QQQ, DIA, SPY I have traded QQQs but find that I can only trade about four one hour slots maybe one day every other week. Main reason being highly focused soon tires me out and I just canât get in sync with the market if I try to trade them every day. I mainly use ISLD by picking off bid/asks or putting price directly in level II, trading lots of 3000. At times there are specialists with prices I like but do not know the quickest method to target them or how long they will take. I use cybertrader pro and could send a LMT OB, MKT OB, or LIMIT. Over the past year Iâve mainly traded NASDQ stocks, on odd occasions when I have used NYSE I wasnât in a hurry and mainly used cyberexchange limit that seemed to take ages (about 15 seconds). Any of you experienced traders give me some help with this one or am I going to have to learn the hard way? Thanks in advance. Ken
NQ = 800 QQQ ES = 500 SPY Dow emini futures = 200 DIA 4 NQ = 3200 QQQ. Therefore, 4 NQ (nasdaq emini futures) contracts trading is like trading 3200 QQQ shares, and this will solve all the routing problems, because there's no routing issue for NQs. Commissions for 4 NQs are $11.80 or lower. Fohat
Ken, Sounds like you're doing great. Trading is very intense and requires focus. Personally, I have found it much easier to focus on QQQ vs trying to find whatever Nasdaq stock is moving today. I used to trade futures, including e-minis (stopped in 1998) but switched to stocks due to better execution. Now with e-mini software being very good you could consider NQ and ES. Globex in may ways is equivalent to ISLD, so you should feel right at home. Also, tax treatment of futures is better than stocks, so that's worth taking into consideration
Certain futures and options transactions are taxed as though 60% of your gain is long term and 40% is short term regardless of the holding period.
If I remember correctly all profits are taxes at 60% short term tax rate and 40% long term tax rate. It's pretty nice to have day trades get long term capital gains treatment (at least to some extent) !