What's the main difference between trading the QQQ instead of a stock or a future, etc. What should be analized to decide where you are going to trade(capital size, experience, knowledge, etc) Thanks
Trade 100 lots of QQQ until you are confident,then increase size ,when you get to where you want to trade QQQ @close to 800 share lots switch to the futures for the reduced margin req and no PDT rules. This was my plan until I found out I couldnt trade 100 lots of QQQ successfully! Good plan except for that!
Try the Spiders instead, daytrading 100 Q's at a time may just cause you to lose money. Here is why: you buy the Q's at 23.44 on a great set up, 5 min later it's up to 23.54. You made a dime while NQ rose about 3 points ! But it's just a f*cking dime, right ? Since the trade looks great and you can only make 3 trades you figure you'll try to make a quarter at least (10 NQ points) NQ goes up another 2 points then in one minute it drops 3 points, you are now up only 2 points that is 6 cents on your 100 Q's . It doesn't look good anymore so you close the trade you grossed $6 . Next trade (short) looks great too but after 10 minutes it has gone nowhere so you wait, and wait, then it spikes 5 NQ points in 2 minutes you are down 15 cents so you liquidate . Bottom line you lost $9 before commish. With the SPY you could have made a quarter on trade 1 then scratched trade 2 after 5-10 minutes for a breakeven. Also ES tends to retrace less than NQ when it starts moving , you'll find that making a quarter on the Q's takes time and isn't easy.
of trading 100 share lots is not to make money,even with 1c commission you wont make enough to buy lunch but get experience trading "for real" with very little risk
Not sure, because to learn something you need to risk some money and learn to take profits. I made some of my worst trades trading small lots of Q's because I was only up a dime or only down a dime. You enter to late because you think it doesn't matter anyway, you wait too long in hope it will come back or you'll make a homerun (in terms of NQ points). Also you have to look at the eminis, ETF's charts in 1',3' and even 5' don't show the info you need.
I think many can relate to both experiences. another clue, with QQQ (and SPY too) the commish is eating a lot of your profits and increases losses. On the other hand, when trying a new market or strategy, it's really advisable to try small size. Not too small either. A rule of thumb, try to trade a size where the loss per trade will not bother you too much (maybe just a bit). This is because the important part at this point is to concentrate on the plan. And regardless of experience, if you trade above the loss size you can feel confortable with, you will make it much more difficult for you to make money. With more experience and capital, you can handle bigger losses in $, but probably not in %. Many who tried, including market wizards, are doing something else now. tntneo