Fellow NQ Traders. As ET's resident trading psychologist, I have always been fascinated with the shadowy world of NQ trading. Why, I have often wondered, do seemingly perfectly rational index futures traders trade NQ as opposed to ES? Or ER? Or YM? In my own case, it is purely accidental, with origins akin to the development of a sexual fetish (you all know how THAT happens, and you are stuck there for the rest of your life). My objective is to evolve a Proustian-style questionnaire which cuts to the heart of successful (or not) NQ trading. Hopefully this would be more Larry King than Jerry Springer. I have been PMing previous NQ private correspondents requesting permission to interview them. But I also wish to invite others to participate whom I may not know. Please indicate your interest by registering here via a post, as I do not read PMs. (Speaking of which, Sulong, you are not receiving PMs. If you are interested, please post.) Thank you all for your participation. I am open to suggestions for a Proustian questions. My first choice must be "Do you Jack?". Best regards. Art.
Ach! Rejection! Proof that NQ traders are smart! One of my most desirable interviewees wisely declined! I guess he didn't want to answer tough Proustian questions like "What do you regard as the utter depth of misery (on ET)?"
I used to trade NQ exclusively. Before the proliferation of bot's looking at the top 7 or so market cap NDX issues provided primo tape racing opportunities. There was a time in 02 when MSFT was 15% of NDX by itself! All one needed to do was wait for MSFT, CSCO, INTC and ORCL to go bid and NQ would pop 2 pts. That trade is long ago arbed out..... To this day I RARELY trade ER2 only because I can't name 2 stocks in the index......
Thank you for replying, Blue Ribbon. What percent of your trades are NQ now? And are the remainder ES? Another possible explanation is that people like me were constructing real-time synthetic indices (I was using top 10) before the fucking NASDAQ required $10K annually for the component information. Bastards!
I trade quite a few markets. ZB, ES, NQ, YM, EC, JY, BP, CD, GC, C, S, CL, SB and CT at any given time. Position sizing is a bitch. NQ is a VERY small contract. I'd like to be a consistent 20 lot trader in each but for example I use 10's in CL and 30's (max) in NQ. Looking through my sheets I see I've only traded NQ three times all year while I make at least a few ES trades each day. (usually hedging delta's)
BTW, I tell my older therapy clients that you're never pabst your prime as long as you wake up in the morning alive and with a hard-on. Alas, I am so old that some mornings I have to help it. Well, sir, I am impressed. I am a complete piker compared to you. I feel so superior to most aspiring Jackers that they must truly be humbled by you. My small brain and pathetic sensory throughput are totally overloaded by NQ alone. If I may ask, how do you manage to monitor so many markets simultaneously? I will never probe for hard information, but if you could answer generally I think our readers would find it interesting. Also, my belief is that to trade one instrument well you must tune your charts to it and know its behavior intimately. Could you comment in the context of trading so many different instruments?
Instead of several monitors I employ 9 dart boards....... Everything is somewhat correlated, eh? Because I'm the world's crappiest Index trader I started to spread my bets out.
I respectfully suggest the fellow is a economising with the truth just as drivers of Italian supercars have a problem with 'size' of their own.
You are far too modest. I don't know all those symbols, but I do watch CL, GC, the dollar and rates, because they all affect my pocketbook, so you at least have to make a clever assessment of when those are moving with or agin' the indices. So diversification in a trend is your thing? May I ask your trading time frame? (I am fumbling for the right set of cogent stylistic questions to ask while staying away from particulars. Hard to ask smart people smart questions when you're not as sharp as they are. Here in Texas we say "Truly stupid people don't know that they are!")