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There's always NQ or YM, at $5 per tick? (Or even spot forex micro-accounts, for those wanting to put in a little practical experience without worrying too much about the cost of drawdowns). I mention it only because I was slightly surprised to see M6E being recommended in any context for scalping (though I saw and understand your points about using limit orders and having low commissions).
I would not scalp M6E. There isn't enough volume to be able to execute any order even if it is a limit order. And you can't use a limit for a stop loss.
Odds are you will not be filled anywhere near what you were expecting live. Hence the reason I said it is better to swing M6E because then entry and exit doesn't matter as much. If I slip 6 ticks on an exit for a swing that is up 100 ticks, that slippage isn't going to hurt.
Of course and spot forex is valid, however.. the actual amount of money over a few minutes on NQ/YM is often nearly the same in $ as the ES itself. A swift swing in the wrong direction and your easily stopped for $60-100 bucks. It seems far less likely on the M6E?
I'm not recommending the M6E for making a living just I feel it has its place for certain types of beginners and low commissions balance the equation. Liquidity does not matter, you can limit scalp the EMD as long as your good targeting price to push through entry by no more than a few ticks?
Sorry @tturner86 I did not see your response before I answered the last. I have been only playing with it for a few days, I have seen no limit slippage? I made 15 test trades and win or BE on all 15. Thats a small sample of course so if there is major weirdness I bow to greater experience of the instrument.
Edit:
These were 15 x 1-3 contract live trades at entry I'm surprised I did not notice but I'm not doubting your slippage experiences. I'll have my guy live trade it next week and see how things progress.
Because of the volume slippage will vary. Sometimes I don't notice any other times it is bad. Either way my point is that you cannot be certain on your entry and exit in M6E which makes scalping near impossible.
Ok just to nail this sucker down, tturner86 kindly answer a PM and the definition of Scalp and Swing is the problem.
I think its worth clarifying as grey area terms confuse the heck out of most beginners.
TTurner86 would generally define a scalp as usually a trade lasting ticks to minutes (also @Tymbeline?). I would generally call a scalp anything below a four hour chart and under 5 minutes as maybe "fast/quick scalping".
So it seems one man's scalp another's swing here. I hope that is fair to say?
With regards to liquidity/fills, when I slow-scalp? I usually have order waiting on some predicted line or other a long way out, so I fill no problem, often nearly on touch. When I "fast-scalp" and sometimes I will place 200+ orders a day per instrument like this, I may drop orders at Ask (or Bid), count a few seconds and if no fill I cancel and I repeat this until I have a 'feel' for the fill timing. Nothing fixed of course, I enter trades quite freely whenever I sense I will fill & exit fairly easily.
So sorry if I caused confusion in terms but this always happens with Scalp and Swing
One way I look at scalp vs swing is in terms of r:r. 1:1 is a scalp and anything greater is a swing.
I am not as focused on r:r as I used to be. The biggest question I ask when I trade is whether the market is trending or ranging and that determines how I should trade.
In a trend buy pullbacks and swing. If I believe we are trending I may allow a trade to go against me if I am still conviced of the overall direction.
In a range buy low sell high and scalp. And I am very tight on exiting and not taking heat.
Possibly but its ambiguous, when I started trading half my time was sniffing for a poster's charts etc. so I might discern what timeframe or chart type he/she/it was likely talking about and make sense of it all.
It may be the dynamic duo of antibiotics talking (fighting my flu/chest infection fever) but I have an idea for disambiguation...
Every possible nano/micro/scalp/swing trade combo whatever is assigned one of the 85 known Batman BatFight Words
OK, we could just say scalping on a 610 tick chart or on the 1,2, 15 minute etc. and certainly that would make more sense (to boring people) but BigMike is working on the new site framework now and the 393 Smilies available are getting pretty humdrum?
That's where we disagree; but as you say, that's at least partly because we're using the word "scalping" with different meanings.
Wishing you a fast and full recovery from your chest infection. (Antibiotics don't help flu, which is viral. But stay very well-hydrated: many people don't appreciate the extent to which infection-symptoms are caused/aggravated by the dehydration arising from fever perspiration.)