Granted Im a newbie so take this with a grain of salt...but I completely agree. I started off trading the ES and didn't do very well. I backtested a fair amount...not a ton of SIM but enough backtesting to know I "should" be profitable. After taking a break, and switching over to the CL its like night and day difference I feel like in my trading. For me, there were a couple major flaws that got exploited quickly by switching instruments. And then on top of that, I realized Im not very good at waiting around for set-ups to develop. Where I only had 1-5 set-ups on the ES...now I have more like 8-12 on the CL. Anyway, I agree with Mark that the instrument one chooses is a very mental as well as mechanical thing. For me, switching helped improve both aspects of my trading.
when I trade I Look at NQ and YM and my signals work on both of them. Some days NQ has a bit better moves, but most of the time it's the same and it actually pays to trade ES because NQ often leads ES so I get an additional confirmation of my signals.
Hopefully this isn't what you call backtesting. Simply, if you don't want to actually compare your backtest results of ES, YM, NQ, TF and EMD to each other via the parameters of your trade method...that's your choice. Like I said, most traders don't because they are married to their trading instrument. Strongly agree...most traders find out too late that they should have been trading something different based upon the performance of their trade method in comparison to other trading instruments and based upon their ability to stick to their trading plan (discipline) because the price action of one trading instrument does have an impact on our ability to follow our trading plan...assuming not using an automated trading system. Mark
short 2@25.75, stop 26.25 -> break below trend line, below vwap, dma, volume is coming back, if w break below S1=ORL, then s2/weekly PP=20/21
******Trading is a losers game and not a winners game. He who loses best will win in the end******* The sole reason why small traders lose because of capital. A HFT account i say average $5 million. They use that leverage to push the es 2 - 3 ticks. Their goal is 2 ticks profit using 2K-5K contracts leverage. EASY!!!! They dont need all those ridiculous indicators (SMA, stoch, pivot, market profile, bollinger, woodies, etc etc). This indicators are waste of time and they are obsolete. How can a small trader with only $5000 in his account goes against 1 HFT firm that has $5 million account. How can this small trader win the game? If this trader knows how the game works, he would never have an accocunt with less than $100K. That explain why more than 90% of small traders lose!! THEY JUST LOSE!!
I"m sorry emg, but I can't take your advice seriously, not that there was any advice your strategy is to go long for 1 point profit with endless averaging down and unlimited loss is just a bit controversial and I don't want to get engaged in it in my thread.