Ah. I see. So that might work nicely with a trading bot. My brokerage is Alpaca and they are all about the API and rolling your own trading apps. I am not running my own code, not skilled enough at python yet. Using TradingView as an interface and it works pretty good, with some limitations like bracket orders, trailing stops, etc not supported yet, and pretty weak on the after hours trading. NQ sounds like just the instrument for auto-trading small positions with a zero commission broker. Anyway, I have no formal financial education and all brokerages ask about trading experience and training before they dole out privileges. Tried to start on forex and options when I was with IB, they shot me down for lack of experience. Meh. I guess I could see if Alpaca is looser on that. Or I could just tell a little white fib about my experience, and actually learn futures and options by doing, with a paper account. I suspect a lot of traders start that way. I mean, if you can't get experience except by doing, and you can't start doing without having experience, you got to break through that circular logic somehow, right? Okay I just scanned the trading bookshelf and we have "Trading Commodities and Financial Futures" 4th edition by George Kleinman and "Trading E-Mini Stock Index Futures" by Dennis B. Anderson. Sound like good reading? Still not really sold on getting into futures and stuff. I LIKE trading stocks and ETFs. But I am going to look into it.
Everyone lies on the risk form PDT stopped me trading stops nearly 20years ago, i was pretty good at stocks but under 25k i liked stocks.
Alpaca doesn't offer forex, options, or futures trading, apparently. Well, I am sticking with Alpaca for now. And after reading a couple of chapters, I don't think E-Mini trading is for me right now, but thanks for the suggestion.
Oh, it's not the size of the trade. And yeah, I meant the Micros. I just don't have time to learn enough to trade them competently and don't want to fund another account. My present brokerage doesn't offer futures trading. I checked. It looks like a good thing to trade for small traders, just not for me at the present time. I'm sticking with what I know. Plus, I just like trading stocks. Three day trades a week and the odd swing trade are enough for me. I don't have to make a job out of it, nor do I want to, nor do I have time to. And now, fingers crossed. Looking for GUSH and CUK to gap up for me. Another couple hundred in the kitty will make me a happy trader.
+$362.50, 13.78% gain, $3k account is now up to $3636.94. If Alpaca had wide open after hours trading I could have sold for another $100, an hour ago. That's okay. So I'm up 21%, three weeks in. This is a crazy good market right now. Gonna be some sad new players when the other shoe drops. Hmmmm... maybe GUSH isn't done gushing. Back in.
Darn. Tried to sell for a $105 profit and couldn't. I guess I lost track of my day trades and Alpaca is saving me from myself. That's okay. I think I am good with holding gush for a day or two.
Double dawg darn. My profit for the day is down to 3%. Well tomorrow is another day. Ah. THere. Now it's twitching back up a bit. I was starting to wonder when it was gonna bottom out and reverse.