franky

its interesting that you mentioned that, going all in at once. My mentor loved scaling in and out, but i have seen other pro's, like linda raschke talking about how she enters full size at the market. Once of the reason why i like to scale in and out is because most trades i take never work emmidiately. Market always bounces up and down. Most of the time, i've scalped enough points during when the trigger went off that if my initial position does turn out to be a loser, its a scratch trade. If it does work out, i add to it. So most trades are potential big winner, potential small winner, potential small loser, and NO potential big losers(very rare). But i wanted to know what others poeple experiences have been( hopefully at least a couple of years of daytrading). Im am willing to change the scenerio above to include potential big losers only if my winners are going to be really big and my bottom line is giving me better results. It seems like you have tried both types of trading, and I appreciate your comments. Would be nice to hear other opinions as well.

i trade the ym alot, and i make money consistently, so i am definitly not a new trader, i just didn't know which section to put this under. My question is profit targets. I wanted to know how you guys, from past experiences, use as your initial targets, and more importantly, when you take that target. For example, if your initial target is +5, and your final target is 30+, and you just started scaling in, meaning so far you only have 1 car instead of the 3 you usually take(full size), do you take that first car off emmidiately once you hit you +5 since you don't have your full size on, causing you to potentially miss the bigger move, or do you take your plus 5 after you've scaled in your buy points(so you can scale out)?? Is a +5 initial target too small? I'll give an idea of how i trade this, maybe i can get some more experienced traders critique this a little. -With the filters, i don't take my initial target. What i actually do is my first order i enter i expect it to be my homerun trade , so it only has a trailing stop, and then i scale in taking my +5 after my first order is in. So i get a buy trigger at 100, i enter at market with x stop, and then i see if i can get a better fill, and take my +5 from there with same stop as initial target. If i cannot get a better fill, , i actually average up into the trade and take my plus 5 from there. Against the filters, i enter my first, but if i get to my initial target without trying to get a better fill, im flat, untill i can get a better fill. The problem is sideways markets, when filters are useless. How do you play this? i tried looking at my past trades, and i can't seem to find a way to play it right. Some trades, i should pretty much look for a home run without even having a initial target, some, i get stopped out completely. Also, since im on the topic, do you guys even try to scale in, or is everything at market. I know there's two camps on this. One of the reasons i scale in is because im good at scalping. Looking forward for some comments from some pros...