I think I am done with NQ... long hard month for me, the volatility on NQ is not something I think I will ever overcome without humongous stops (like 20 points) and I cannot do that. Back to ES , where I was a few years ago. anyone have thoughts / comments ??
Depending on what time frame you are trading but I trade the nq (on sim) and have never used a stop wider than 4 points!
Yeah @slugar... I am a rockstar in SIM... it just does not always work with real money... I just gave up all my months gains on thurs, fri and today.... of course I KILLED it yesterday... I need consistency
Probably depends on whether you're trading price or indicators/patterns. I trade price and use a 3pt stop. I've learned that if price moves against me by that much, then I'm wrong on the trade and need to re-assess. If I'm right then I have opportunities to pyramid. The ES is quieter, but it's difficult for me to make money on something that doesn't move much. If you're interested in the trading price thing, I made a couple of posts about it not long ago, here and here. There may be something in one or both that will be helpful.
Which will suit you better depends on your trading style and objectives and trade durations, I think? From my perspective and for my purposes, what you've mentioned as the drawbacks of NQ are its advantages. That doesn't make either of us "right" or "wrong": it just means we're trading differently.
Why would ES be easier to trade, or for that matter different for you. ES is less volatile but $50/point vs NQ at $20/point. Does it really matter?
I trade NQ, not ES. I like the little bit of extra vol in it. My stops are typically 20 full points, but the last two days my stops were 40 full points. I try to take down between 10 and 100 handles on a trade. I don't play that nickle and dime sheeet I feel like the ES is a bit more noisy than NQ's, just my opinion...but I feel like the technicals are a bit easier to read on NQs vs ES. The way I trade, there are only 2 to 6 trades per month on Equity Index Futures. But everyone is different. If you are having trouble scalping, why don't you trade longer time frames? If you are not good at scalping, why torture yourself. Sorry but my 2 cents. Also, why just trade Equity index futures, why not trade a whole variety of futures. All this crap moves the same... from one extreme to another. I will never understand people who say "I just trade ES" makes no sense to me.
NQ IS better for scalping trends as it trends more. Using same strategy in ES, you’ll need to average down to gain a similar profit yet risk is now skewed so less margin for error. Yet, es can handle more than 10 contracts yet nq will often see decent slippage if scalping with more than 10.