2006 Dec 21 - Thu

Scalping, Elite Trader, and Range Bars

On the Elite Trader Forums, a poster that goes by the moniker of yoohoo has quite a few useful things to say about scalping.

Scalping is definitely an intraday activity. One attempts to capture small movements in the market, often of a one or two points. And one has to remember to make sure that the movement includes room for slippage and for commissions.

I've heard a number of definitions for the term 'point'. In those forums, I'm now given to understand that a point can be a synonym for the spread for the equity.

Yoohoo indicates that he's been trading since about 1998, so I think he has quite some experience. His posts certainly indicate that he is drawing on much hard earned knowledge. For traders trying to get on the positive side of the markets, his comments, as well as many others, are worth reading over at the forums.

As part of the set of indicators he uses, I learned of a new one: range bars. According to the article, range bars were invented by a Brazilian trader named Vicente M. Nicolellis Jr. In a nutshell, range bars are created through price movements: once an instrument has moved through a preset price range, a new bar is created. This creates a series of same sized bars, and is time independent. As a result, a trending market will generate a series of range bars as it goes up or down, while a sideways market will generate few if any bars (as long as the sideways movement is within the range of the bar).