Really, I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but I guess it must be a big deal judging from how vocal some are. I'll just keep it in the 2010 PnL journal. BTW, someone asked where the successful traders on ET are; check the 2010 PnL journal. All the winners are updating there. It's shameless bragging and they keep it positive attitude.
I have a quick question regarding to ES contracts. I am fairly new to trading and I am wondering why the quote for ES is listed as ESM10 and /esm0 at different places?
well, here's an explanation of the "big deal", so to speak regardless how many turns you average per day and/or pts targeted for profit, a couple of things remain constant. over the course of time, your win-rate will be something between 50% and near 60% if you are really skilled and picky. You will not have a higher win-rate per trade than 60% over time... probably lower than that. so during the natural win-lose, give-take of trading thru each day, your overall results would bellcurve like other top traders: #1: a few days would be golden. you can do no wrong. huge gains, near 100% win rate #2: most day will be give/take where you wind up with a handful of ES pts in the end #3: a few days would be leaden. you cant do anything right, make a lot of mistakes, end up in the hole a fair bit that's the reality of this profession. that's how the bellcurve shapes out. you will experience the give-take, give-take process just like everyone else... except for those majority stuck in the give-take, give-give, take-give, give-give-give-give stage. during that daily ride, you will deal with all sorts of natural human emotions that negatively impact performance. ever wonder why the really big ES traders don't trade 200-lots balls to the walls all day long? Because the inefficiency of emini markets is brief and fleeting most days over time. ** fwiw: the blotters in P&L thread that shows a $$ amount and ES symbol means nothing. actually, a little bit less than nothing. That can easily be sim traded or backwards traded in hindsight "replay" mode of many platforms. those who show a blotter with ES (or other emini) trades with time & sales stamp that also prove something other than sim-mode are of merit. That, or copy of an actual broker statement minus the acct numbers. In other words, something that shows definite proof it ain't sim, or you might as well assume it is simulated replay and go from there.
Austin, that is a rebuttal I can respect. Its the flat out rejection that anyone can make that in a week that I don't respect. As for the PnL blotters, I also agree. I actually look at others blotters as inspiration that it is possible to make a living trading. And thats all I look at them for. I don't go "PROVE IT PROVE, I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!!11". Thats just pathetic.
in my time I've had several trading sessions of +40pts and +50pt ES booked. Intraday, between the bells. so yes, anyone can make what you purport in a given week. but week over week, thru all market conditions it is flat-out impossible to sustain. why do you think all of the veteran traders scoffed at that? do you think we are missing something magical that someone new has discovered instead? ** if I showed you pictures of pans full of gravel with two ounces of gold flakes and nuggets in each scoop, would that inspire you to hunt gold for a living? would it truly inspire you that such a feat was possible? you do realize that literally thousands of people around the world hunt gold professionally for a living. private, "retail" miners go out there and unearth a good living in raw gold. but would you consider it false or fraud if some newbie miner "salted" a pan with mocked up results and touted he was pulling two ounces of gold per day? that's unheard of performance by the best professional "retail" miners in the world... but here's a snapshot photo on some anonymous gold-mining message board to draw inspiration from. now we have joe newbie gold miner quitting his job and moving to Alaska or Australia to make his 2oz daily fortune in gold... inspired by the blotter posting of a salted gold pan that never happened in reality see where that leads to?
We've completely diverged from the OP topic, but I get your point. The PnL thread can't be taken seriously for a number of reasons. So then what can aspiring traders look forward to, if not results from an anonymous trade forum? They might be better off getting "20 points Guaranteed" from your website? Let me further your "gold rush" analogy: Aren't the people that got rich from the gold rush just supplying the tools and services that the gold miners needed? This is in fact why you are an ET sponsor, and offer a service to traders. It is in your best interest to discredit other traders and make yourself appear intelligent on the same anonymous forums in the hopes that gold rush miners will flock to you instead. So yes, I'd rather take the chance to be inspired by some that may or may not be making a killing on the PnL thread.
Overnight margin on ES is $5,625. $3000 to $5000 a week trading one ES is 53% to 89% weekly return on margin or 2756% to 4628% annual return (noncompounding). I've never seen or heard of any trader with consistent annual results like that. If you can document these results for one year with real money trading you will have people beating down your door to set up a hedge fund and invest with you.
Each data vendor and/or broker has their own futures symbol makeup rules. ES is the underlying symbol. M is the letter code for June contract. 10 or 0 is year designation for 2010.