If I had never traded a futures contract and Jack Hershey was giving me advice, no matter how insulting I found it, I think I would shut up and listen. He's seen a lot of well-prepared newbies blow out and doesn't want you to do the same thing. The fact that you haven't exactly shot the lights out trading equities is a warning sign. Personally, I don't totally agree with his advice that you must be a big success in equities before trying futures. I think the skill set and aptitude needed differ a bit. His reasoning however is sound, namely that going from equities to leveraged futures is like going from go carts to a formula one machine. One slip up and your account is history. You can get lucky in stocks and make decent money, great money in fact. That won't happen in the futures, particulalry in this environment where the daily ranges are so tight. You are going up against the best professional traders in the business, and many of them find it next to impossible to make money. Unlike Jack, I haven't followed your posts , so I have no idea if you know what you are doing. My advice is to do a lot of backtesting, if only to see what doesn't work, trade very small, ie one lots, and try to do as FEW trades as possible. Good luck.
i cherish advise from anyone....but when one starts off saying... "You did not make the cut for me to continue to track you since I don't think the investment of my time is warranted" and then goes on assuming a have added additional capital to my account...thats not giving advise. I am proud of my trading. Sure i didn't make any $$ for a long time....but i survived, and now am making $$, up 10% in last 5 months. I know that aint no home run out of the park performance.... but i have been trading conservatively. If this means only superstar traders can make it in e-minis... so be it... i guess i wont be one of them..... but im proud of what i've done so far...especially my background was in a dead end job with no financial education. For him to say the things he said was wrong. oh well....i guess i dont speak fancy enough and have a huge trading account to be part of this BB
Hello: I am done for the day, and wanted to suggest a few things with respect to trading commodities. I have been trading these markets for 11 years. Over the last 8 I have traded the S&P contract. First, it is clear to me now, that the way to find success is to obtain good training. Second, a successful trader will need to learn to approach commodities carefully. In my view the first step is to learn the landscape. Specifically, there are important "events" that take place during the trading day. You need to know A. what they are, and B. How to interprete them so that you can decide how to react. Unfortunately these landmarks are significantly different for commodities markets (particularly indexes) than they are for stocks. Second, I have noticed that new traders trade too much. I used to trade quite a lot, and now I put on one or two trades a day. I have learned to characterize the market trend early, to get in early, and to use leverage intelligently, in order to maximize my presence when the markets are going my way. Compare this with your questions about how many contracts to start trading and you will get some idea of the road ahead. At this point my daily goal is 10 S&P points. Realistically I have to scale down to about half that during the summer months, and I take August off completely, so as not to give back what I have earned during the rest of the year. If you read carefully, both my words and what is implied, I believe you may get the message that this is a rather long term venture, and one that you would be well advised to enter slowly. Just learning your market will take months (minimum). Good luck, Steve
Steve, how long did it take for you to get it? Also are you trading other markets/products or SNP exclusively. Curious George. ozzzzy
well first few weeks i had no clue whatsoever... after that $4000.00 loss one morning i shortly closed my account and studied the mkts and got an "education". I then opened a new account with IB, and paper traded for about 4 months. I had a pretty good idead about how mkt works....never had any more big losses... and traded very small...but never made any money. In beginning of this year my losses were under $400 / month ...i kinda was getting it pretty good...than in last 5 months every month was a winner. My best month i took nearly 17 net pts from mkt. I think the key was when i stopped worrying about weekly performance and concentrated on monthly. i currently only trade stocks.
Yes, what you sometimes will see on AMEX vs. Globex is the specialist finishing a big order and printing the average price that is way outside the market. The print will usually be huge, and way outside the market, but don't think you can get in at a low price or anything, the next quote would indeed be lockstep with the ES. Having said that, these misquotes would totally throw off a simulator, as Equalizer correctly mentions, so it would be highly recommended using ES data.
Ozzy: Sorry, I was away from my terminal for a bit. It took me several years to "get it". That is to figure an approach (including risk management) that would be viable for the long run. Steve