Backtest your strategy on both to determine which is suitable for you. Simply, someone using a different strategy and tells you one is particular better than the other needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Backtesting your strategy should give you an answer in a few hours of research. Another way to look at it, the answer you seek is dependent upon the strategy. Mark
crude is more volatile, which is what most day traders like. crude often moves 1-3% a day while the S&P usually doesn't
Does anyone trade s&p mini and make a steady living at it? Seems like oil would be easier. But even easier i think would be to watch about 30 different oil stocks and trade those. Much more innefficiencies in that then the oil contract itself.
Stock indexes are more predictable than commodities, in that the opening, middle of the day and close, all have distinctive behaviours. NQ is better than ES, as the daily range is many more ticks than ES (the reason is the spread, the NQ spread has recently been cut in half). ER2 trades the most ticks, however people find it is too volatile, it jumps several ticks in one go very often. Crude futures also suffer from this.
There are a few that post proof of such in the past Trader P/L threads here at ET although I don't know how long they been profitable at such. Mark
if you find an edge in any market ... you can make a few hundred to a few thousand a day with less than 50 k in a retail acct ... it does not have to be oil or e mini's or even forex however if you have no clue what you are doing or are depressed or have outside issues that have not been addressed then a self sabotage drawdown or blowup might occur down the road ... esp on a volatile day where you break your rules ( that is if you had any to begin with ) good luck
I didn't mention that I've traded both and prefer Crude as a swing trading or position trading instrument and the S&P Emini as a day trading instrument. I just think Crude has more opportunities each year as a swing trading or position trading instrument in comparison to the S&P Emini. In other words, if you looking to diversify (highly recommended)... Trade both and many well seasoned veteran traders do just that. Mark
you realize that you're talking something around 500% a year... I don't belive you can make that consistently - and why wouldn't it scale up to 500k account?
I have recently resumed futures after a lenghty layoff. I have limited myself to these 2 instruments. It is somewhat predictable when there wil be more volatility in both of these. Crude inventories are released on a schedule and the day before there will be unusual activity. Also weather and political events will give reason to take notice. On the last trading day of 2006, when it was announced that Saddam Hussein would be executed, QM jumped about .50. Shorting this "non-event" would have worked well, very well, or if you held for this week, perhaps a life changing event. ES also has days when volatility is predicatible. Unemployment, Fed meetings (and minutes of them), PPI, CPI, GDP, ISE, Beige Book, Retail Sales are all worthy or notice and a special strategy should be anticipated if trading in front of or after the release of these numbers. So, my answer is both, when the time is right. Hope this helps.