Hey…
Im a new member, and figured Id share with members how I trade, just for fun.
Some might think Im crazy…
But this is the only style of trading that fills my bank account, consistently, and daily. With barely any volatility in my equity graph.
I only trade the quiet hours of the market.
But make up to 200 trades in 4 hours.
Overtrading??
I say…maximizing.
Please…new traders…DONT TRY TRADE LIKE THIS…YOU WILL LOSE YOUR ACCOUNT FAST!!!
Start slow first. The market is a harsh beast.
Anyway…
Green is long, red is short, tourqouis is took some units off the table. I painted those on the chart afterwards for better visuals, but the actual trades can be seen on the oanda chart.
I find constantly being in the market, makes me feel it better.
I think my proof is the fact that with scalping, the spread is already hugely against me, and Im paying it up to 400 times a day. If I can profit in those adverse conditions, I must be doing something right!
I try to learn scalping which way I found porfitble by myself. Could you explain your system alittle more? I found your system is interesting. And it is suitable for me
Yeah scalping is the only way I can make money…for some strange reason.
But I dont really have a system per se.
Ive been trading so long now, that its mostly second nature.
I just use the 300Fibo bollinger bands do determine entry points.
And grab 1-2 pips, usually. Or 3-5 if its a ‘good run’ lol.
I watch the “tape” with my futures broker to get a feel for the market.
IMO- scalping is 90% feel/intuition.
Most might laugh at that…but its my experience.
And…
If the price doesnt do what I want within 30 seconds. Im out.
I just worked out my spread cost for the last 2 days!!
I made $1865 , and paid $1154 in spread!! lol
Which works out to be like 61% of my profit, paid to the man.
But Im ok with it. As long as I make money, spread is just the cost of business.
I also like the fact that I made 389Pips last night, when the market was only in a 28 pip range. Talk about extraction.
I use Oanda. And their spread is around 1.5 average.
It goes as low as 0.9 though, during normal hours.
But since I ONLY trade during quiet times, its around 1.5 - 1.7 usually
If I traded busy times it wouldn’t be such a dent in my earnings…what with 0.9spread.
But Id probably lose alot more trades too, with the volatility.
Thats another thing I cant stress enough.
If youre gonna try scalping, do yourself a favour, and scalp during quiet periods.
I use bollinger bands.
300 period.
deviation, 1, 2, 3, 4.
To give me my "levels"
These are the areas I watch, and you can see where I traded on these levels in the chart.
But my main tools are trendlines, and S&R
Also volume.
And when theres confluence between the bollinger and Trendlines/S&R, with a nice volume spike…I put on heavier trades.
Kinda like card counting in blackjack. When the decks hot, you bet bigger.
Same with this.
I play small until I have a nice confluence point, (which takes some practice to spot) then put on a bigger trade, or scale into it near the top/bottom.
You can see this on my chart below, on the 7th “Long” trade.
Kimchikim,
I trade during the asian session. 7-10pm Pacific time. West coast.
About 4 hours before london session.
Extracted close to 70 pips tonight…in a small triangle range on the 1minute/5 minute, after an earlier move down.
Was playing the fibo range on the 5minute.
Could only trade for an hour tonight, but made my 1.5% quota so Im happy.
This was the most trades Ive done in a day.
Not an impressive return for the amount of trades, but I like slow and consistent gains…so Im happy…and it suits me.
To be honest…I like working hard for my money.
What broker do you use? I’m using FXCM and while I was making what I considered many trades per night (but apparently not compared to you…lol) on my demo with IBFX and Mt4, the way FXCM fluctuates their spreads makes it really difficult to work with.
Did you mention if you used a stoploss? Or what drawdown do you allow before taking a loss?
I use Oanda as my main broker. Though I also have an IBFX account too, just incase.
As for stop-losses. I dont use any, cuz I just exit manually…
But I do keep one about 100 pips away for safety against blackouts, disasters etc…Even then…if it got hit, it would only be a 5% hit on my account. I trade small, relative to my account.
Unlike some other scalpers who say scalping is only worth it if you trade big.
Im the opposite. I trade really small, and just work extra hard and long.
Also…because of my style of trade…Im usually entering around areas of strong support or resistance because Im playing only areas of consolidation during quiet periods…so usually the position goes straight in my favour within 60 seconds. If it lingers too long, or moves against me I either exit straight away or I weigh the odds…as to if theres more strong support (300Fibobands, trendlines, etc) below…then Ill just wait until we reach that point, and enter again. Scaling into the position.
You can see on the first chart I posted where I did just that.
The times when I do decide to get out…its usually just a 2-3 pip loss.(3-4 w/spread)
Are you a scalper as well??
I cant imagine using any other broker besides oanda for scalping.
I try sometimes on my IBFX account, but get killed.
So you use Oanda…since we seem to be quite limited here in BC as to who we can use as a broker, I didn’t really check them out. But I will now!
Yes I consider myself a scalper. A few times now on my IBFX demo account I took a 1K account and doubled it…even quadrupled it by taking 5-20 pips at a time…I can relate how you can get into a “zone” and ride the action up and down a few times in a row or so…lol
But since FXCM didn’t have mt4 available for mini accounts, I have to use my ibfx demo to watch for the setups and then place them on fxcm platform which has caused a bit of a disconnect for me and hasn’t been as successful overall. Now fxcm has mt4, I could transfer, but I don’t like the way they do their spreads…one minute it’s 2.9 pips then in a blink it’s 7.0 then back to 3.4…arrgh!
I just did this on my account this evening (between 10:00 and midnight EST) with Oanda. I bought at support and scalped a pip or two. If it went against me I added to the position (of course breaking all the rules of trading). I exited anytime market was above the blue line (average position line).
On a 1,000.00 account I started with 100 units and averaged in adding another 100 units every 5 pips or so drop in the market. If it went down to support and sat there for a few minutes I added 1,000 units, and one time even added 3,000 units as it sat on support. Then when it pipped up a few to the blue line I closed all trades.
I netted several hundred pips, and increased the account size about 1.5%.
I’m just not sure this is a good way to trade permanently.
Hey,
Glad you tried it…it suits some people, but not most.
You say youre not sure if you can trade like that permanently??
Well…Ive been trading like this for 3 years already, and have been making enough to make a living, and grow my account as well.
There have been 2 rough patches in that period. But that was before I decided to only trade quiet periods.
Also…I only scale in at s/r lines, not just every 5 pips. But most of the time I dont even have to scale. Ive gotten pretty good at catching tops and bottoms.
BUT…there has of course been times when I put on a heavy trade at strong support, and it breaksdown, instead of bouncing. I just take the loss instead of trying to average it down some more…as it just gets to the point of stupidity.
My rule is, if the trade is bigger…take the loss if youre wrong.
If its smaller, scale in around s/r lines. If it keeps dropping, exit when youve reached 2% of your account.
Its worked for me so far. My daily goal is 1.5% a day…
But my average is about 1%/ day. Still not bad, IMO
This makes sense, glad you clarified, I’ll keep trying it. I have a few more questions if you don’t mind me asking you:
What timeframe do you trade exactly? I believe you said it started at 7:00 PM Pacific which would be 10:00 PM Eastern, correct? And what time are you finished?
I take it you set up your Oanda preferences to use a certain number of units with each trade, so that you don’t have a preset number to trade with. Can I ask how you determine that number of units?
I think I saw you mentioned you expect your trade to get positive soon, yet during this timeframe it seemed that mine lasted sometimes 5 minutes (granted I wasn’t buying just at support, but rather just scaling in every 5 pips).
Do you go both long and short with your method?
When do you close all trades? When you just see a positive number?
I assume you would trade this on Sunday evening too since it is usually quiet.
Thank you for this method. I look forward to continuing to test it.
What timeframe do you trade exactly? I believe you said it started at 7:00 PM Pacific which would be 10:00 PM Eastern, correct? And what time are you finished?
I start at around 6:30pm pacific, just after asian open. And Im done at around 9:30 or 10:00pm. But depends on the action as well. I have traded a full 32 hours before, lol.
I take it you set up your Oanda preferences to use a certain number of units with each trade, so that you don’t have a preset number to trade with. Can I ask how you determine that number of units?
Tricky question…
My largest trade with a drawdown of 70 pips should equal only 5% of my account. This is worst case scenario, power outages, internet connections etc. This stop loss has never once been hit for me, its just a precautionary stop against system failures.
Now as for unit amounts. It changes with every trade. Depending on the setup. If Im confident I go larger, if not, I go smaller.
This leaves me enough room to play with any amounts in between and up to my “large trade” amount.
As with the scale ins…
If its reaching a point of 2% drawdown, its time to stop scaling, and even think about taking the loss.
Basically I trade in the manner that everyone tells you not to.
I dont have a set plan as in TP and SL. R/R ratios. I trade all on feel, and balance watching. I strive to increase my balance everyday.
But like I said before, this style suits me, but most dont like it. Or they feel uneasy with it. Its definitely not for newbies, as I attribute most of my success to the fact that Ive been trading for so long now, and feel the markets pretty well.
I think I saw you mentioned you expect your trade to get positive soon, yet during this timeframe it seemed that mine lasted sometimes 5 minutes (granted I wasn’t buying just at support, but rather just scaling in every 5 pips).
Yeah, thats probably your reason.
Support and resistance are the only areas I execute trades. Unless theyre TP’s (scaling out)
Do you go both long and short with your method?
If you look at my charts I posted, you can see where I went long or short with the green and red dots. So yes…I go both long and short, regardless of hourly direction etc. Though if its a strong uptrend, I might buy heavier than sell. and vice versa. Just to keep the weight in my favour.
When do you close all trades? When you just see a positive number?
It depends on the trade. If its a strong trend and Im trading countertrend.
Im happy with 2 pips. But if its ranging, and I can see a nice pattern developing, its more like 6-8pips (after spread)
Though sometimes when its been a sharp fast move, towards resistance, and theres good confluence with other trendlines and fibos…then these trades can net a good 10-25 pips. It all depends on the trade.
My spreadsheet tells me my average is 3.6pips per trade.
I assume you would trade this on Sunday evening too since it is usually quiet.
Hell yeah!! Sunday is my favorite day! lol
Though the spread is usually a little higher, which kinda sucks.
Let me know how it goes…
Because tradings funny like this…What works for some may not work for others.
Just like I could not make money trading larger timeframes, yet many seem to be able to.
So might others lose, while trading like this.
It’d be interesting to hear if you can make it work for you.
Thanks very much for the helpful information below.
Since I did so well last night I decided to trade again this morning for an hour and made nearly half percent, so around 2% in 24 hours. But what is worrying me is I really have no exit strategy, rather if the position goes against me I put on additional trades into the support or resistance area. It has seemed to me that there would be no way to make 1% just taking numerous trades of 1-5 pips with very small unit size, so I developed a �scale in� method where I determine the number of lots that I want to use on a given trade, then divide that by 10. The first five scale ins use a tenth of those units available. The next two scale ins use the remaining 50%, so I have a maximum of 7 scale in positions I take if the market is going against my initial position.
So if I had a $1,000.00 account I would use 30,000 units (3 lots) as my entry position. I would enter the first 5 trades (if the market went against me on them all) with 3,000 units, every 10 pips the market moved against me. If it continued going against me I would enter the next two trades at 7500 units each. This has the effect of bringing my average position down significantly and in every case to date (probably close to one hundred trades now) the market has jumped up above the blue line (average position) enough to take some good profit. I do realize that is a huge lot size for that account size, and possibly I ought to start with much smaller units and just trade longer.
However, the maximum drawdown has been well over 2%, indeed upwards of 20% because I seem to be unwilling to take a lot of 2% losses, as I�m only aiming for .05 to 1% per day. I can hear it now from the veteran traders, that one day my risk/reward is going to kill my account. Yet I can�t seem to be able to get the direction of the market right, hence my �scaling in� entries, and I can�t seem to figure out how long to let a trade ride into profit, so I exit at 1-10 pips, depending on how fast the market is moving when I close.
So that is how I am doing it so far, any suggestions you have would be appreciated. Again, please keep in mind, I�m unable to predict market direction well, though I am starting to see support/resistance areas fairly well.
Yeah Id say 20% drawdown is a little scary. :eek:
Id say you gotta work at perfecting the entry somehow.
It took me many hours of screen watching, until I could perfect my entries.
Though some days still treat me like ****.
The market chooses how much it wants to give you on certain days, and theres nothing you can do about it. Besides limit risk.
Anyway…
Heres my trades for tonight. Havent traded heavily the last couple of weeks, due to band practice…Only 25 transactions tonight,
after april, I’ll be doing the normal 100-150 transactions a day.
Missed that first little ride down, but caught a tiny leg at the bottom. Then had to wait through congestion. Then shorted twice, until we reached confluence point of major trendline, and 5M projected fibonacci time reversal.
Big long trade at that confluence, with immediate bounce. Just how I like it
Big short trade after fast run up.
Took profits, but decided to get short once more, for the leg.
Then another big long trade at the major trendline again.
Then shorted when we reached the triangle top. It immediately spat out 7.5 pips in a second. So I took it and ran. Good thing. The market rallied after.
Take your chart and invert it and you have my trades for the night. Did I say I can’t pick the direction of the market very well? That proves it.
Why did you go short at what looked very clearly to me to be support? The market had dropped a little around midnight and then hit support and just stayed there. Thinks me, enter long! I then rode the wave down, long of course, entering every time I thought there was support again, only to finally reverse after a 50 pip drop with me entering long orders. OUUUUCCCH!
As you said it finally retraced the 35 pips needed to net me a half percent for the day. Before that, I was all out of orders, and had it kept dropping it would have been a margin call.
Sooooo, as you said I need to perfect my entries. I went long exactly where you went short. I thought it was support, you knew it was, what, resistance? That can’t be. How did you know to go short at that congestion area that looked so much like support to me?
I guess I could say that even though there was much risk and large drawdown, my averaging in did work, I did profit, and I didn’t crash and burn. And I didn’t even have to get the entry right. So hey, as long as I’m trading a small account, maybe this is right for me?
Thanks for your mentoring. I’ve been trading a long time, too, by the way, about 4 years. And I’ve been successful in finding numerous ways not to trade! Possibly this is another one. But so far I’m enjoying 100% wins on about 150 trades with a gain in my account of around 2% in less than 2 trading days. What do you think?
