Years ago, maybe a couple of years after the ES came out, I attended a series of trading seminars featuring experts none of whose names I remember at the moment except a guru who talked a lot about spending time in Thailand and who tried to sell us his book along with a compass-like thing for finding Fib ratios by hand. At the time, daytrading naz stocks was hot and a lot of people were so flushed with profits that having to shell out several thousand bucks for a weekend seminar didn't seem to prevent a grand ballroom from being packed with attendees. In any event, as I look back on it the most memorable part of the weekend was when one of the speakers got up in front of a roomful of stock traders and predicted that those of us who last will eventually end up migrating to the e-mini stock index futures. When he was asked why he thought that, his answer was "cuz they always do." In my case, at least, his prediction was accurate. To me, daytrading the e-mini, the ES in my case, is everything daytrading naz stocks in the go-go years was pumped up to be. Of course, daytrading naz stocks now is not the same as it was then so the comparison has less relevance today. Nonetheless, without going into the details, my view is that trading stocks is relatively "easier" to pick up from scratch than trading stock index futures. Having said that, my feeling is that anyone who is operational in stocks is not entirely starting from scratch trading index futures. How much work will be required to become operational in index futures will depend, I think, on how the person was operational in stocks. Good stock selection removes a lot of risk off the table for stock trading. For trading a single index, the analog to stock selection is perhaps participating only when risk is lowest and being sidelined the rest of the time. For directional traders in stocks, the transition may not be that difficult. For rebate traders, traders who play opening orders only, etc., becoming operational in index futures will likely involve some work. But becoming operational is, in the end, all about acquiring knowledge, skills, and experience. In your case, you will just have a head start compared to a person having no experience making money in stocks. My suggestion would be to find someone who is successful and learn in person. If that is not available, start with the minimum (1 contract) and limit your participation only to those times you identify as presenting the lowest risk to you. What I just said may have little meaning to you, which is fine. It helps you assess where you are starting from. Knowledge is the easiest to acquire, as it can be got through study. A person can acquire skill through drills. Experience gives both knowledge and skills, but experience is obtained only through successful doing, which is not possible for most people learning on their own. So a person can start by acquiring some knowledge about trading index futures. Acquiring myths makes it difficult to obtain knowledge. A person starting out on his own should stay clear of those.
Art, would you be open to posting your next average in type of transaction in real time for example's sake?
Yeah, I could post some trades, no prob. I managed to avoid trying to fade this surge this morning, so I am still flat this morning. But this should answer your questions I think, see the Ninja Trader chart with the executions placed on the chart by the software. On that first short order, I actually placed the order a on a previous candle where the stochastics were coming off overbought, but missed the fill, it came back up though and triggered. The trade is actually a decent example of the avg in, then scale out to lower basis thing I was mentioning. On straight on trade with no avg, I would have been stopped. Of course, I probably wouldnt be trading the set up though..but you get the point. You can see it didn't get to max postion size. And the trade ending up being for 4.75 pts. Hope it helps.
I have occasionally dabbled with the SPY with few hundred shares. I do not have the time to focus on SPY because my day is spent watching stocks. I want to know if you can actually read the tape with the SPY or ES? Or do you have to trade base on charts and other indicators? I would love to try my hand with futures too one day. But if I take the time to watch and learn futures I will be giving up some profits I can make on stocks. What a dilemma.
LOL, its SO easy to short ES that probably hundreds shorted it this morning (01/27) and will be crying for weeks.
I believe that anyone who would cry over a losing trade or cheer over a winning trade is most likely wildly overextended. This is a business and emotion should be disregarded as part of it. The point about shorting easily has to do with not having to "borrow" to short and not having the downtick rule. Best regards---