Anyone familiar with Bob Volman's material? Iirc he's primarily an FX trader. He has written two books, one on FX Scalping and the other on Price Action;which is written to help understand price action for all markets, though it focuses on FX. I recently bought and received his second book 'Understanding Price Action' and although I've only read a little bit of it so far, the material seems really solid and makes a lot of sense. He explains why typical breakouts often fail and goes into the reasoning behind this, (in large part contrarians taking the opposite side of a standard breakout trade), and explains how market context is so important. He also stresses the importance of volatility contraction in the buildup to any breakout, which increases the odds of strong follow-through. Although I'm a total newb, I find that this strategy for day trading in FX and Futures may never die out, it just requires a ton of repetition and practice.
Interesting. Others online say the opposite. But to each his own. I'm attracted to this type of trading. Straight up, one instrument, pure price action. In and out. Definitely the curve to learn is probably years. Takes a lot of experience with the charts to understand context and proper entries. But it does seem doable. I find with stocks there's too many moving variables that it's hard to keep up with. Although probably easier if you're trading on an intermediate frame, it's still more brain load.
Many who day trade stocks successfully, say to stay away from FX cause there is "no edge" for retail traders. By this they mean, that in stocks because of centralization and other factors, they can see more clearly the stocks that are growing and have strong relative strength to SPY to capitalize and move with institutional positions, but in FX this is information isn't there. Not to mention the small caps in and of themselves have less liquidity, lack coverage, and are more predictable, to which FX is a different dimension in this regard. But is not trading with the trend an edge, period? So much is discounted in the price itself that it seems utilizing the price action for ex on a 5 min EUR/USD chart, to stay with the dominant force in the market and picking correct points is THE edge. Sure, because of the liquidity in FX maybe there is more noise, but PA is PA and nothing can change the way markets themselves move and the opportunities that are provided.
It's easy to write books and teach, past, hindsight trading and sound so amazingly genius...but I'm guessing a huge bunch of educators have rather shit real world performance. Why engage in risky gambling with your own money...when you can just sell trading materials to the naive, gullible, sucker masses to get rich,
This is true, but iirc from what I read he accounts for this in his analysis so it's not skewed, but I've only read a little, so I can't judge the full material yet and see if what he purports is real.
Try to understand the daily broad market, S&P movement. Observe the macro and micro movement. Question it. Why and How. Dissect it with data, wisdom and patience. If you can nail that movement with options you'll do well. Scalping Forex is so...scalping Forex. S&P, Dow, Nasdaq charts combined. Synergy,
I hear you, but these two strats are simply a different game in their practical application. I really don't have an affinity for the former, but I understand why it's probably easier and has a higher success rate.