There could be a reason why I don't trade intraday equity futures. Maybe I don't think it's worth effort, maybe I've seen to many traders blow up and none succeed in a meaningfull way? Nah... I don't daytrade YM so what do I know? Why don't you start a journal and we can all enjoy your ride for 3 months?
no one is able to secure a constant and endless revenue from the ym or any other contract in the long run. sooner or later, the revenue will dry up. these discussions are fueled by the extremely indulgent environment we're assisting in the capital markets nowadays, which are granting multiple opportunities for aspiring traders come up profitable with limited effort. but beware though that when the tides goes down, we will see how has been swimming naked.
Nope. Here is an easy way to see it: Trader A has $3500 trader B has 10K on his account. According to you, both are judged by the 65K full value which is clearly stupid. They are only related to their starting account and intraday margin. Just to confuse you, here is another one: Trader A and B have both 4K in their accounts. But trader A has an intraday margin of $500 and trader B has 2K (he is with IB). Now trader A can lose 3.5K before he has to stop trading, trader B stops after losing only 2K. See how the full future's value is completely irrelevant? If they both trade 1 future and they both reach the same average profits per day, the relative profit % for trader B will be almost twice as big as trader A's...
A trader who is confident in the trading model can achieve superb results with a $3.5k account IF, you backtest your model and find what your max drawdown is and make sure you allow for that. You have to know all of your rules for entering a trade before hand and have a positive expectancy for the model. Without this, which comes from having a 100% belief in your system, it is likely that you will fail, I say this only because it happened to me in the beginning. For instance, a model that is 50% accurate and uses a 1:2 Risk to reward profile will make good money. Just realize that you must have an idea of your max drawdown that can occur, it will happen sometime in the future, we just don't know when, you may walk into a string of winners or losers, just plan your trade and trade your plan and then the profits will follow. Good money management cannot turn a losing model into a winning model but without it, it can turn a winning model into a losing model. In my opinion the Holy Grail is found between one's ears. Good luck
for pete's sake trading is (in large part) about managing risk. of course it's POSSIBLE to average $100 (for the sake of argument) with a 3.5k or 17.50 or whatever. the question a professional asks is - what amount of RISK do i have to expose myself to in order to average 17.50 a day? what is my risk of ruin? how smooth will my equity curve be? etc. etc. etc. assuming $5 roundtrip (which is expensive, but it's a small account), 5 points a day with one contract will make $20 a day. that is CERTAINLY doable. but you need to analyze your setups and your methodology to determine what the risks are. also, if you are averaging $17.50 a day, and you are paying $5 per roundtrip, then your trading costs (just commissions, not including anything else) are almost 1/4 of your net profits (5/22.50) that's pretty absurd and most traders are going to have difficulty when they are paying that high commissions. it's exceptionally cost-INeffective can it be done? of course. i suggest that if you have to ask, though, you have not sufficiently researched and backtested your setups.
Oh yeah , I am here. still alive and kicking. I have made 5 Live trades on May15,16,17th !! I had first day jitters but have seem to overcome them. First day I patiently waited for my Setup and it hit 1.5 hrs after opening Bell. I got stopped out of that and stopped out another trade later that day. Was down -120 that first day. But managed to stay focused and have had two winning days today and yesterday. Account is at $3450. Down -$50 after 3 days. One thing I surprised myself in Live Trading is how little I keep up with PnL during day. With Simulator I was constantly keeping a running count in my head at all times. Now I dont even think about it in Live Trading. I just concentrate on my setups and whether my triggers will be hit. I really thought I would always be keeping up with this during the day. But live trading has changed this habit I had. Also I am really concentratiing on not overtrading and really "picking my battles" with the highest probability plays. My discipline in Live Trading is better than I thought it would be. Even after having first day jitters. And my execution is also better than I thought it would be. Incidentally, the fills are much much much better than demo account. Not even close !!!
Naaah....Next will be, "How many BJ's a day should I do at $10 a pop to help pay off my 3.5k loan shark debt?"
Cool thread, Ive been hanging around the boards for a while and i'm looking to start trading the ES but I'd like to practice a bit first. Which simulator do you guys like? Thanks!