Swing & Scalp

Hello, Traders;

Going on the notion if it can be thought of someone, somewhere's done it before, this question is to all who've beat me to it: What are the pros and cons to swing futures trading one quarterly contract and scalping another in the same trend but in the opposing direction? Price isn't so much the concern as is movement, I'd think, but on rollover days and days near before them and after them I'm wondering if you could capitalize on price flucuations just a touch longer in scalps due to the spread differences in contracts.

I'll be forward testing this today, it being the Thursday before expiry, but in the interim I'd appreciate any feedback you may have already.

Thanks in advance;

I think that the Thursday before expiry will be 19 June and Rollover Day will be 12 June.

I'm in a scalp trade in Sept as we speak with a 2 point spread from June's. I was told by my coach today's June's rollover. Either way, the scalping's good.

G'day;

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I think that the Thursday before expiry will be 19 June and Rollover Day will be 12 June

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What contract are you trading Xuanxue?

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Originally posted by day trading

What contract are you trading Xuanxue?

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I use only the ES & YM instruments presently. Trading under 50 contracts, myself, insurance per contract seems to be cost effective. What about you? Are you a brick trader?

I only ask because the interest rate products have been rolling this last week but the ES and YM don't roll until Thursday 12 June 2008.

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Originally posted by Xuanxue

...Going on the notion if it can be thought of someone, somewhere's done it before...

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I just thought of something very interesting, from the standpoint of analytical thinking. I'm not disagreeing with Xuanxue (now SPQR), or being confrontational or antagonistic at all, heck, it is a common expression, not something he came up with anyway. I just want to show a critical thinking skill that just hit me.

Personally, I strongly believe that most of my own core methodology has never been thought of before. I've never seen a lot of it, and never heard of anything like it anywhere. One of my number derivations is so unique it took me about four years to find the derivation after I found the number experimentally. It's simply impossible for me to think anyone else has done that exact process. In other words, someone has to be the first.

Even if one says I wasn't the first one to come up with all the things I have not seen elsewhere, and even if I grant that for the sake of this discussion (after all, the point of this post is not to point out that I think I'm a big innovator and to toot my own horn), then someone else was. Someone was first. And hence that invalidates the common saying.

The reason I think this is especially important is in how it affects traders who, like myself, prefer to discover and invent their methodologies, as opposed to learn existing ones. If one starts with the assumption that everything that can be done or imagined has already been discovered, it tends to discourage creative thinking, and tends to create a resignation that the best spent time is simply studying the work of others.

Even if one says you might as well try to discover things anyway because most of what has already been discovered by others is kept secret, and you have to discover it on your own if you want to know, while that may be sound feasible, it simply isn't true. Again, someone has to be first.

For example, were Einstein's theories, those of Hawking, already thought of by others, but simply not published? If so, who was first? Someone was first. I strongly doubt the cave men knew it. Hence, whatever they thought of was never thought of before. Not every song that could be composed has been thought of, every cure for cancer thought of but simply not published, every technological advance for the entire remaining history of humanity already thought of, just not revealed yet. No one could think that was the case.

Some may find this discussion trivial or useless, but I feel it is not. All of us, myself included, take some things at face value, we accept things we have always heard, and this can seriously limit us, or alter the approaches we take. I think it is best to think critically and independently when we take in information, when we do our due dilligence.

If I believed in that well-known saying I never would have discovered all the incredibly unique things that make up my methodology. I never would have been an innovator, I would have been a follower. There is nothing wrong with the latter for some, but it just wasn't my desired path.