yes, they are very very tough...altough with good discipline and tight risk management it is possible to make some bucks it certainly aint me cup of tea...good to bracket your trades with substantial size [once/if u get it] and take only a couple of odds on setups a day. only good futs contract is sgx imo..primitive tradin' with no bots and cpus; slow and predictable--gives u time to think and get out.
'good discipline and tight risk management' knowing these two points, you have won half the battle already! if day trading causes these two factors to be weakened then switch to position trading and take decisions only end of the day, moving stops and targets.
Excellent point toc (although tight doesnt mean "too tight"). The thread is wrong though. I can attest that you can make money in GBL, ESTX50, EUR and HSI ... and I personally know others who make money on Nikkei and DAX. As always you need to study the market until you perceive the opportunities, build a plan, test it, and execute it with discipline to make that money.
yeah, those are good products..frankly us futs suck innit, that's why many traders find 'em so tough and get punished on a reg basis. thats right tho, u gotta stalk the mkt of u choice for ages before commitin' to it...then your chances greately improve.
Hi Ripley, I used to think as your self till I found that it could be done with the help of some complex trading models. Check my journal. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70418 I've been successfully trading the ES, YM and NQs during the last months, when the market was sinking. Two things helped me a lot. 1. A trading system to follow and stick with it. (Now filly automated) 2. A physco Trading book. Trading in the Zone. Mark Douglas.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to make money in the markets Oh, I'd say the traders at the following threads: ES Journal S/R Emini Journal MyMini Trading Intraday Dow, Sp500, Nasdaq and Nasdaq100 The Surf Report and, even though he doesn't come around here anymore ... Market Code Crack'd? as well as threads presented by 5Pillars and Bolter would have to seriously disagree with you. Best, Jimmy Jam P.S. I mean't to mention Steve46 as well, but I'm catching a DVD of "Dead Like Me" and updating my charts in prep for tomorrow, and he beat me to it. He's got an interesting technique of using Linear Regression and trading in the direction of the dominant trend ... and if you check out more of what Bitstream has to say, you'll see he's pretty A OK. P.P.S. ... and Cheese comes across as being hardcore, but actually he's only being honest and if you hang around for the good stuff, it's pretty damn good. Got the picture. Nobody's going to spoon feed you how to do it (but they will give you clues), if someone is trying to sell you a system, that means they make money by selling trading systems, not by trading ... but if you work at any of a myriad of differnt systems, you can do very well. Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo have we pretty much dealt with your issue?
I have been doing just fine trading the indexes. Thats all I do. Almost 15 years now. Sorry to hear about your difficulties. Steve