Indeed. I cannot afford your course. All I can tell you is, the irony of this year is tragic. Back on Oct 2ndish 2018, the market started a grind down to 20% by X-mas eve. By THIS time last year, the market was already down 10% from Oct 2nd. Now look at October 2nd of this year. The market has basically GAINED 10% since that date, as of today. WTF? Total inverse. I must use caution, for...
Unfortunately I didn't short at the weeks open(not paying attention) but the move caught my attention and I understand why it made the move it made. However I wasn't convinced we were at the top as Europe, Japan, Transports, Small Caps still look all bullish. I bought some futures contracts at the bottom but it was scary as fuck holding it, as the market wasnt bouncing higher until later in the trading session. I attempted a very leveraged short position at yesterday's open and the market moved instantly so I thought we were headed for a significant further correction. However it held support and being greedy, I didn't cover a portion of my contracts. I held the whole position until it got near my entry in which I let the trade go for a scratch. I look at today's open and pat myself on the back for not being emotional and stubborn like I would have in the past which would have caused me a significant loss. Instead, I got a few ticks on the low of Tuesday and didn't lose money betting for a potential 87 type of crash yesterday. So net net, I am happy of the preservation of capital. I know there will always be another opportunity to trade. Gotta keep sticking to my plan and learning from my mistakes. Fine tuning But I could have done better in trade management and covered a few contracts on yesterdays open instead of aiming for the homerun as the odds of that are very very low .
What if you were trading a futures market that had twenty tic trading range swings per month and a one lot initial position margin was $800 - could you make money ?
Yes, totally serious question. If you had 24 months of Daily modeled trading range would you risk 5 tics to make 15?
Tic size and denomination same as outright contract, bid/ask spread during prime hours single tic (lowest denomination) wide, bid/ask volume at best price is orders of magnitude greater than outright, after the prompt three months the exchange spreads are 75% ++ of the volume. I don’t let my clients trade a contract that doesn’t have significant enough volume for minimum bid/ask. Let me extrapolate: Eurodollar spreads are like 15K x 18K, Crude Oil 300 x 600. Much much thicker than the outright order book. No comparison.
How much money per tick, how much average daily volume? How much BA spread in terms of number of ticks? I need these numbers to answer your question of "could I make money trading it."
Name your contract Cowboy. The big swinging dick volume is in the exchange spreads. Only exception to the rule is INTER market where you have to scale if you want thousands. An INTER spread market is like: Russell 2000 vs S&P500. An INTRA spread market is like CL M20-U20-Z20 butterfly. So, Eurodollar is 10K at BA. Crude Oil 500 at BA. If you’re doing INTER market like Russell versus DJ it’s whatever is on the outright BA.