Some of us who are just starting out again don't have the luxury of having a 500k account to play with. Then, after the PDT rule, some of us are forced to take perhaps 5k and trade it through an instrument like ES or NQ because of the SEC's dire concern for our financial welfare. So, if I have to "fish in a dry hole" for pennies just to survive in this game and gain experience, then that's what I have to do. If a trader can turn 5k into 10k, it is probably a lot harder than turning 50k into 100k. You do what you have to do to survive based on how you like to trade. Holding ES for days is way out of my financial league.
You're missing the point, Ahpie... If you are "forced" to trade emini, nothing wrong with that. You could still have a plan where you risk 4 points for an expectation of winning 8 points on a trade... that's not "for pennies". Account size has nothing to do with it. You trade what you can. But "going for pennies" is unlikely to EVER lead to anything but scrambling year after year to break even for most traders... and after expenses, probably a net loser.
Yes, but how many drawdowns at that rate could I take with a 5k account? Not too many. With a lower account value, everything else (percentage wise) is much higher. This includes commissions, datafeeds, etc. I might be spending 5% of my account size per month in datafeeds alone when someone else is only spending .05% of their account for datafeeds. It is all relative, but I see your points. I am just realizing how hard it will be to survive on a small account size such as 5k.
If 5K is significant money to you and you're trying to work it day-trading, the odds are already against you because of the cost of doing business. Your best hope is to work on the best trading plan you can come up with... fewer trades, more success per trade. Trading with a 5K account even in the ES is 12X leverage. Noise alone will kill most such accounts.
this is a bit off topic, but i am new to ET. i don't have much software and was just wondering if anybody knew where to find the most highly correlated stocks to the s+p 500. stocks that move identical to the s+p. thank you.
of course spy's, but anything else that has direct (not "identical" i guess) ratio.. stocks like msft, etc.