Contract worth is irrelevant to annual returns. Someone with $2,000 in an account, someone else with $5,000 in an account or a third person with $100,000 in an account that makes an annual profit of $260,000 annual ($5,000 x 52 weeks) with the numbers bandied about are all making returns on dollars invested, at risk, at work leveraged instead of fixed income or "buy & hold". We don't trade notional values... we trade dollars of profit or loss against dollars posted for margin. Those dollars posted for margin are what could have been applied elsewhere in real estate, gold, fixed income, baseball cards, beanie babies... etc An ES trader earning $156,000 to $260,000 per calendar year ($3k to $5k per week) on a single ES contract traded is doing pretty darn well, if you ask me. I'd consider that out-performance of the masses, myself.
I have always thought a good way would be using NT and just showing the +- points on the position not the $ value. You can set the default of buy or sell to as many contracts as you want and only ever see the amount of points you are up/down compared to the dollar value. Might work?
I believe it is very relevant. Using 100-1 margin in es for dayteading will give you a huge return on invesment. I have had day's where I have made 100 - 400 % using $500 margin but when you figure the true value of the contract I was only making 1 -4 % return intraday.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from Baywolf: I use one es contract and I make $3000-$5000 a week. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from Specterx LOL. It is amazing what people can do on paper + when no one can actually verify the claim...
Oh I agree with that... and me too at times as you note. But we're also talking about the concept of taking let's say $5,000 trading one ES contract and doubling that each week... 52 times per year. Any way you want to slice & dice the analysis performance of that, doesn't it seem a bit on the outer edge of ultra-performance as an ES trader? Better yet, fear still exists to make the quantum leap from trading one lonely ES contract... all the way to two of them?
No it is not. For your leverage and risktaking it means something but for your return, it doesn't. Anyhow, going back to the idea of a partner taking signals with more contracts, here is one extra notion: The partner might be able to see certain tendencies in your trading, when certain days or hours are more profitable than the rest, what you haven't noticed/realized so far. Then the partner would go heavier at these times and ease up/not to trade for the rest of the time. So let's say if the first 2 hours is your most profitable and the parnet notices this, he would go with 5-10 contracts, and if the lunch hour is a breakeven for you the partner shouldn't even trade that at all...
I have often thought it would be nice to be able to program all this in on the broker end, including risk, loss levels, etc.. Surprised a broker hasn't thought of it... but that would take emotion out of the trading, and broker commissions...
The P/L thread can be very inspiring; it gives a quick snapshot of what various traders are doing. But what is really helpful is calling some live trades with reason why, or even better, posting a time and sales blotter when you're done. Then the rest of us can ask questions about why you did what you did, or what technique kept you in a trade during retracements, etc. Someone on ES Journal says last week he made 31 pts in the last hour alone scalping the price waves, but wouldn't post the blotter (which takes really no more than 3 or 4 mins when you take into account shading out your account number, saving the file and taking time to post). If I took 31 pts out of a final-hour 14 pt move I would be so dripping with glee I'd be tripping over myself trying to get my time and sales blotter posted before everyone signed off for the day.
Took the time to go through all 10 pages of threads. I recognize some of the signatures. I've been trading credit spreads in a learning mode for 4 months and disappointed with the results. Projecting out, even if trades were 100% successful I can see I'm not going to make my annual goals. Somebody named CACHE LANDING suggested I trade E mini's. The previous discussion talks about 1 contract, but when I look, the size indicates people are trading a lot more than that. Frankly I don't know if we are talking options or what here on the ES? I've spent the last two days scrolling around trying to learn how one trades the ES. The previous threads here I assume were 1 contract of FUTURES. Which is what exactly? One contract in options is 100 options? What is the equivalent here? I guess in ThinkorSwim they only do options? I see the spread was like .70 cents between bid and ask, which is a lot more than I imagined. Can anybody clear up the fundamental basics here for a newbie looking at e-minis for the first time? many thanks!