Anyone scalping the FTSE Futures??

MartinC-J said:
I have been abducted but by a sick two year old. Mrs C-J out with the fevers in the spare room. C-J junior with the fevers in my bed all night. So I got no sleep again and for safety sake not really trading. The little bit of trading I have done has been ok, and this lack of sleep has made me take less trades and be more patinet. Which is a good education for me!
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well i got my grand daughter today she has the runs .....great fun:(

trying to keep her amused we feed the small birds and get her to scar the seaguls ....so she's on seagul duty today:LOL:
 
i used the sp/vix chart today not th vix/sp it looks a bit better..crossed the +0% line yesterday so good for the bulls? the vix didn't update til 15.45 so we'll see how it goes
 

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Dick Lexic said:
i used the sp/vix chart today not th vix/sp it looks a bit better..crossed the +0% line yesterday so good for the bulls? the vix didn't update til 15.45 so we'll see how it goes
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I've been trying out what we were chatting about earlier. Dick. It's been a good day. Also read what Tomorton just said on the "Hard Stop" thread a few minutes ago. It, simply, is not worth hanging around waiting for prices to move. I've been working with one average, for trend, and nothing else.

Good trading
 
Splitlink said:
I've been trying out what we were chatting about earlier. Dick. It's been a good day. Also read what Tomorton just said on the "Hard Stop" thread a few minutes ago. It, simply, is not worth hanging around waiting for prices to move. I've been working with one average, for trend, and nothing else.

Good trading
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Hi split, glad you've had a good day what markets are you trading?
are you keeping to tiny stops?
 
Dick, I've taken 5 trades on FT cash. +2 +17 +6 +22 +2 . All with 12 points stops but I took any profit I could from the trades that started to reverse towards breakeven.

I am not inexperienced in getting into trades that should take a profit. My problem has always been letting profits revert into losses and getting stopped after having seen possible profits disappear. Anyone who has that problem will know how frustrating it is.

Neither can I know what will happen to me in the future but I have been taken by surprise that every trade I've made today has shown some kind of profit. Believe me, that has not been the case before.
 
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Splitlink said:
Dick, I've taken 5 trades on FT cash. +2 +17 +6 +22 +2 . All with 12 points stops but I took any profit I could from the trades that started to reverse towards breakeven.

I am not inexperienced in getting into trades that should take a profit. My problem has always been letting profits revert into losses and getting stopped after having seen possible profits disappear. Anyone who has that problem will know how frustrating it is.

Neither can I know what will happen to me in the future but I have been taken by surprise that every trade I've made today has shown some kind of profit. Believe me, that has not been the case before.
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cracking day split.. ha sounds like your one happy chap :D

the worry i have with this is if the market goes sideways it might just ping pong on your stops?
 
Dick Lexic said:
cracking day split.. ha sounds like your one happy chap :D

the worry i have with this is if the market goes sideways it might just ping pong on your stops?
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There will always b bad day mate, I'm justl starting Day 2 but I feel like a kid with a new toy! However, the wheels may come off any time :)
 
Splitlink said:

There will always b bad day mate, I'm justl starting Day 2 but I feel like a kid with a new toy! However, the wheels may come off any time :)
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us boys must have our toys:LOL:

just thinking what you said about having no problems with your entry then this should work for you but you might need to be quick draw mcgraw...good luck.
 
Well so far this looks like a more normal wednesday. We have had a 20 pt range for the first 90 minutes. I guess the market is waiting for some news for direction. We have a german bond auction with results maybe in about an hour. We may even stay in this range until then.

On the hourly the ES has broken out to new highs, whereas the FTSE still has to make it above the 5875.5 high from Friday evening. I am not letting trades run this morning and if I am up 5 pts I am banking it. The price action may well change as the day goes on, but for now it is a snooze fest.
 
Dick Lexic said:
hi reksa, this is the same one i had problems with before ...cash
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Sorry Dick, I have no idea what that chart is showing in the volume indicator. Last weeks volume was slightly up on the weeks before, but lower than 2 weeks prior to that.
4,905,828,779 week ending Friday 03rd Feb
4,317,629,365 week ending Friday 27th Jan
5,416,768,442 week ending Friday 20th Jan
5,244,770,828 week ending Friday 13th Jan

Is this from your actual dealing platform or a 3rd party website?.

If your trading using the SB company I would suggest you pay for independent charting feed if volume is key to your trading set-up.
 
Dick/Reksa - do you know exactly what these volumes measure? Been a while since I looked at FTSE volume and I'm thinking out loud but (i) i'm sure Z daily volume was typically in excess of 100K and (ii) I believe LSE/Turquoise offers a FTSE future but volumes are (or were) miniscule in comparison to LIFFE volumes.

So, I'd expect typical weekly FTSE futures volume between 500,000 and 1m.
 
Dick, I can't see any volume spike. If anything volume is falling. For the ES, anything over 2 million lots per day is good volume. Anything under 1.5 million is low volume. The highest volume day was two weeks ago. The lowest was this monday. Shows that money is coming off the table as the price keeps going higher. I am watching for a high volume down day to signify a top.
 
I'm playing a game with myself, here. Put it down to an old man with nothing better to do!

It is, actually, an exercise in never turning a gain into a loss. Its difficult from the tactic having given the trade room to breathe. If it goes into loss from the start I have not decided when the cutoff should be but the longer I accumulate points in twos and threes, the more loathe I am to lose anything very much and, certainly, I do not want to go back to my old ways of giving a lot back to the market.

So far, I have made three trades and picked up 13 points so, if and when I get that runner, I won't have a string of losses that I have to recuperate.

My trouble, now, could be be closing too early.
 
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Dommo said:
Dick/Reksa - do you know exactly what these volumes measure? Been a while since I looked at FTSE volume and I'm thinking out loud but (i) i'm sure Z daily volume was typically in excess of 100K and (ii) I believe LSE/Turquoise offers a FTSE future but volumes are (or were) miniscule in comparison to LIFFE volumes.

So, I'd expect typical weekly FTSE futures volume between 500,000 and 1m.
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Hey Dommo, these are not the figures for the current Z contract. They are the EOD data from the LSE for the FTSE 100 index. So a total of the shares traded that week.

What the volumes measure? I have no idea looking at that chart. Its not futures so it does not show contracts traded. Its nots showing the actual index volume.
I know some companies that show a volume based on price changes.
 
Splitlink said:
I'm playing a game with myself, here. Put it down to an old man with nothing better to do!

It is, actually, an exercise in never turning a gain into a loss. Its difficult from the tactic having given the trade room to breathe. If it goes into loss from the start I have not decided when the cutoff should be but the longer I accumulate points in twos and threes, the more loathe I am to lose anything very much and, certainly, I do not want to go back to my old ways of giving a lot back to the market.

So far, I have made three trades and picked up 13 points so, if and when I get that runner, I won't have a string of losses that I have to recuperate.

My trouble, now, could be be closing too early.
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I close a lot of trades too early too, but better safe than sorry sometimes. And a profit is never a profit until it's banked.

In normal markets I have a rule that if I am up 5pts, I will move my stop to breakeven or at worst 2 pts away from break even. I made this rule because on a few occasions I have held on to a loser that started as a winner.

Also, if the FTSE moves 7 pts counter trend, that is enough for me to close my position. In stronger more fast moving markets the fluctuation is larger and you have to be braver.
 
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MartinC-J said:
I close a lot of trades too early too, but better safe than sorry sometimes. And a profit is never a profit until it's banked.

In normal markets I have a rule that if I am up 5pts, I will move my stop to breakeven or at worst 2 pts away from break even. I made this rule because on a few occasions I have held on to a loser that started as a winner.

Also, if the FTSE moves 7 pts counter trend, that is enough for me to close my position. In stronger more fast moving markets the fluctuation is larger and you have to be braver.
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Thanks for that, Martin. Much appreciated. My main trading fault is looking at the gains dwindle into loss. It's more than a fault, it's a sin.!
 
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