I trade the SPI in Australia via a SIM account only and my system is indicating I can average around $600 per week on 1 x contract. This after all slippage, drawdowns, commission etc. That's around about 5 points per day. Comparing this say with ES or any other futures index, is this reasonable or low or high by your estimations?
One person on this forum contacted me a week or so ago and claimed they were scalping intraday and pulling in a $1000 or so per day on 1 x contract. Another guy reckoned the same thing, however it entirely alludes me how they can scalp intraday and pull this money. I have spent a considerable time looking at intraday and can't see how it is possible on 1 x contract. I'm talking about on average over a long period of time, not a day here or there.
If you are talking a 5-day trading week, $120/day is about 2.5 ES points/day. I would say that's stretching it as an average day. It's definitely possible, but I would say that maybe 5% of traders actually accomplish it. If you can actually do the equivalent of that on any futures contract, I'd advise sticking with that one and adding contracts along the way. Anyone claiming to make $1K/day on average on the ES with one contract really needs to put up rock-solid proof because that's so far beyond the norm that it's like claiming you can run 100 meters in 8 seconds.
SCAM ALERT. Do there exist traders that may achieve such results on a consistent basis? It is possible. Would they contact you on ET? Not a chance in hell.
100 to 150 dollars per day per lot in any market is excellent and probably the professional standard. 3 or 4 ticks in the bonds, 2 0r three cents in the grains, 8 to 12 ticks in the E6. You get the picture. Sure, somedays are going to fit your style like a glove and you are going to make multiples of these base amounts, and others you are going to get chopped up a bit. Anyone claiming 20 ES points a day is scamming you. Believe me, scale up to 100/200 car posiotns, and you will get more quality pussy than you can shake a stick at.
Trading a single contract intraday for an end of day specific number of points or ticks is a long-term losing strategy. Try capturing 20 ES points intraday with a single contract when the given day ES range is 8 points. Conversely, capturing 20 points intraday with a single contract when the given day range is 50 points is not too impressive as it's suggests inferior (less than 50%) trade accuracy. However, consistently capturing some significant fraction of the daily range with a single contract intraday is how its done!! When trading multiple contracts intraday, total points/ticks per day (not per contract) could and should equal 100% or more of the daily range, even with a 50% accuracy. Think how this would/could affect your money management!! Trading this way throws the concept of having a daily point/tick target on it's butt. That's a different thread.
Do you guys ever annualize the gains on these theoretical constructs? If you trade 1 contract and the daily range of the ES is around 20 points and you capture 10 of those (50% accuracy), that's $130K, pre-commission. $260K if you capture all 20. How many ES traders do you know making even $130K at the retail level trading a single contract? 1% of all traders? I know there are guys making more than that, but not trading 1 contract they aren't. Don't know why some people try to oversell the potential of 1 contract and the amount of the intraday range you can capture. There's just no way to get 20 points a day, even if the intraday range is 50 points. In theory and hindsight, sure, but in real-time, no way, no how. If you can capture even 5% of the average daily range of the ES and compound your gains, you can retire to an island after a couple of years. There's no need to go claiming that someone should be able to capture 100% of that range.
Your thinking is skewed in many ways. 1) You assume 20 points range every day. 2) You assume 100% profitable days. And maximized profit levels each day. 3) In your own words, you assume "pre-commission" 4) No way to get 20 points of a 50 point range in real-time no way no how? You're clearly more interested in being right than you are in highly successful intraday trading! But for elitetrader, that's logical, man! You've got to learn how to trade what the market is giving.
It's called simplification to make a point. How many traders do you think make $130K/year on a single ES contract? That's the relevant issue, not whether or not I assume 20 point range days every day (I don't, that's just an average over a year to make the math easy to follow. I'm not going to do a day-by-day analysis, obviously). I'm not more interested in being right than making money, I'm interested in discussing possibilities grounded in reality, not fantasy.