Swing vs Scalp

[Caseynotes 2,593]

I saw this go through on twitter a couple of weeks ago and thought, yes, that's a good lesson. But looking at it again I just realised it was actually a poll with people voting on the answer. The results of the poll (over 16,000 votes) are a bit scary - I'll save that for later.

 

 

[trade247 187]

whoops....

I thought about it after I voted. Lol. Suggest everyone has a think before they vote.

[PandaFace 116]

Nice question. Sort of need to focus on the wording really. 

[Caseynotes 2,593]

Na you're over-thinking it.  The answer's obvious, it must be Bob because A) he clearly has more 'skin in the game', and B) everyone knows scalpers don't make any money. ?

[Kodiak 149]

They should both have the same result?

Bob 6 a point and 150 = 900

Rick 30 a point and 30 = 900

 

But it depends of what they trade, if its FTSE or forex then Rick should be filled the same day but Bob maybe have to wait to the next day (or longer) to be filled and maybe have to pay for the position to stay open??

[Caseynotes 2,593]

Ha @Kodiak,  that's really really over-thinking it, what's not explained in the question is that Rick never has any luck and is a perpetual lose r, therefore Bob must have made more money, stands to reason.

(why is the auto censor **** the word lose r?)

Edited August 17, 2018 by Caseynotes

[Caseynotes 2,593]

The original question raises a number of issues;

Can you trust your gut feeling? The answer is no, not unless you have a considerable a amount of experience that will subconsciously feed into the decision making process. A newbie should be working though the problem long hand so to speak until they have amassed experience. In the original poll 29% thought Bob had made more money and 8% thought Rick had made more money. So 37% thought they were instinctively correct and saw no need to work out the answer methodically - scary.

The big disparity ( 29 to 8 ) reflects overwhelming bias of opinion concerning styles of trading, that swing trading must make more money than scalping but that seems to be based on little actual evidence. The simple truth is that no matter what style you choose it is extremely difficult to make consistent profits as a retail trader.

The best way to view risk/reward is to think in multiples of R. R is the risk in any trade and the risk is the stop loss distance so Rick had a stop of 10 points so 10 points equals 1R. If the stop was hit Rick would have been out of the trade at -1R, if the target was hit the profit would be 3R. Looking at the question again you can quickly see the result of both trades was the same, 3R, and given that both had the same account size and the same % of the account risked on the trade the answer had to be that both made the same amount of money. 

 

 

 

[Trevbeats 10]

On 8/17/2018 at 6:11 PM, Caseynotes said:

Na you're over-thinking it.  The answer's obvious, it must be Bob because A) he clearly has more 'skin in the game', and B) everyone knows scalpers don't make any money. ?

Who says scalpers don't make money? The key is : I think is not to be too greedy in scalping..... 

[Caseynotes 2,593]

Hi Trev @Trevbeats, I suppose the reputation comes from the fly boy scalpers in retail who burn accounts with little effort but ignores the many prop firm short-term traders working off the price ladder. If we are looking at a 80% failure rate I presume retail scalpers lose faster than swing traders. ?

[Trevbeats 10]

Scalping but with homework in hand and not to greedy seems to work. And as for the swinging lol, that is just great when it pulls the right way. 

But that been said, "sound like Josh now" Careful trading and following trends is safer. What is your strategy again now Cassynotes? 

What the heackers caused this to spike tonight mate?

[Caseynotes 2,593]

Hi Trev @Trevbeats,  there is too much information on your screenshot, there are clearly hackers about on the forum so use the windows snipping tool to crop to edit screenshots or just use the 'export chart' in the drop down menu, the chart without personal info is placed in your downloads folder.

I've not got those spikes that look to be occurring on the US session close if your time scale is UK based.

 

 

[JamesIG 288]

Hey - just removed your username from the screenshot @Trevbeats and as caseynotes said it may be better to use the export charts button going forwards. 

[Trevbeats 10]

Yes will do sorry about that, silly me..

[Trevbeats 10]

Thanks for that James sorry about that should have seen it before I sent. 

 

I am on a mac so when I take a screenshot and go to tools crop is not highlighted? any ideas?

[Caseynotes 2,593]

No probs @Trevbeats, easy mistake to make and no harm done. I was a bit anxious as our Saigon med health hacker is back again. The basic security levels not to give away are real name, user name (and login account number for mt4) all of which are on display in a general screenshot. That's fine if you are sending it straight to IG but on a public forum each one is a security level given away.

So, talking about strategies I am a intraday swing trader (I just made that term up). I'm not really a scalper but I trade dips on an intraday time frame.

[Caseynotes 2,593]

Thought for the Day.

"If you put a gun to your head with 5 bullets in it and one empty chamber and the gun doesn't go off... did you make a good decision? 5 to 1 against! The only good decision in speculation is when reward outweighs risk and the risk of ruin is zero."  Mark Minervini

[Caseynotes 2,593]

Here's another one for you, I've included the results of the poll but which one is correct? (still scary).

 

 

[Caseynotes 2,593]

Answer to the above here, interesting that if you take those that went straight to results without voting for either and add them to the percentage that were wrong it's very scary.

 

[Caseynotes 2,593]

Some of you stock traders may be interested in this Mark Minervini free webinar early next month;

To register:  https://t.co/ckzTLo8gsL