Rather than trying to scalp the ES for $5 average per trade, I suggest you donate the money to charity. At least you'll get a tax deduction on your losses.
bravo rolex trader. Thats the pt i've tried to make. #1 even if somebody were a great scalper the chances of success trading like don miller or about zero paying $3.50-$5 r/t. one must pay 70-80 cent r/t to really have a shot. Today i didn't make a trade until 2.29 eastern and shorted 20 es's at 883.25, i covered 10 at 878 and held the rest. i usually hold my trades much longer but since we've fallen about 9% off the top if i get a fast trade i take it.In reality most peoples only chance of success in emini's is taking longer term trades
Thought you guys might like to hear of a first time ES trader's shot @ trading the ES. Now before you get excited, this was all on demo today with the folks @ Global's contest using Strategy Runner platform. To cut to the chase, if it was a graduation from college, I might have graduated, but the mascot would have graduated in front of me! This is not a "bitching" post about anything...except maybe my lack of understanding. I wish to thank the folks at Global & Strategy Runner for allowing me to have the experience! Now to give you the full feel for my experience...My difficulties were from not knowing the platfoprm, the markets, how they trade and trying to catch a trend which continually failed. I fired up the platform @ about 5AM est, and spent a few hours trying to get the charts where I could make some sense of just the ES. Well I finally was able to understand it a little bit, but I kept trying to move the price bars to the left like I do on my Spot platform, but you know how that worked out.... I sat and watched the market for the first half hour from 9:30, and thiought (LOL) I had a feel for the market. I placed my first order. I tried to find how to set a stop and a limit on that order. I tried highlighting the order, then right clicking...nothing happened. I tried highlighting and clicking the drop down menus on the platform...that did not work...I spent an hour trying to figure out what I do on my spot platform with an order. YES, I'm thick headed...DUH.. It finally dawned on me that you need another order...a stop / limit...well i was able to place them, but individually not as a single OCO order and not attached to the original order. I would put some trendlines on, try to extend them into the future, or reposition, or any number of other things, but to do almost anything required removing and replacing them. I tried using their new "Andrews" but when I would put one on, then try to place another in the opposite direct just to see the market balance, the platform would remove the first. I thought a good strategy would be to watch for a trend to develop on a low time frame and hop on board. However by the time I was on, it was ready to reverse. I did catch a few, but was trying to maximize gains...well you already know how that worked out. Today was an enjoyable day even though I did not make any money trading, but thank goodness the ES trading was demo or I'd be screwed! I learned alot, mostly that I need to give those of you that trade the ES profitably a lot more respect. That "IF" I ever decide to trade the ES live I'm going to have to get to know that market and the platform really good. That you fellas trading it have to be some of the best scalpers in the world, because you had the equalivent of under a 40 pip range day to make money in. Hope this experience gives you as much fun reading as it did me trading...or attempting to trade at least!
Thanks for sharing da-net; however, how did you calculate the 40 pip daily range equivalency of the ES?? thanks, Walt
Hey Walt, The ES contract we traded had pricing increments of 25 cents, and the total daily range (RTH) was about $9, thus about 40 price change range. The same thing in the Spot market would be a 40 pip(pricing point) range.
thanks... the way I view it is to compare the ATR with the price of the underlyer. For example, if the price of the s&p derivative is $1000, and the daily ATR is $10, then the ratio is 1%. Likewise, if the price of the currency is 1.5000 and the ATR is 150 pips, then the ratio is also 1%. Walt
What are the chances that his displayed profits are completely made up ? (maybe that's the reason he uses a blog > no legal liabilities)
Did even bother to consider that anyone making false public claims about their futures trading profits would be subject to CFTC and/or NFA legal action and fines? Do you really think that someone is going to fake trading statistics to show that they made an astounding average profit of $5.58 a RT over a one year period?
Several have made false public claims in the past > see the list of NFA cases Why doesn't he show his live fills when asked for that instead of hiding behind a lame excuse (maybe this isn't for you...) ? Who cares about average profit/contract ? (in the end it is total profit that counts) He is making plenty of profit but goes public on a free blog LOL
Anybody who wants an easy to calculate and comparable tool to measure performance. Since the student's account is most likely different than Don's, to calculate how much the student would make he needs the average profit/contract. Now you know...