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A lot of Scalpers in the Emini are going for a 4 tick scalp. A common practice is to take a profit after 1 point in the ES and maybe let go a small part of your position as a runner.
Al Brooks also mentions these 4 ticks as a first proft target and I regularly find scalp traders using this 4-Tick-Scalp Technique (PATs, Michael Chin).
But is this "rule" of 4 Ticks still valid? Right now the markets are very volatile and the emini often creates large candles where signalbars can have 16-20 ticks from high to low. (I'm trading 2000 Tick Charts) Also we are trading now at 3200 points, not at 1500 when traders already were scalping for these 4 ticks.
Wouldn't it make sense to adjust these 4-Tick / 1 Point Scalp or is this practice still valid? If so, I really see no other way than focussing on the smallest Signal Bars to be able to place my 8-Tick-Stop. This would lead to fewer trades per day and even fewer, when the Emini hits much higher value, 4000, 5000 or whatever.
So is this technique of scalping 4 ticks still valid? In my opinion, you need to adjust your profit target from 4 to 8 ticks and your stop loss from 8 to 16 ticks. But I'd really like to hear other opinions, especially from emini scalpers who maybe solved this issue or who still continue without adjusting!
You can use the same setups on a lower time frame. I drilled down to the 10 sec chart. You still can adjust risk and target levels. However, I will only trade with higher time frame direction, momentum and levels although according to Bob Volman this isn't necessary and I think he might be right. Trade well.
I agree, and have been doing exactly that since the daily range and ATR has increased. I'm using 8/16, the math is the same but even more surprising is that my win rate is higher. The 16 tick SL rarely gets approached while with 8 I was getting stopped more often. Also it's interesting to see that the MES/ES will give you a 4-6 tick profit then pullback and take out any runners at BE, doing much better going for 2 all at once even with 1 lot.
Word! That's exactly what I've been experiencing - the Break-Even-Stop gets taken out quite often. Currently I'm trying out different approaches about my Stop and TP Levels. Right now I take out 3/4 of my position at 8 ticks profit and move the stop of my remaining runner to break even. It get's fished a lot of times.
What I've also noticed is, the ES creates far more 2000-tick-candles over the day than the MES. I have to adjust the MES to about 1200 ticks to get the same number of bars over a period of time as in the ES. Of course this varies from day to day and you shouldn't change your MES ticks all the time, BUT in my opinion you also have to adjust here and find out your prefered tick chart settings on the MES and can't simply copy the 2000 of the ES.
Maybe there is someone who trades the 2000-tick chart on the MES regardless of the differences above?
I've been using 1000 tick MES, started at 500 but the volume continues to grow. I talked to a trader a while ago that used a 3 tick PT then moved his stop to -3 so BE was worse case and supposedly his runners did much better, IDK lots of ways to do it, good luck! I'm AIAO, it's not in me to hold runners, lol.
Yes, that is the best of both worlds, I tried it but on Tradestation I can't see my PT/SL on the ES chart when trading the MES. It's very frustrating so in looking at both charts for many weeks I feel they're close enough for my style (Mack+) that I could move from MES to ES without any issues, we'll see!
You may want to drop down a few time frames...
I used to trade on the 5 range, now I've dropped down to the 3 range due to huge swings in price(ES).
Sure, I may have a lot more bars and sometimes spurts of bars but I feel my Targets and SL are much more realistic now.