Seriously if you have good risk management. A strong system of winning, and good win:loss ratio set up in advance. Than another contract won't damage you as long as you stick with your investment style, and stop out to reduce loss.
If you are making 3-5k a week and you only trade one contract in my opinion you are mismanaging leverage. Don't confuse win rate with success. My winning rate is aprox. 28% and I trade over 10 ES contracts without psychological issues. Suggestion for the OP, use constant risk and let the result dictacte your size
If you're consistent, and can withstand 2x your current risk per trade, there's no reason you should not be increasing size. IMO, this business is not about netting 100 pts a week. It's about risk management, consistency and then taking advantage of it via SIZE. If you're consistently net profitable every week, you should be increasing size. Use a constant dollar risk per trade based on your account size, then figure out the position size based on your risk (stop-loss).
So, you make 60 to 100 full ES points per week with one car, huh? Yeah, sure. I know this is BS because who can consistently make even 10 or 15 ES points per week would be trading 10 or 50 or 100 contracts!
none who believe for a fraction of one second that anyone can make +400 index points ES monthly. but that's the problem with public message boards in general. anyone can post anything that comes to mind, and it all gets weighed together at face value by too many aspiring traders that don't know any better. yet.
I agree. Public message boards are too easily infiltrated by those barely old enough to buy beer. Consistently pulling 20 points a day per ES contract even in this crazy economic environment is ridiculous. 5 to 8 points is manageable and even pulling in the teens occasionally but not consistently.
I make about 8-20 trades per day @ 1 contract (~1-2 pts per rt). The reason I haven't moved to two contracts yet is because I still suffer from squeezes like everyone else. I'm just able to stomach 1 contract much better. I don't see what is so hard to believe about making $3000 a week from trading one contract. $3000 a week is totally doable.
Noted. Good point. How do you handle when a move goes against you if you don't mind? Do you start with 10 contracts or scale in/out?
regardless of what drawdowns = squeezes you purport to suffer thru... bottom line is you purport to make +60pts to +100pts ES weekly above all else. for the record, that would make you hands down the very best ES trader in the world. I have friends who specialize in ES that push 100 - 200 ES contract blocks per trade, multiple times daily. they are absolutely thrilled to average anything better than +10pts per week... +20pts per week is a very solid accomplishment. now they aren't afraid to suffer squeezes, etc on their way to booking +2pts ES daily on average. yet someone here on an anonymous message board can whack +15pts to +20pts ES daily on a single contract, but feels emotional pressure and heat when moving to a second ES contract turned? what are the veteran emini traders here who've been in the real-money trenches for years expected to believe?