10 contracts of NQ? I think you have to registed with the SEC and the Exchange if you're trading that many. Elite has some real whales posting.
Apparently Nononsense..... I don't understand your "nonsense". Seems like the only JCL here is you Mr june 2003.... Tradersaavy simply asked a simple question and should have received a simple answer. I don't understand why some attacked him with sarcasm while others attacked his character. I could understand if he was selling something or claiming something outrages... He did neither.. Attacks like these keep other members who may have something to offer these boards (and you) from posting and exchanging ideas for fear of being ridiculed and humiliated by "wise guy" members. They also keep newbies from asking thier newbie questions. Look, I believe If one has nothing positive to add to the thread then they shouldn't add anything to at all ! Go to Yahoo and post your crap.... Nick
My remark was simply in line with your "... something to offer on these boards ...". It looked to me that your observation "It really seems to have some wise-guys as of late...." came a bit late, given the last post in this thread dated from roughly 7 weeks before. Sorry Nick, no need to blow your stack, nononsense simply wanted to be one of your "wise-guys". I think my post was as appropriate as yours.
Nononsense, Please accept my apologies... I misread your remarks and didn't realize how old the thread was. I was a little perturbed with the other responses but I should have kept my "stacK" on anyway... Cheers Nick
Dear Nick, Sorry, I really did not want to upset you. I only saw the occasion to squeeze in a little joke. Best regards, nononsense
No, I mistook your post. Now that I read it again, it is funny... Especially since it was a seven week old thread i was replying to.... Nick
Excuse the "crap", but I think a joke has a right to be acknowledged as damn funny. Maybe I'm a weirdo, but this one's had me steadily laughing for the past five minutes.
Some people believe that ET is just full of "small guys", "pikers" and "newbies". It isn't. Have a look at Aaron Schindler, Marketsurfer and the like who are running serious, competitive hedge funds. I'm allowed to say this, because it's well-known. There are actually quite a few "whales" around here, which I will not name here, but who certainly trade more than 10 NQ per trade, there are a few ppl right here on ET who do 100+ cars. 10 contracts of NQ is not exactly a "whale" order. Assuming you're scalping and therefore have a very low time-risk (we will assume that here because that's the topic : scalp), a margin of $3,000 per contract is indeed reasonable, if you're not even more aggressive. Some scalpers use $1.5K/c on NQ. So, given $3K per car, you'd be looking at a margin of $30K. Isn't 10 contracts of NQ about the margin equivalent of 10 ES or 2 SP? What's so huge about 2 SP's? If that's "whale" to you - OK. I pass. Just be reminded that there are a lot of traders out there who say you shouldn't even think about trading full time unless you have a min. of $50-100K in your account. I would appreciate your objectivity here. Regarding the initial question of this thread, liquidity: Is it liquid enough to trade 10 contracts? Yes and no. Before you all scream at me, let me say that it really depends on the style you trade. Many beginners are fooled into believing that trading 10 cars is the same as / multiple of trading 1. It isn't. It really isn't. The money factor doesn't change, but the money velocity does. If you're setting a limit-trap to catch some newbies for a quick scalp (i.e. on a tiny 1s-retracement), you have high chances to get a fill for 1, 2, 3 contracts. There's always the "odd fool" in the market that will run right into it. However, if you're dealing 10 cars, you must hope for "a lot of fools". They don't exist. Many traders believe that because 97% of traders fail, a high percentage of your opponents are stupid! - Wrong! In fact, if you're trading futures, you'll be lucky to get the odd maybe 5% of ppl who don't know what they're doing - And the pro's are equally fast to snap them up in front of your nose! This is simply because the 'failures' don't stay in the futures market very long. Most get washed out after 1-3 months. But the successful ones stay a lot longer. What does this mean? It means a helluva lot of sharks are to take a nibble off you. So, the cause now clarified, we're back to the means: 10 cars, it's harder to find a fool to pick up a pos from, not to mention dump it upon when you need to get out. So don't be fooled if you can do 1,000% a year on 1 contract. 1-2 cars = easy game. To come to liquidity in the larger scale, however, that is if you're setting more tolerant limit orders or market orders, you won't even notice a difference until you're approaching ~50 cars NQ or 100 cars on the ES. That's when the pro's start "watching you" on the level. Your order now makes a difference to volume pressure. You're not exactly in "stealth mode" anymore, and the "puppy protection" you get from the big players while dealing a handful is now forgotten. You're right in the limelight with limit orders. You're still too weak to do your own thing, however, so you really need to focus on "shadowing" the pro's now. This involves i.e. watching ask/bid levels change by 100/150/200/250 increments and their multiples. I.e. 2nd level bid changes from 298 to 198 cars = 100 cars pulled. This can be a crucial early-warning trigger. The problem is they watch you doing it, too, once you're doing larger volume. So these are new problems you face on each level. I think once you exceed 200 cars or so, you start being able to do your own plays with the pro's, that is join them in consistently faking out the crowd all day long and moving price towards volume rather than sentiment. You just don't want to be too cheeky here, or the other pro's grap you by the you-know-what. Myself, I haven't been there yet, so I won't speculate on that any further. Conclusion: NQ is definitely way liquid enough for most kinds of scalping with 10 cars. You might review your strategies after 25, 50, 100 cars etc. Be warned, this does not apply for i.e. the YM. To come to the execution issue and how I deal with it myself: Well, I use an advanced scalping / exec platform that features programmable (and testable) scalping strategies, as well as group strategies. If you're doing group strategies, you can, for example, upon one click, put in a combination order of various strategies! That is, let's say you're dealing 10 cars, you could #1: Order for 5 cars with a 4-tick close that closes out your position at 4T gain (and maybe automatically setting to BE after 3 tick gain) #2: Order 5 cars with 3-tick trail-limit-chase that activates a trail order after 3 ticks are achieved, closes automatically as soon as 3T-trail hit - obviously moves to BE once 4T are achieved. This way, Your position is protected by locking in half of the position after a 4-tick gain, while the rest of the pos runs on a breakeven+ trip. You can put in that strategy to fire all orders at the same price, or at a sligthly offset price - It's up to you. This is only one way to configure a multi-strategy order. You can have as many parallel strategies as I want. This is a great way to exploit rather than suffer from the problems that larger contract sizes bring. Also, You can manually interfere and modify either strategy at will during the trade or before the order. This kind of automation is, IMO, crucial to successfully trading screen-based index futures these days. Remember, the pro's have the finest tools. You want to have any "edge" you can get... I hope I didn't confuse too many people here and answered some questions... Best Compliments, and Fine Trading to You all! ~The Scientist