Do you understand the costs behind your trades? How much it will cost you to use a Market Order in ES vs. a Limit Order? The likely hood of getting filled. Are you trying to scalp? Catch a trend? Mean Revert/Fade? What are you goals? How large is your bankroll? Why did you pick the ES?
Does that mean you are not daytrading the ES, or just daytrade it sometimes? I am only interested in daytrading the ES and nothing else.
If I get a strong signal then I still trade the ES. I can already tell that you are underfunded and you need to blow up a few accounts before you are really ready to listen. I was the same way myself years ago. I hope you at least have the ability to backtest your own ideas before going live. Don't jump in with real cash until you have some paper trading experience. Good Luck!
I understand the following. Transaction costs and margin requirements per contract for daytrading and holding overnight positions. Liquidity is very rarely an issue with ES. Scalping for 1 point is not easy most of the day. My goal is to make money every day, with the amount I make being dependent on how many contracts I decide to trade, when I decide to trade and how I decide to trade. I picked the ES as it is the main US Index Futures Contract. I prefer to keep the size of my bankroll private, and for now let's just say I am not afraid of losing $10K should I ever get caught out with a major disaster similar to 9-11. The purpose of this thread is to speak with ES daytraders so that I can get some information as to how and what works best for them, thus allowing me to make up my own mind as to what might be the best way for me to approach my ES daytrading.
I am not going to share any exact secrets on how I make money. I doubt you will run into any ES traders who make money every day. In my opinion what matters is how well you did for the Month. I could show you a system that "makes money every day" pulling 1 to 2 points out of the ES per day...guess what..It will have at least one blow up day per month. The same illusion applies to people who write far out of the money options. Oh look I am making theta every day!Oh look I am making money from time decay every month! Then BAM a 3 Standard Deviation move happens and they lose 6 months of profit. Trading for a living is 2 steps forward and one step back, sometimes 2 steps back. The quest to make money everyday and not expect some rough days is fantasy land.
I realize this is your thread an I am off-topic in a way, and am being distracting at this point. But those two comments quoted above rail me, make me burn. Liquidity means ZERO. Price-action does. You cannot make money trading liquidity...Only price-action. And this one is the worst..."Scalping for 1 point is not easy most of the day." ??!?!?!!! In ES?!? That is FOUR TICS! FOUR!!!!! Four tics, and that is hard??! If scalping FOUR TICS in a market in a day is hard, than that is not a market I'd want to trade. You could do better than 4 tics in many other instruments I reckon'! But if ES is what your heart is set on, well....Good luck sir/ma'am.
Also remember your costs in trying to earn for ticks. If you get long and lift the Offer now you are down a tick ($12.50) if you wanted to hit the Bid and get out. Market Order IN & OUT has you down half a point ($25). To ensure a fill on a Limit Order then most likely you need price to go up/below a tick to get a fill. I actually have a system that earns a point a day but after you factor in the losing days it averages around 5 to 6 points a month. It really does feel like making money every day until a big losing day happens. You can still earn a living but the market is not some ATM machine that will print money for you. I am done with my lecture, all I can say is good luck.
Wtfauoa; 1) The ES is the best day trading vehicle in the market. Nothing else comes near it. 2) A retail trader trading the ES is like a raw boat doing battle with fleet of modern destroyers. So be careful, as it does not take much for them to blow you out of the water. 3) HFT computers make almost half of the trading volume in the ES. 4) The day trader needs to understand the general working mechanism of the HFT programs and know what anchor points they use! (The flow chart of the program if this then that) 5) Be aware of the coming events of the international economic calendar when trading the ES 6) Follow the trend and wait for the retracement before you go long or short. 7) Watch for the support and resistance lines, the fab retracements and the whole number phenomena. 8) Be patient and let the market come to you. My trading style is scalping. I determine the general direction of the trend wait for the chart to set-up enter or fade the trade for few points, sell and wait for the chart to reload. And do it all over again. Sometimes when the trend is a strong, I stick it out and keep my figure on the trigger. goodluck
Make sure you are not choosing ES or any future for that matter because of it's high leverage low margin requirements, you been warned.