Since I've released some margin by selling the copper future... I will now enter a new trade with my new strategy in mind. (This strategy is a work in progress). I'm going to risk gaining/losing 2% of the account on each trade. I'm going to buy micro S&P futures MESM22. 2% is a movement of 58.5 points. Does this sound like a step in the right direction?
FJ, You'll do fine. What typical time do you like to trade? e.g. 9:45-11:45 AM EST would be New York time.
Time doesn't matter. I'm nocturnal half the time anyway. Although I'd be willing to adjust my trading times to match market conditions. (For example, trade at times of day that usually see a certain amount of volatility or lack thereof)
Profits are not guaranteed in the stockmarket. When you place a trade, there is no guarantee that trade will work out. That is why you have stop losses (hard stops or mental stops) to exit your trade and minimize your losses if you are wrong. Limiting your losses to 2% per trade is a step in the right direction. However, your trading system must show positive expectation as opposed to gamblers in Las Vegas (negative expectation). How do you know? Backtest your trading system before you even put one thin dime on it. If not, you are just wasting precious time and more importantly, capital that you need to place those trades. Whatever your trading system, the gains must be multiples of your losses. If your average loss is say $100, your gains should be atleast, $300 (at a minimum). Your gains need to be able to recoup your losses before you show a profit. Keep your losses small. That is the only thing you have control over. Profits will take care of themselves.
I placed another trade that risks 2%. I think the goal posts are a little too wide. Perhaps I should have put more margin into it, then had narrower stops and limits. But it's okay, I'm just getting the procedures in place now.
Monthly, I trade 9 year ranges. I am that trader who sells highs/ buys bottoms, hedged beyond futures' losses, I take many attempts to find extremes, at least automation does, but did it manually for many years. No losing years for 30 years. I use monthly, weekly, daily and fine tune intraday charts. Yearly, 1 to 15% winning futures profitable trades, hedges now makes me profits overall when futures lose, occasionally both loss. Leverage does not scare me at all, but if I used exchange margins, would have to increase options, I don't want to go over so much % of open interest. Main ES day trading system averages 82 trades a day. It does 300 cars a signal but when one minute bars get too small, trading stops till range increases. It scalps and losses under 5%. I have four option systems, losses 1% and less, some trades last couple months or couple days. I don't do much manually trading, just concentrateing on sound charting. Been doing 44 years, many patterns I use are not in books.