reads like Al took a big breath and did a brain dump onto the page.

Isn't the whole book written in one sentence? :LOL:

Book is indeed written terribly, I am very proud for having patience to read it all, though and must say he made some very good observations there.
 
Terrible, terrible book.

Sorry - but it reads like Al took a big breath and did a brain dump onto the page.

Isn't the whole book written in one sentence? :LOL:

LOL
I think with the title he probably want to keep away the ones that are not serious about their work (losers) and are only keen to be right keeping them prisoner of their own concepts.:cry: veni vidi vici
 
LOL
I think with the title he probably want to keep away the ones that are not serious about their work (losers) and are only keen to be right keeping them prisoner of their own concepts.:cry:

They say his 2nd series of books is written much better.
 
They say his 2nd series of books is written much better.

As you said, very difficult to digest. Once for me is enough and I think his second series are just a commercial concept of the first.

But try " Forex Price action Scalping" by Bob Volman, in my view a delight.
 
As you said, very difficult to digest. Once for me is enough.

But try " Forex Price action Scalping" by Bob Volman, in my view a delight.

Well, honestly I can't say I learnt something new from Brooks, maybe cause I day trade for over 7 years myself and got quite familiar with price action.

One person, I deeply respect, said that "Trends" book by Brooks is really good and written much better, than the first book.

Also another person, whom I trust, recommended me the same book as you did (price action scalping), so guess it's a good read for real.
 
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