Trading NQ 10 Ticks At A Time


#1

By Darrell Martin

Nadex offers all kinds of instruments for traders of all experience levels. How do you decide what is the best for you to trade? Your personality and trading schedule largely influences that decision, along with your choice in strategy to trade.

A trader decided he was only going to do scalp trading that day. Scalp trading is quick. It is a strategy where your profit potential is smaller compared to other strategies, but you usually do it repeatedly, thereby increasing your profits.

The scalp trading strategy is based on profiting from numerous small market moves. Disciplined exits lock in profits before the market can change direction. The goal is to have a greater number of wins, making long trend trades unnecessary. The scalp strategy with an edge is sure to have a higher ratio of winning to losing trades. Also, the target profit amount is equal to or greater than the stop amount.

The market chosen for these scalp trades was NQ, which has the E-mini NASDAQ-100 Futures for its underlying instrument. In less than 30 minutes, three trades were completed. Let’s look at the image below to see how scalping this market worked out for the trader.

At about 10:12, a trade was entered. Ten ticks later, at approximately 10:14 the trade was exited. The market reversed and another trade opportunity presented at 10:22. Around 10:23 and 10 ticks later, the trade was complete. The market went down and when it went back up again, at about 10:35, another signal to enter was given. Once more, ten ticks later, about 10:36, the final trade was exited.

NQ is not necessarily always a fast market to trade, which can be conducive for scalping. Know your system and strategy. Follow your rules, manage your risk and you can be profitable.


#2

So were these binaries or spreads? And if spreads, does 1 tick equal 10 dollars in profit or 4 dollars in profit? I get confused between the .25 tick size on the charts and the .1 tick size in Nadex…

Thanks in advance for your help and special thanks for offering so many tools to help traders be successful.

Joel


#3

Joel, Those were futures scalp trades, each tick was $5. It can be confusing to see the difference in $/tick between futures and spreads. You just need to follow your charts and take the entries that it gives you.


#4

Thanks so very much!