It all started a few years back, when I began searching the web for information on Scalping. I did find some information in bits and pieces. One of the most relevant ones was by TastyTrade, yes, the one that I am currently reviewing on the blog.

There were a few others in bits and pieces but none spoke from an Indian context. None talked about the best products to scalp in India. I had to do a lot of "recontextualization" to make that knowledge/information relevant for me. A little more than a year went into it.

Given that we have thousands if not millions of aspiring traders and scalpers, I felt quite strange that there is such a dearth of information, I mean quality information in the context of scalping.

That's when I decided, let me be the person who puts the content together, the idea was to use my experience to reduce the learning curve for others. By this time I also had made copious amount of notes from various sources, which I wanted to share with those interested.

That's how niftysalper.com was born.

What can you expect from NiftyScalper?

Content - We would bring scalping related content with an Indian context. It's important because Indian markets are very different from other geographies in terms of data availability, tools/technologies and break-even costs of various products and hence we cannot blindly follow what works in those markets.

As shared earlier, there is a huge gap in terms of availability of quality content, we would try to bridge that gap as well.

Lastly, there are several facets to trading. Its the combination of these facets that makes or breaks a trader. Everything from Product Selection, Execution Mechanics, Market Awareness to Trading Psychology plays a role in refining our trading skills.

The aim is to structure the content on the blog in a framework that connects all these aspects.

Coaching - The second piece which we would focus on at NiftyScalper is Coaching. When I started my journey a couple of years back, I literally didn't have anyone I could go to. And those who were accessible discouraged me from scalping., calling it a wild goose chase. In retrospect I think it would have helped if they had shared with me the possibilities and risks associated with this trading technique and let me choose if it was suitable for me.

One of the thing a lot of developing and aspiring traders/scalpers look for is some sort of framework i.e connecting the dots across the various facets of scalping. Secondly, there could be people who are inherently (for various reasons) find it difficult to read and understand, they would someone to handhold them. Lastly, as a trader moves on his or her learning curve we at times need someone to bounce our ideas off to. The purpose of coaching would be to bring all this and more for aspiring scalpers.

Community - As James Surowiecki says, "Many are smarter than a few", and that holds good for us too. At the end of the day there is only so much that I can do and there is only so much that I know. But to broaden the horizon of our learning, we would also need to reach out to others who are on the same pursuit, perhaps at various levels on the learning curve. At NiftyScalper the attempt would be to bring this community of scalpers/traders and learn from each other.

Guess that's pretty much for this BLOGCAST. Do write in.

Sandeep Rao

February 4, 2017

Personal, Blogcast

Why do I Scalp?

Sandeep Rao

February 4, 2017

Personal, Blogcast

This is the my first blog post on the site and let me be overwhelmingly honest. I have no clue as to how its going to shape up. But one has to start somewhere and here it is.

I thought of writing the first post about something that the whole site is dedicated to i.e "Scalping", and more importantly as to - Why do I do what I do? in other words - Why do I Scalp?

To understand that, we will look at Scalping through three lenses.

Personality - I think this is one of the key aspects of trading success, in the sense one has to find a strategy or method that suits their personality. One element of my personality is Risk Aversion, yes before you make that obvious expression, let me explain. Here I am referring to "Overnight Risks". I just cannot sleep in peace with open positions. That's me. Even if its just two piddly lots, it weighs on me.

A related aspect is, scalping or day trading gives you the freedom to close your day, when you want to trade and also to choose how many days you would like to trade. And as I said earlier, when you are not in trade you not in trade - its as simple.

Opportunity Cost - Since I am a full time trader, if I do not make the best use of my time, its not fair. And Scalping is the only strategy for which there are opportunities practically every minute the market is open. So to make the best use of my presence in front of the screen, I scalp and scalping gives me the best relative yield for the time invested.

Developing Expertise - This one needs a bit of an explanation. When I reflect on all the other careers/jobs I've had in my life, one thing that made me leave those jobs was the fact that most of them had changing expectations from me. One year it was some work and the other year something else, at the end you become sort of, a jack of all trades. Perhaps all corporate jobs are like that. At end you do not feel a sense of satisfaction which you get from refining and improving on a specific skill. This is where I use to envy trades/professions where there is a constant use of the hand and head, where variables in the context of practice are well within your control. In the context of trading, the markets are not in your control but everything else that you do is indeed in your control. That I think is very critical for expertise development.

So what's all this got to do with Scalping? - Well the line of reasoning goes like this - I intuitively felt that I need to be working at something where I can constantly practice a skill, and refine it over a period of time + In an environment where a fair number of variables are in my control + and (Borrowing from Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule) - I wanted to get past the 10,000 hour threshold as early as possible. - So as to develop expertise.

Since scalping gives you innumerable opportunities to practice your craft, and if you do practice and make use of the opportunities, I guess there are fair chances that you would be able to develop some sort of expertise in it. You are not dependent on the opportunity to show up. This for me is one of the biggest advantages.

Think about it. How many professions give you such a structured and predictable opportunity set to practice?

So that's pretty much for this post. More later.

Please Note - Each of the blog posts which are categorized as "BLOGCAST" would have an accompanying audio both on SoundCloud and YouTube