Tradewinds

If you take the price at midnight, then the price at 9:30, add them together and divide by 2, that is half the distance between the two price levels. I can only guess at why the half gap based on midnight and 9:30 sometimes works. Traders probably have had time between the close of yesterday, and midnight to think about what is probable and what their strategy is going to be. Maybe there is new information. In any case, the sentiment of investors can change from yesterday at the close to very early morning. And that sentiment, speculation, hedging, whatever their strategy is, is reflected in the price action.

I'm very interested in strategising using news, internals and gaps. I'd like to discipline myself to forecast what the ES might do the next day, then keep a log of how successful my predictions were. I wish this site had the ability to create a database table.

10-19-10 ES Gap Fill - The ES did not fill the overnight half gap today. It came close, but did not fill. There is a gap, however, that the ES did fill. And that is the half gap from midnight on. I use two different Half Gaps". One is the traditional half gap from yesterdays close to today's open. The other one is from today's price at midnight to today's open. They are often two different price levels, and tell a story. Today's gap was from 1181.25 down to 1167.25. So there was an unusually big drop overnight. To big a gap, I guess, to fill the overnight half gap. But again, the midnight to open half gap filled. And it filled by 10:15

10-19-10 The ES dropped hard right after it returned back to the days opening price at 13:46. Accumulated Volume was down all day. UVol - DVol was down all day. There was a steady march down in Down Volume all day. Even though there was much more down volume than up volume, the price of the ES was actually above the open until early afternoon. So I consider that a divergence. Price was up, but there was more down volume. Something had to "give" sooner or later. And the breakdown resulted in a sudden 10 point drop over about 13 minutes.

Have you taken a look at this group? TOS_thinkscript : Think or Swim Thinkscript programmer

So let me verify what you have done here. You asked a question that has nothing AT ALL to do with trading, IN A TRADING FORUM. That's okay. I'm not necessarily against that. Because I like to try to help people, I did a search on the internet trying to find something about bookmarks. I thought this site was interesting: bookmark manager - download tag - page 1 - Softpedia

If something is very important, and you should be using it as you are trading, then you need to remember it. Having it filed away, or bookmarked in that moment may not help, especially if you need to make a decision now. So you need memory techniques. Write the information down using a pen and paper. Then throw the paper away.

One reason could be the ratio of trading fees to profit. I've practice traded at times when my account showed a "profit", but because I had so many trades, the fees were bigger than the profit. My cash balance was negative. It's important to look at your cash balance if you are going to scalp. The other potential problem that comes to mind is the issue of successful fills. The order may not always fill at your needed price on either side of the trade. The third issue is the problem of minimizing your profits, when they could have been larger. That is only a problem if you get one big looser. But it's easier to wipe out a small profit very quickly, than a large profit. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not against taking small profits as they happen. The appeal to scalping is the attempt to assure profits, and put your fears at ease. That's understandable, and not necessarily a bad objective. But the market rewards risk, not safety. Please don't interpret that as a rationale to go start taking wild risks. I'm not against scalping as NEEDED, I'm not sure that it's a viable strategy to scalp on every single trade. I think it's important to avoid the issue of severely limiting your gain on a trade by scalping, when you could have made a little more money. You should know the market you are trading well enough to be able to reasonably guess when price is going to continue in the same direction.

People use alcohol and drugs to "self-medicate". They feel a need for something external, outside of themselves to meet a need. It could be anxiety, depression, the need to relax, wanting to have some fun, wanting to feel better, etc. If fear is keeping you from trading correctly, then alcohol could lower your inhibitions based on fear. The market rewards risk, not safety. So as long as you have a good fundamental ability to make good trade decisions, lowering your fear might help. I'm not suggesting you drink and trade. I'm just explaining the psychological dynamics that might be happening. In fact, I suggest that if you want to use alcohol to deal with the fear in trading, that you look for other ways to deal with the fear. Mostly a well defined set of rules that you have tested in simulation, and know that they make money. Use that to modify your mental and emotional state. You need to have SOME fear while trading. Or maybe not fear, but concerned alertness. It's like guys who insist on doing wheelies on motorcycles with no helmet on. Sooner or later you're going to get your brains bashed in. Have a healthy respect for the danger in the market.