LOL @ guys suggesting its ok to trade ES with a 6K account ! This is ridiculous even if you use a 2 tick SL , its irrelevant have you ever heard of over leverage ?! I don't care about the margin lets say it is just 500 and now he has 5500 room = 110 points in the ES ! lol just yesterday we had a 20 points range = 20% of available capital . Are you for real guys , you are in trading to survive years not just days , putting a tight SL doesn't mean you limited the longterm downside of your account but rather it means you just limited your downside in just one trade , big difference . You shouldn't risk 1% with a 4 ticks tight SL , however you may do so with a swing trade and risk 1% of your account in 50 points or 20 but not just in 1 point ! The tighter the SL the less you should risk , so we are back to factoring the notional value of the contract -which is 90K- in our calculations , that's the reality ... You only see this stuff in discussion boards and blogs !
That is loserish. I only have 1 tick stop loss. When i enter it goes up/down immediately most of the time. It can be done if you are an elitetrader.
rofl , i always buy at the bid and sell at the ask so my SL is 0+commission , however i do have scratch trades !
It's interesting that the OP asked for advice on how to get started and all he has received has been arguments about account size.
Getting back on topic, these are the answers to your questions. For mentors, read everything by DbPhoenix. For bulletins, forget it. For newsgroups, forget it. Capital of $6000 in IB is plenty. If you follow Db, you will trade the NQ. One point is worth $20 on one contract. When you learn how to trade, you will find that once price moves against you by two points, maybe 3 max, you are out $40 or $60. When you get in on a good trade, you will more than likely make at the very least 10 points, more like 20 or 30 on many days. So if you first trade doesn't work.. no problem... your second trade doesn't work...no problem. Essentially, you can have quite a few trades go against you and it all gets fixed with one good trade worth 20 points or so. The question of course is why so many trades in a row go against you, maybe you're not reading price properly. But at any rate, you simply cannot do major damage if you know how to scratch/get out for minimal loss. Mathematically/statistically, it is not complicated to make a few hundred dollars every day on only one contract. You will be your worst problem you need to overcome.
>>Mathematically/statistically, it is not complicated to make a few hundred dollars every day on only one contract. << LOL.
I've got you in my little notepad as someone who hasn't been all that constructive in the past, so I know better than to argue with you, but I should perhaps explain this point just a little better to at least the original poster. When you start analyzing the market you are trading, in my case, the NQ, you begin to see certain aspects. One is I believe what is called the average daily range, ADR. Take today for example. NQ hits a low of 3518 and a high of 3580, then a low of 3523 before closing around 3537. So up was 62 points, back down was 57 points for a total of 119 points, never mind even the last little bounce back up. Now of course I am not saying that I can pick the absolute bottom or the absolute top, but when you start analyzing price, you see where price has been, you look at what price is telling you, such as at the open today that it refused to go below 3518 twice, you can start to make a very good case for why it looks like price might go up today just a few minutes into the open. 10 points for every one contract is $200, something that the original poster can trade with $6000 in his account. So its all a matter of where he gets in. Today, if he knows how to trade, he could have gotten in at many places on the way up. The best entry would have given him easily 40 points, maybe he hesitated on his entry, but he could have gotten at least 30 points, maybe he got out too soon at a minor retracement, so perhaps he got only 20 points, maybe he wants to trade with a target of only 10 points for some reason, taking him out once its automatically hit. But the point is, 10 points was absolutely within reach given the almost 120 points there was on the way up and down, and there is your $200. Some days may not go as well, but as long as you know to get out for a 2 point loss, you can see that mathematically/statistically, you can go through quite a bit of 2 point losers in the hopes of catching a 30 or 40 points winner which happen on many days. The 10 point day I would say happens practically every day (traders do not want to be stuck in such a small range, so they eventually break out of it and take price up or down). Of course the biggest reason why this doesn't work for many people is what's in their head. But based purely on whether opportunity is there or not, that is a given.