Today is Friday October 19th and will be updating trading results at the bottom of the page for the past week, but want to share a few thoughts on the title of today’s post, “scalp trading for daily profit”.
For most people scalp trading is the hardest form of day trading, but it has it rewards and its disadvantages for some. This is the most difficult form of trading to master as your discipline and patients will be tested. Learning how to trade and take on small profits here and there is a learned skill and not something that just happens. For many, they think it is all to easy until they try there hand at it.
Every trader who sets out on this course needs to have realistic expectations and know that you are trading up against professionals and you will be working against your own human nature. Both of those forces are very strong and one needs to first identify them and know that they are very real in there quest to bring you down.
If you let the professionals have there way, they will force you into a trade long only to stop you out and then take the market up but without you in it. When it comes to yourself, working against you, it will seem like you just do the wrong things at the wrong times and lack the vision you need to see the market clearly. Both of these forces need to be addressed with a well defined plan and execution method that offers you the “trading edge“.
Every trader needs that edge to come out on top. You need to know how to tap into it and use it to your advantage. In understanding how the professionals work, you need to think just like a professional and not a rookie trader. They know where support and resistance is and how market structure maps out there next moves. This work can be done on large time frames in the daily and hourly market, and with much lower time frames and tick chart settings. All the work in market structure will pay off as you see how the markets are not at all random as some report.
Let me say a thing or two about market structure. That is the well defined boundaries that exist in all time frames across the board. Those boundaries create market pressure and places on the chart where traders will react. In those reaction area’s is where the trading edge can exist. This goes for different trading styles as well and would include my style. My trading style and methodology is very unique, but it is not the only one out there that works. What ever can offer you low trading risk tied with good reward can be an acceptable trading method for you.
Every trader needs to find what kind of trader they are. This can take some time in itself. Do you want to take 1 trade a day if it comes up, or are you willing and able to take 3-5 trades or yet even much more. A lot has to do with how much time you want to invest in following the markets. If you have only an hour or two a day in the morning, then you will be best to find those low risk trading opportunities that offer you the trading edge as you scalp trade your way to your daily trading goal.
All of this comes as you are able to read the price action as it unfolds into your own trading method. This is something that over time will be specific to you and tailored to your time, trade expectation and risk tolerance.
Many traders start out scalp trading for small profits and then later find out that what they do best is wait for those bigger trades and ride them out. That has advantages and again disadvantages, because market conditions are always changing. You may be looking for a big move when all you get is small intra-day swing trades. There scalp trading your way to a daily target or profit objective is much easier.
A short term scalper, can always find a place on the chart to pick off small moves if he knows what he is doing. The same can said for long term position traders but you will be tested in waiting and waiting. There, a “no trade” is a trade and a position in the bigger market picture. In fact, that is a good thing to remember for all traders as well. Taking a no trade position is a trade, because you are waiting for that needed trading edge we talked about earlier before taking action
There are many factors in finding your niche as a trader. Those who take there time and learn before they start to earn will do much better. Learn what type of trader you are, scalp trader, swing trader, position trader and what time frames and or tick chart values will work best for you given the time you have to trade.
Trading as I do, there will always be opportunity within the markets to find your edge and work towards being one of those professional traders who makes his living from trading. It is not easy, but it is and can be rewarding if you are able to overcome your own personal weaknesses. The market has a way of exploiting those personal trading weaknesses and will bring you to your knee’s if you let it. The question you have to ask yourself is, “what are you going to do about it”? Cowboy up and overcome all trading obstacles even if that obstacle is you.