Do you use this kind of ratio mostly for scalping I take it? What is your avg profit target / stop loss (in points) if you don't mind me asking? I must be overly conservative. I trade up to about 3 ES per 100k ~ roughly 1 ES per 33k.
That is the ratio I recommend as long as risk per trade does not exceed 1.5% of capital, 2% as absolute max. I shoot for 3X-20X+ reward. I think you are overly conservative, nothing wrong with that, just hope you getting some interest through t-bills on the "dead" balance. Anek
Thanks anek. I still trade and manage my trades based on "dollar value" not by points and I think that's what hinders me. I make as much with a 20k account as with a 100k account. I'll probably try to start sizing up next year.
Look at your DOM... At this instant in time you can buy 1 or sell 9 at market. slipage beyond that. Max Slip Spread Q Ask Q Bid 0 0.50 1 9 1 0.75 9 21 2 1.00 17 22 X 2.43 27 24
4 contracts on a 11k account??????? 4 contracts are $240k (using round numbers, S&P at 1200). So you are managing $240k with only $11k? This is a 22:1 leverage. An adverse move of 4.5% would completely blowoff your account. With one contract you would have 5.5:1 leverage, something reallistic.
Played around with some promising and aggresive algorithms to hedge and leverage small accounts... $10K Three - five step martigales averaging down in varying increments. Mathmatical price inflection based. The trading system manage risk and made profits reliably. Plays both sides starting with $5k ... but always had runaway blowup risks. Reliably turns $10K to $20K in a session and spawns 2 more trading bots... but inevitably turns $50K to negative $50k. Deep drawdowns happen so quick that even with reserves you blow out your account. Especially when your squaring and cubing your positions x 4.
I agree with Anek on his 1.5 - 2% risk per trade, its easy to have 4 - 5 losers in a row with this market with a 2 point stop loss. I trade the ES and am also curious as to anyone´s experience with scalping size on the ES. I have experience trading 10 - 15 with a large account, no slippage to speak off. This account, in theory, could trade 40 - 50 contracts using the 1.5 - 2% risk model mentioned.
I agree but I am only scalping 1.5 to 2.0 pts at the most. I am not trending etc.... I have yet to see it move that much during the day in a gap up or down (not that it couldn't) I have seen it first thing in the opening but, I am not in the market during the opening. What are the odds of a 4.5% move during the day straight up or down? I guess anything could happen right now in our crazy economic market. Paul
the math goes like this: (X-Z)/50 >= max. DD in ES points X: Your capital Z: broker's minimum margin So if you have 5K in the account with 1 K min. margin, you can have an 80 points DD before you have to stop trading...