Nothing to something scalping system

Thought I might post some ongoing results of a strategy I run on the SPI. Lots of comments this year about this market being too hard to make money in and TA not working anymore and FA blah blah blah.....but for me this is the best of times. It wasn’t that long ago the SPI would be having a big day if it had a 40 point range. Now that’s just about the average range for the first 10 minutes. I am finding more and more opportunities in this mess.

My trading is all scalping in the true sense. I have no targets but rather aim for entries on counter ticks to small patterns I see repeating in whatever instrument I trade, in this case it’s a SPI linked CFD and once in a trade will flip out of it on just about any tick against me until it’s a good 10 points or more in my favour then if I think it might be a runner I will trail a stop. But to be honest my head is so wired to flipping I’m more than happy to take 10 ticks and close the trade. Because this uses CFDs and you are down 2 points on any entry my initial stop is only a tick. Of course I have many trades that lose more than that but I don’t let a couple of bigger than expected losses upset me. I just keep plugging away.

The trades I am posting are from one of many strategies I trade. This one is called the Nothing to something scalping system. I do lots more volume in the Futs but I trade more CFDs on the open and close as a warm up. This stops me from blowing my daily stop on a couple of sh!tty big volume trades on the open. I will use much larger volume in the futs mainly because the CFD providers close me down too soon if I hit them with big volume and secondly I’m normally trading very small amounts of friend’s money with the CFDs. Which is what I am doing with this account. I will be ramping up the lot sizes almost daily so it’s will be interesting to watch what can be done as far as aggressive trading goes.

Just to be clear these results are from the first 10 to 20 min on the open and close each day. After the open I move on to trading just the SPI and HSI futs where I get really busy.

Also these are small but real money accounts not demo, I will send statements to some Mods to verify that I’m not full of BS.

The amounts in these accounts are tiny % of my total trading capital.

The point of the thread is to show what I believe mostly lacking in trading info. That is that you are better off being creative and developing your own approach rather than following “accepted wisdom” and trying to imitate a guru’s method.

So here are yesterdays and today’s results.

Re: Nothing to something scalping system.

1st of Oct

Re: Nothing to something scalping system.

2nd of Oct.

Today I dug a bit of a hole for myself when I got swept on a couple of bad trades. This is not that unusual and part of the reason why I start slow and build up lots sizes on my trades in the futs.

Re: Nothing to something scalping system.

Trembling Hand said:

Also these are small but real money accounts not demo, I will send statements to some Mods to verify that I’m not full of BS.

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Just to add to this comment from TH - I have seen real money account statements. direct from the broker that verify TH's trading - no BS. For those wanting to learn from a real trader, trading real money, this is going to be a very valuable thread.

Great Thread TH.

What do you use to record all your trades to get stats? Excel?
Does it take long to input all trades after a trading day?

Hey TH, how about a quick tutorial about getting into this system. I, like many others, are struggling with trading shares and battling just to keep our capital - let alone making a profit.

TH

thanks for sharing
it is always good to see how others approach the market,
there are a multitude of ways as u well know.

a hypothetical question for u,

lets say you are averaging 100 pnts a day, quite achievable no doubt,
if you could gain this in just say, 8 or 10 trades, would you prefer it,
or would you rather do 100 trades a day??

thanks
James

PS i dont have anything i'm trying to sell u, just interested

TH, what settings are you using on the stochastics to scalp?

: jkjk

Are these scalps based on the ladder/tape or charts based? Also with CFD providers, its nice to have a 2tic spread when the underlying has a 4tic spread like today but is execution speed/filling an issue?

Thanks

BentRod said:

Great Thread TH.

What do you use to record all your trades to get stats? Excel?
Does it take long to input all trades after a trading day?

Click to expand...

No time at all. just export the data then past it into an excel template.

roland said:

Hey TH, how about a quick tutorial about getting into this system. I, like many others, are struggling with trading shares and battling just to keep our capital - let alone making a profit.

Click to expand...

Wax on, wax off.

James Austin said:

TH
a hypothetical question for u,

lets say you are averaging 100 pnts a day, quite achievable no doubt,
if you could gain this in just say, 8 or 10 trades, would you prefer it,
or would you rather do 100 trades a day??

Click to expand...

The diff I find between my scalping and trying for intraday swing/position trades is that i have very few down days. You can probably take more ticks on certain days with longer term day trading but there is going to be days when more you end well in the red also. Unless you have a very high win/loss ratio. I mean I can lose 10 time in a row and still only be down 20 or so ticks. Looking for bigger moves you need bigger stops so a few losses in a row and you are going to be down a lot more. I think they probably even out in the long run. I will at a later date explain my thinking on this.

skyQuake said:

TH, what settings are you using on the stochastics to scalp?

Click to expand...

Nah thats just 1 of 10 indicators I use. :

Mostly DOM with the odd glance at a 1 min chart.

What is DOM ?

Also do you ever turn a scalp trade into a swing trade after an exceptional market move??

BentRod said:

What is DOM ?

Also do you ever turn a scalp trade into a swing trade after an exceptional market move??

Click to expand...

Depth Of Market. Also know as price ladder. see pic of Spi futs.

Yeah if it runs hard I will trail a stop if I think its got legs. But I'm more than likely to flip and reverse at any sec.

Thanks mate

Trembling Hand said:

Wax on, wax off.

Click to expand...

quite a dumbo response for a valid question, thanks - I used to respect your posts

roland said:

quite a dumbo response for a valid question, thanks - I used to respect your posts

Click to expand...

The devil made him do it ............... intresting thread cheers

roland said:

quite a dumbo response for a valid question, thanks - I used to respect your posts

Click to expand...

Come on just playing didn't mean to offend :. But its the basis of what I think makes the diff.

You have to practise, practise and then practise some more. Its all about screen time, years off it.

I will run over how I go about this eventually but it will be of no use to just know what I do. You still have to do the time. I see this time and time again. People "learn" a TA method and are using it 2 weeks after discovery. To me thats all wrong.

F me!

That's all I have to say.

:cowboy: Fastest trigger finger in the west ...... amazing stuff!!

TH, I respect what you do, and think you do what you do the right way. I've also noticed you are very aware and careful with risk management inside your system.

I don't want to hijack the thread away from what you are showing, but did just wanted to ask if you've considered risk coming from totally outside your system?

Eg What if your broker goes broke, due to their own problems or a counterparty's? (If you have all your cash with your broker that is)

Have you considered moving most of it somewhere 100% safe (eg Treasury bills in your name, not in the name of a custodian, and not pooled with the assets of other clients. (I won't bother mentioning gold!)) and only leaving in what you will need for a day or two trading?

refined silver I have it spread out enough that if a couple fall over I won't be lining up at the soup kitchen. I actually throw off a bit off cash each month and don't need a lot in my trading account to do what I do. So it gets moved out monthly. Especially since I have stopped trading things overnight. Whether where it goes is any safer

If they all go down well then I will grab my new bike and tent and go and live in Byron. Which is where I started about 8 years ago busted ar$e broke and living in a $20 tent in the bush Such is life

How on the planet of the apes do you manage to execute so many trades in such a short timeframe? It looks like you're doing 2-3 trades a minute. And you still manage to post on a forum. I get dizzy just looking at your stats.
It takes me about a minute to properly set up a bracket order and check it, not even considering the time it takes me to realise I have a good set up before that. Maybe I'm just a slow old dog.