No setup in my time frame, no trade. For a brief moment, I thought greed was a bad thing. The market does attempt to mess up your mind constantly. An interesting note: CL May contract's volume has passed CL April contract's volume at mid-day, while QM May contract's volume is less than half of the QM April contract's volume.
Almost couldn't find my thread, I just noticed so many people starting their own journals of the path to success and wealth and ocean-front houses (watch out for tsunami). Anyway, frustrating 4 days. Monday: one scratched trade, made $8. I put in a stop, but it didn't trigger, after a few minutes, the loser came back to breakeven. Isn't that what I secretly wanted? But that incident threw me off, so I called the broker and asked why. The customer service rep didn't give me any useful information. So I spent the rest of the day re-writing my method sans stop. Sometime during the afternoon of the same day or maybe in the evening on a demo account, the new method didn't pass the test. So I reversed back to the previous method. I had to remind myself that anything different from the previous method will kill me. Tuesday: one scratched trade, made $8. Nothing to complain, the trade just didn't develop. I didn't get any setup later one, so I called it a day. Wednesday: The same thing happened: the stop didn't trigger. Again the loser came back to breakeven, so I exited with $8. Whenever you see $8 dollar gain, that is probably a bad trade. I waited a little while in the morning, nothing happened (I short only, I don't go long, that's my bias, and there is nothing wrong with it). So I shut down the platform and called the broker and asked why the stop was not triggered. This time I got something useful, he said a stop will only be triggered during the regular hours. My order was before the market hours. Yes, that pit open half hour is considered AH by this broker. Thursday: no setup in my time frame, no trade. I took off to get a license. The mid-day drop was nice, but I wasn't there (Did I mention I short only, never long?). But if one was there to catch it, he would have to suffer many losers before that. That is something we have to understand and accept, if you know what I mean. Friday: I know it hasn't started yet, but I can tell you what I am going to do. Go and get the license early, so no trade tomorrow. What happened at DMV this afternoon? Well, a bunch of lazy government employees supported by tax money very happily went off to an extended lunch break (2-3 hours). I waited from 1pm to 2pm, only one window was manned, the other four windows were empty. Dozens of people were waiting and I saw no chance of me getting it done in time (I had to take a test), so I left. These government offices must be privatised to increase efficiency and save tax money. ok, I digressed. Back to trading, for some time yesterday, I thought greed was bad, again. So I devised a method considering greed and fear as bad things. This method, like many versions before, requires me to do something. Well, one simple demo trade in the evening showed me that it was just impossible. I forget how many times I told myself that it wouldn't work, but I keep forgetting my own warning. Well, the very fact that I choose to forget is a symptom of the problem, if you know what I mean. Right now, it's not final. I know it has to be final, but I don't want it to be final, am I trying to avoid something?
You think a die-hard trader would leave the computer for one day? Not possible. As usual, I logged in and the platform exhibited the beautiful and familiar charts. Green and red numbers smiled at me. Hello QM, here I come. I am going to take your money, you stupid crude oil traders! (but if you PAPER TRADE like those on CL Redux thread, I can't take money from you). Waited for my setup, the market seemed very hesitant. Lately I get a sense that these oil traders didn't do much early in the morning, they would panic sometime at mid-day. You got to wait for a long time until mid-day when these stupid oil traders (who seemed to be engaged in some kind of "who will blink first" game) start to liquidate their positions. But I don't have much time, as I have to go and get a license in the morning. I probably waited for half an hour after pit open, not any convincing setup showed up. I can detect hesitancy pretty well. One trade I should have entered just before 9:30am ET would have been a loser, but I didn't enter that trade. As soon as that mental trade turned out to be a loser, I shut down the platform and got ready for the license. Hindsight indicates that the following setup after the failed one around 9:30am ET is a good one. But I wasn't there, not my money. So no trade today. Note1: I passed the written tests: CDL test and 2 endorsement tests. Note2: just checked the equities market, the three indexes didn't seem to change much at market open, the oil market reacted violently. Just another sign that the crude oil traders are stupid. Note3: I hate these oil traders who start to move larger number of contracts at mid-day than early morning.
are all these QM trades live or sim. I have considered trading QM but the volume always throw me off.. like today it had only3k volume by like 10:30am est.. will you get stuck? how does this all work out in the real world with such low volume.. how many ticks do the stops get slipped etc etc..?? what about entries. do limits at market fill instantly, or does it take 30 seconds?
all live trades. volume is something I have never considered important. Some traders have totally wrong conceptions about volume, and they happily trade their conceptions. What can I say? the market is full of all kinds of traders. That's why the market is so colorful. but if you throw in 50 or 100 contracts at a time, volume does matter, because the bid/ask sizes are not large enough to support it. If you ask who is doing the bidding and asking, I have no clue. Is there a market maker for QM? or just traders freely bid and ask on an open market? I hope QM has no market maker. If there is a market maker for QM, he must be one of the more crooked rotten greedy bastards on Wall Street, because the spread is horribly large. Either you buy or sell, you get fleeced by the market maker, if there is one, then I would strongly suggest SEC stop this market maker from fleecing traders. Artificially enlarging bid/ask spread is a typical money-making practice of currency dealers. the slippage on stops is a matter of the broker. As you know, all brokers are crooked, they will try to fleece money from your stop orders. Remember, your stop order is held by your broker, not the exchange, so your broker can do anything to your stop order. Typically, you will see 1-2 ticks slippage=$12.50 to $25 for a one-way trade. If QM has a market maker, your limit order will probably never get filled unless it is traded through. In other words, you will be the last one to get filled. If the price where you place your limit order is not traded through, you will never get filled, so forget your 30 seconds idea. If the price is traded through within 5 seconds, your limit order will get filled within 5 seconds, but you still get screwed, even though it is considerably less than 30 seconds.
2 trades, made $41. changed setup, the previous setup is at a disadvantageous position in trading QM, due to the large spread. QM typically has 2 to 3 ticks spread: $25 to 37.50. A market order instantly takes at least 25 dollars out of your balance, you can forget about commission. Compared with the spread, commission is nothing. Whoever (manually or via computer) is doing the bid/ask, he is crooked and greedy. He is the reason QM is not traded by many people. It's like a TV show: when it is bad, the rating is low.
You need a min of 20k to trade the mini nat gas or oil contract. Your wasting your time. Trading with 20k Using a 1.00% stop loss of total account equity gives you 40 cents as a stop loss. Thats a pretty tight stop for this contract. Using a 2.00% stop with $2700.00 gives you 10 cents. You simply can not use proper risk management with $2700.00. Save up!
so If I have 1 million dollars, my 1% stop will be 10k, that's 20 dollars move on QM. If I buy at 105 today, my stop will be 85. Does the market care how much I have in the account?
If you plan on doing this for a living and staying in the game 20k is the minimum. If you want to gamble, and roll the dice, be my guest. How can you implement prudent risk management with anything less. Do you do you even know what the average true range of this contract is? There was a $1000.00 point swing today with 1 mini contract...hello. Using a 2.00% stop commissions will eat you alive. Your pissing in the wind with anything less than 20k because you can't use proper risk management. Go ahead dream on.