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Hey guys,
I'm just curious as to how you guys survive all these damn range days!...I'm finding that my strategy seems to work very well on trending days but it's probably the worse strategy on range days. Right now i'm a scalper...so basically i rely on consistently profitable trades and 1 bad trade will wipe me out for the day. On range days i make consistently bad trades....how do you guys find the trend?
Summary of questions:
1.) How do you survive range days?
2.) how do you find the trend on a range day?...it seems to change throughout the day on range days
Thanks!
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
On range days i think it is better to fade the movements, since there is no trend.
Try to recognize where are the range extremes and go against the moves.
It may work, but there is no guarantee in trading, try it for your own risk.
Learn to recognise balance
Take the trades that are hardest to stomach, not the breakouts
Recognise topping and bottoming patterns on shorter time frames
Use statistics for time of day and day of week, range
Recognise a quiet news day
Look to see what references are being respected
Be able to cross reference intermarkets
Thanks for the input guys...I'm seeing a common thread. Fade the entries... Now i just gotta outline the channel/range with some lines and trade it....i'll try it out. thanks
Keep in mind there are different types of range days. There can be fast/wide range days or narrow/slow range days. During very low vol markets, the types of trading styles that work best will tend to be different. Trading with a large stop loss tends to work better in a low vol market but of course will result in bigger hits on trend days.
For the type of scalping that is probably available to us retail traders, it is basically still a bet on volatility and directional expansion. Trading with a stop loss basically works better in higher volatility markets.
You could try a few things: (1) widen the stop, (2) keep the stop tight and tighten the target, (3) increase holding time, (4) sit out
1. Adds risk
2. Does not add risk but will eventually require adding contracts which adds risk. This would be required because the tighter targets will result in tiny profits. It will also require that you have best of class trading fees.
3. Adds risk via time in market dimension.
4. Limits risk and opportunity. Decreases potential profits.
Right, it is very difficult to turn a profit scalping on slow range days because you are basically in a zero sum game against other traders. This is in contrast to when the market has higher volatility. If you're in a higher volatility market, it means there are more likely longer term traders who won't all be trading on the same information.
While not sure how you are trading, I'm assuming you are using rather tight stop losses: as such, it is unlikely to be as simple as fading the entries. Because, you would be trading in a fundamentally different style known as mean reversion style trading. This style of trading requires bigger stop losses and often more time in market. It can be very profitable but is unlikely to be able to be traded with tight stop losses because you're going against the flow.
The easiest way to avoid too many losses is probably just to use a daily loss limit and/or use other sorts of risk measures like a wait period after too many losing trades, decrease contracts, etc. Dividing the day up into 4 or more sessions can also be helpful.
Hi xiaosi,
Im interested, you trade GC, CL and NQ amongst others. What do you cross reference relative to those 3 instruments?
What statistics do you use in your decision making? Historical trade performance metrics or market data related?
Cheers.
I'm a big fan of contextual themes. So I'm trying to take my swing trades with that in mind. That said, I still use range and averages based on range for clues about potential moves and volatility. After that it's about identifying areas to get in where if I am wrong, the degree suits my risk budget. The only historical trade metrics I use are my own to evaluate the success rates of my particular plays.
At one time I had statistics on a single market that I traded intraday. I haven't stats on every market I trade yet.
