How many markets ?

[tar]

Which is better : specialising in one market , watching it day night and trading it alone or trading many markets at the same time to protect yourself if you r wrong on one of them ?

 

[N Rothschild]

i would trade a handful of markets and specialise in them. its to hard to keep track of to many markets at once. i trade futures in s&p500, gold, crude, some individual stocks and occasional FX for a swing trade. also dont include markets in your pick that are tied to the same fate..i.e dj and s&p;s dont count as 2 seperate markets (obviously they do but from a risk point of view there the same IMO)

 

[shadowninja]

I only trade FX and within that I only trade EUR/USD, AUD/USD, GBP/USD and USD/CHF. I used to only trade EUR/USD then started with AUD/USD once I got a feel for how EUR/USD moves... it's a long process.

 

[Rhody Trader]

The more short-term you trade, the more you should probably narrow your focus - eventually down even to just one particular instrument at the shortest timeframes. It's a combination of both having sufficient opportunities in your chosen timeframe and being able to effectively track the market(s).

 

[ganndalf]

I trade one market only. When I've acheived mastery in that one then I'll diversify into another, uncorrelated market.

 

[tar]

The more short-term you trade, the more you should probably narrow your focus - eventually down even to just one particular instrument at the shortest timeframes. It's a combination of both having sufficient opportunities in your chosen timeframe and being able to effectively track the market(s).

lets say i want to scalp a market by monitoring the live book and the chart ( oil , gold... ) , so its better for me to do this to one market only

 

[Rhody Trader]

lets say i want to scalp a market by monitoring the live book and the chart ( oil , gold... ) , so its better for me to do this to one market only

Scalping implies that you are focusing very closely attempting to spot the little opportunities to be jumped on quickly. If so, splitting your attention puts you at risk of missing trades, so you should probably focus on one market at a time.

 

[tar]

Scalping implies that you are focusing very closely attempting to spot the little opportunities to be jumped on quickly. If so, splitting your attention puts you at risk of missing trades, so you should probably focus on one market at a time.

Thanks for your replies , but let me clarify my Q : some traders trade cable alone , others trade oil only, others trade S&P only , is this better that u focus and trade one market only (all the time either scalping or position trading ) or its better that u trade several markets ?

Out of the subject : what u think of scalping the crude oil by watching the live book ? is it doable , and if not which market better for this ..... if any ?

thank for all

 

[Rhody Trader]

Thanks for your replies , but let me clarify my Q : some traders trade cable alone , others trade oil only, others trade S&P only , is this better that u focus and trade one market only (all the time either scalping or position trading ) or its better that u trade several markets ?

As I've stated previously, the shorter your timeframe the fewer the markets you should follow. Scalpers generally need to specialize on just one. Position traders, however, generally need to follow several to ensure sufficient trading opportunities.

Out of the subject : what u think of scalping the crude oil by watching the live book ? is it doable , and if not which market better for this ..... if any ?

I'm not a scalper, so I'll leave this for someone else to answer.