I am a scalper, so I am not terribly interested in long term trends, Elliot Wave theory or any market trading technique that requires me to think ahead much more than one half day. That is to say that I am trying to carve out 2 pts. or more out of intraday directional movement. I truly believe that the market is random, so when I use the word “trend” I am not using in the sense that a technical trader would. The truth is, I use the “trend” for lack of a better word to describe intraday directional movement.
Since the market moves in many random ways, my trading method only seeks to take advantage of a tendency for people “hop on the bandwagon”. People will generally watch the market and jump into a trade when they see it heading one way or the other, and they generally stay in the trade too long. People tend develop strong emotional ties to a trade they make. They get into the mindset that the market “ought” to do something based upon some information they have gleaned, or some event that has occurred or is occurring. From the onset, let me say that the market does not “have” to do anything and freeing yourself from this mindset will greatly improve your trading. The markets are not rational, and you will drive yourself crazy trying to rationalize the movement you see unfolding on your chart.
Since I believe that the market moves randomly via fractals, or fractal movement, I do not believe that identifiable patterns form. This always gets my technically oriented friends in a ruffle, and I am often cursed for this belief. An overwhelming amount of evidence has been collected by academics to prove that the market is random that it is difficult for me to fathom that some people trade with chart patterns. By chart patterns I am talking about the species of technical formations typified by “head and shoulders patterns, pennants, double tops, double bottoms, etc” In short, I do not use any chart patterns in my trading.
On the other end of the spectrum, I do not have any use for fundamental trading either. For scalping, it should be self evident that we do not use fundamental principles. If they actually worked, most fundamentals take at an intermediate period of time to develop. My trades are anywhere from 1 minute to 30 minutes….I have been in very few trades longer than thirty minutes. But I’ll go a step further on this topic and offend all the disciples of Ben Graham and Modern Portfolio Theory….I think it’s about as valid to use as chart formations. Note to self: Is the screaming and yelling I am hearing from the back of the room? Are they throwing things at me yet?
My thesis for rejecting Modern Portfolio Theory is really simple: just because a company is well run, has products of high quality, and a healthy cash flow does not mean that the stock price will go up…just look at Cisco for the five years before it’s big move last year. Here was a company that was doing everything right but the stock price stayed pegged at around $20 for years, and there are countless examples of this being true. So I don’t use P/E ratios, beta coefficients, alpha coefficients and all the other investment terms that go hand in hand with this style of investing.
No, what I like are little spurts of unpredictable momentum. Other than fractal theory, there is no viable explanation for the gentle (and sometimes violent) rocking pattern that is part of every chart. Of course, the problem has always been ascertaining when these little bursts of momentum take place. How can you time your entry and exit points to take advantage of rocking (or swaying) that is on every chart? How do you know which sway is going to be 5 pts and which one will be a sideways move?
I have taken the liberty of drawing a dark line so you can see the swaying action in the market, and you will notice that some market moves are very short and some are very long. How do we get into the market for the long moves, and stay out of the short moves?
So…..now that I have offended every modern day investment theory out there…lets talk some about what I DO…INSTEAD OF DWELLING ON WHAT I DON’T DO.
There are many things I keep in mind when I trade, but I have 4 rules that I never deviate from. Some of these rules were hammered into my head by my mentor nearly 20 years ago, others were learned the hard way- through experience.
1. Never trade without stops in place. I can’t imagine a trader trading without a stop order in place, and am amazed when I talk with other traders at how many trade without placing stops. I suppose you might try to justify trading without stops by saying that you are sitting right there at the computer and will be able to trade out of any position before you can get in trouble. This is not true….without stops you have no way to account for the lightening fast moves that can come about from catastrophic news…The ES contract moved 71 pts in one 1 minute bar after one of the last rate cut announcements. Granted, you can have a move gap through one of your stops, but this is so rare as to have only happened to me once. Even on the 71 point move I was able to exit with a stop executed. Without stops you are taking excessive risk. Also, the stop is also a mental stop. As I have said, traders can become emotionally attached to their positions and the stop serves to remind them that they are getting out of the market whether they like it or not.
2. Never let a winning trade become a losing trade...this is one of the most difficult things to learn. When do you pull the trigger to exit? Of course, there are many oscillators that can give you a pretty good idea when the trade is over….but I have watched trader after trader get 3 points up and become convinced that market is going through the roof. It seldom does, and what generally happens is the trader rides the trade right back down to breakeven or a losing position. We will talk at length about how to avoid this….but exit strategy is seldom easy. And for those of you wondering, I can’t stand trailing stops.
3. Avoid trading against the trend…but if you must, cut the number of contracts you normally trade in half. I chant “the trend is my friend” twenty times before going to bed every night. And I still make bad trades, almost always against the trend. How do you know what the intermediate and short term trends are? I make it easy, I chart an 89 period Simple Moving Average and when the price is above the moving average I concentrate on long trades, and conversely, when it is below the 89 period average I concentrate on short trades…this silly little rule will save you money.
4. Be on the right side of the trade…have you ever done this? You have considered a trade carefully after watching it set up exactly the way you dream of. Everything is perfect, except the trade skitters sharply the wrong way when you execute. Most traders will watch the price crash into their stops and chalk it up to experience. You don’t have to be stopped out on every losing trade. If the darn thing looks like a dog out of the gate, and your oscillators even confirm this, get out….I’ll say it again, you don’t have to ride every trade into your stops. It takes a tremendous amount of ego reduction to do this….you have to admit to yourself that you were dead wrong from the onset and take a smaller loss than hitting your stops. It not as easy as it sounds.
