Buy the Atlas Line, Trade Scalper, ATO 2, or enroll in Mentorship.

If you’ve been following our videos for some time, you’ll notice we use the ATR to gauge volatility. In the video, the ATR value is > 10. Take a look at that green line and value near the bottom of the chart. Very volatile conditions!

The Atlas Line signals were good. After a Long signal, price went up. After a Long signal, price went down. The signals look like winners. The first trade had a profit target of three points. Trading one contract, that trade would have been worth $150 before any broker or exchange fees. Not bad. If you have the funds to trade using more contracts, you could multiple that profit value (but remember to factor in broker and any exchange fees). Notice how the ATR value was much lower than 10 at the times those signals were produced. Would you place a trade with an ATR of 10 or higher if the Atlas Line or another system told you to?

We often advise staying out of the markets when they’re that volatile. If you’re in a trade and the market becomes volatile, you can close your position. However, you may incur a loss or smaller profit. The Atlas Line and our other methods incorporate multiple stop loss rules. For example, although a trader typically uses one stop loss at a time, the rules for the Atlas Line get you out of the trade if 20 minutes have passed or a candle closes on the opposite side of the line.

In some cases, when a market suddenly gets really volatile, the trade can still work out in your favor. The second Atlas Line trade was worth 3.75 points (18 ticks * $12.50/per tick on the E-mini = $187.50 profit before broker or exchange fees). If you were trading two contracts, that would have been $375 before any additional fees. A decent daily wage for many in just a few minutes. Of course, day trading is not like a typical occupation, so be sure to read through the risk information we have on our site.

Want to see the Trade Scalper performance? Jump to 7:20. Skip to 9:45 to see an example of how a Trade Scalper trade looks in real-time.

Missed today’s live webinar? Watch the recording above to see what happened. Right away, you can see our Trade Scalper running on two markets in one chart: the ES (E-mini S&P 500) and CL (Crude Oil). Everyone who attended saw the trading signals plot in real-time.

At about 1:50, John Paul explains the importance of having common sense stop loss values. Too high and the risk exposure is too great. Too low and regular price fluctuations will exit a position prematurely. Because the Trade Scalper is a scalping method, the danger is choppy and/or rapid market conditions considering smaller profit target (3 to 4 ticks) and stop loss values are used. As an option, consider using a trailing stop. Learn how to use trailing stops beginning at 4:30.

Other topics covered:
• 14:30: Cyclic daily price activity
• 19:30: MIT (market if touched) orders vs. limit orders
• 25:30: Using our Atlas Line software as a predictive tool (Long signal)
• 30:00: More Trade Scalper signals with potential wins/losses/expectations discussed
• 32:30: Knowing your profit limits and the dangers of overtrading; profit and loss management, psychology

Do you know that we have a new Group Mentorship class that begins Feb. 27, 2020? Class times are Tue. and Thu. from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. EST (UTC-5). Click here to find out more.

If instead, you want to start off with the Trade Scalper, click here for our courses page.

Check out our new trading news events calendar page. It shows scheduled financial news events for the week. How is it useful? You can stay informed and know when to stay out of the markets or place trades based on news events. Why would you want to stay out of the markets around news events? Because of increased volatility. When financial reports are publicly announced, price can suddenly take off in the opposite direction and hit your stop loss. By the way, we teach a free news trading method that pairs nicely with the calendar. Watch that trading video, “Trading the News,” on the top of the videos page.

Quick tips on how to use the updated news page:

• The current day (column) is gray in color.

• Events marked with a pink/red circle signify potential high-impact.

• Events marked with a green circle signify potential medium-impact.

• Click the small Consensus or Report buttons for event details.

• Use the calendar navigation area on top to look at future or past dates.

• Click the Event Definitions button to learn the different event types and their classification.

• Prefer a different time zone? Click the Change Time Zone button to select a new time zone.

• The calendar works well on mobile devices; so check from your phone while you use your main computer for trading.

As always, if you prefer to see news events on your NinjaTrader chart, visit our Free Downloads page and download our Free News Indicator.

Like quick trades? Purchase the Trade Scalper and get these signals for the next trading day.

Here’s what it’s like to see a Trade Scalper signal and then trade it. It’s really the same process you would undertake if you had the Trade Scalper software running on your chart. As usual, we’re using the NinjaTrader platform. If you need help getting NinjaTrader on your Windows computer, send us an email at support@daytradetowin.com.

Moving forward, this is a Short trade. The order is placed using the Dynamic SuperDOM (off-screen). We have Chart Trader enabled with an ATM Strategy, so you can see the profit target (green) and stop loss (red) lines and values. Look at how fast the profit target was hit. Don’t delay when scalping. Preconfigure ATM Strategies based on frequently used profit target and stop loss combinations.

Since we’re trading the E-mini S&P here, 1 tick = $12.50. Therefore, 4 ticks (aka 1 point) = $50. If we’re trading 6 contracts and made 1 point of profit (excluding broker fees, etc.), that’s $300 in profit. Of course, you’ll need to have enough funds to trade multiple contracts. Regardless of the amount of money you have, we recommend taking it slow and devoting significant time to practice via paper trading. Then when you’re ready, start off with just one contract to get a feel for how things move with “real money” trading.

Later in the video, there’s another short signal. Watch what happens!

To get the same signals on your charts, click here to purchase the Atlas Line or click here to purchase the Trade Scalper.

Here’s a review of today’s Atlas Line and Trade Scalper signals. First, we look at the Trade Scalper on a 2-Range E-mini S&P 500 (ES) chart.

Unfamiliar with a “2-Range” chart? It’s simply a different way of looking at price activity on a chart where each candle represents two (2) ticks, or .5 points. For example, you can see that all of the candle (aka bar) heights are the same (two ticks long). A 2-Range chart lets us see price patterns differently and this is helpful with the Trade Scalper strategy.

The text that you see, Long and Short, are the Trade Scalper signals. The first two signals are Long. Both would have been successful, according to John Paul. You can also see an example of a losing trade.

At 1:00 in, take a look at the Atlas Line performance on the Micro E-mini Futures (MES) market. More Long trades here. Many traders like to use the Atlas Line and the Trade Scalper together to find more opportunities and filter out potential losing trades. We like to think that when both methods say, “Go Long” or “Go Short,” we stand a better chance at winning. The small S and P (not related to the S&P of E-mini S&P) represent Strength and Pullback trades. These are additional Long or Short signals. They’re color-coded, so the anticipated market direction (up or down) is indicated.

Keep watching the video to see performance reviews for prior days.

We’ve posted about the predictive/forecast method called the January Effect for a number of years. Now that we’re at the end of January 2020, we can soon look to use this long-term, historical method to predict if price will ascend to new heights by the end of 2020. This information is useful for futures, options, currency, and stock traders.

To summarize how the January Effect works, we look at the E-mini S&P 500 price value at the start of the 2020 (January 2, 2020). We compare the value with price on the last day of trading for the month, January 31, 2020. If the later price is higher, we say the January Effect has predicted that 2020 will be an “up year.” By “up year,” we mean that in December 2020, the E-mini (and other important market derivatives/measures) will close higher for the year than the closing price in January 2020. To put it simply, if January was an up month, we expect 2020 to be an up year overall. That said, there are no guarantees the January Effect will be correct. However, we have found it useful for identifying long-term breakout buy/long opportunities as we have chronicled in past videos.

As discussed in this video, price is currently near levels in early January. There are a few days left in the month. Watch how price performs on January 31, 2020 to see if 2020 is considered an up year. If price closes lower, we will say that there is no January Effect in play for 2020. Yes, the year may actually end up higher, we just don’t have the historical benefit/indication of the January Effect.

Based on the Jan. Effect, when should one buy? We wait for price to break previous highs. This may include swing trading. We also wait for a four-day retracement. Please watch the video to get a better sense of how this free trading method works. The explanation of placing trades related to the January Effect begins around 4:00 in the video. To better understand how this all works, use 2019 as an example, as John Paul did. Also, you can configure NinjaTrader’s Fibonacci tool to show horizontal lines for 0%, 50%, and 100% of a drawn distance, which is a good visual aid to identify areas to place trades.

Get the Trade Scalper signals on your chart today!

At the start of the video, take a look at the two nice Trade Scalper signals using a 2-Range chart with NinjaTrader. On a 2-Range chart, each bar (aka candle) represents 2 ticks of ranging price activity over time (however long it takes to plot each bar based on volatility). At around 2:42, the later trade results in a four tick (1 point) win.

When scalping, timing is important, but always have a profit target and stop in mind. We use NinjaTrader’s ATM Strategy feature to predefine these values. This way, when we place an order on the DOM, we have a premade ATM Strategy selected so we don’t have to fiddle with values when fast entry is important. For this Trade Scalper method, we’ll tell you what values to use for ATM Strategies, etc.

Once you’re in a trade, try to refrain from moving your profit target and stop loss values. Doing so will put you “at the back of the line,” essentially. Orders are to be processed first-come, first-served. Also, avoid using stops > 2x your profit target. It’s probably too much risk and a sudden unfavorable move can greatly impact your trading account. Too small of a stop loss is also a problem because “normal” market movement can stop you out prematurely.

Scalping is a great way to minimize your time in a position. Trading always involves risk, so the less time you spend with an open trade, the less risk. We often recommend our Trade Scalper method for this reason. The strategy is “in and out” whenever price action says, “there’s a trade here.”

In day trading, other than the pursuit of making money, the one thing that confounds traders the most is order placement. Placing orders is a requirement for day trading. A person places a buy or sell order with the hopes of making money. Sounds easy, right? Well, there are different types of orders and each one behaves differently. You should know what’s available to you. For example, some order types may work best for some situations and not others. In this video, we’ll teach you about the differences and use.

What are the different order types? Discussed in the video, you have market orders, limit orders, MIT orders, stop orders, and stop limit (also called stop with limit) orders. Depending on your trading platform, you may have all or some of those order types available to use with buying or selling.

Sometimes, you may want to get into a position (aka get into a trade) at a given moment. A market order will do this. It’s probably the easiest to understand. Essentially, you get into a trade wherever the price is soon (almost instantly) after clicking the Market button in either the Buy or Sell column of the NinjaTrader SuperDOM (pictured in the video on the right side of the screen).

In other cases, you may want to get into a trade when price reaches a certain value or one more favorable. This can be accomplished with a limit or MIT order as explained at 3:40 in the video. Please take a moment to watch the full 15 minutes, as it could save you time and potentially money (in case you could be using more appropriate order types for your style of trading).