No, that is not enough. To hit his target with 2 lots, the OP needs a method with a good edge that gives lots of signals every month.
OP, you can make $5000 USD in ONE WEEK on ONE CONTRACT trading the HSI futures on the Hong Kong Exchange. And yes, you can make $5000 a month trading 2 NQ contracts or 2 RTY contracts or 2 YM contracts or 2 CL contracts But, yet again, the attraction to the ES like moths to a flame. F THE ES! IT HAS HORRIBLE VOLATILITY below a 17 VIX. Low volatility = trading widowmaker. And this is the point where some big mouth says, "Prove it !". And I say, after seeing the level of cruelty over time weighed in on NoDoji (Donna), who left amongst the sea of ingrates ...NO THANK YOU! I already gave enough info in the past 2 months to trade at the 50% winners level with 1.5x to 2x reward to risk ratios, long term averages. But I'll tell you why most of you newbies won't follow excellent, hard-fought, hard-discovered advice which can be easily summarized in 1 post: you want to win a lot of the time and you don't want to ADD to winning trades in a trend. The general lack of humility when asking for expert advice vs. following simple directions still astounds me. Donna rose above all that before your very eyes here in 2009 because she was looking for a hand-up, not a hand-out. And, oh boy, did she not give more back than what she ever received. The bitterness of ET's quintessential market losers did her in (contributing-wise). By the time she left, she was virtually bored out her mind because trading was so easy compared to her first struggles.
$5k over 20 trading days is $250/day. With an 8hour day, maybe 8am-4pm, and taking out cash-open, 90-minutes for lunch, and a 3:30 exit, you go from 8hrs to 5.5hours. Call it 5 hours; call it $50/hr. Trading 1 ES contract, netting $8.50 for 1-tick, $12.50 for two -- averaging $10/trade, that's 5 (profitable) trades an hour. That's a mechanical summary. The posts above largely hit on the more-funky part: what of the market you're trading? If you don't have the up-n-down wavelet *wash* in the ES traffic in front of you, you're dead meat -- a sand castle waiting for the tide to wash you away, bit by bit. "Can it be done?" Depends on you're personal best trading rhythm, and whether or not you can *shape* that rhythm to match the market. If you're not in rhythm? You's dead. Thus, it's not a question of 'can it be done.' (I just described how to do it with a single contract.) The question is more what the market will *allow*, and whether you will *match* what the market is allowing. And no one, including you, can answer that beforehand. GO HIT THE SIM ACCOUNT.
Wow, is this swing trading, intra-day position, rotational scalping... What instrument... You're going to need movement. A 2 lot to make 5k per month... My thoughts are of one thing.... "Can you remain so focused", that most of your entries are nearly spot-on.. Create your methodology, load the replay data, and late at night trade the current day... The futures are fast and rotational.. It is not easy to stay with the trend when you are up 10pts and then it pulls back fast... So much to consider. Design your methodology and practice... Just like your favorite athlete or any other skilled professional. Greg
Hello ES, trader99 and speedo, Omg,, slow day.. Only 2 trades... Just sitting here, probably no need to!!! Maybe it goes, that's what usually happens when I walk away
Down 4 ticks on 1-contract trading with two sig methods...one on M5...one on M1 (9 rt's thus far). I can manually trade both sigs. I am in Demo still as I need to get better at entries after I get the sig..I might have to fund Tradovate to keep my sim account going though. I already got one extension and I think CME limits brokers to 30 days per year per client. ES