One of my friends is a successful self-employed futures day trader, and I have him to mentor me. As long as I do proper risk management and not consistently make stupid trading decisions, I should do well, as most day trading failures are due to improper risk management.
You're going to be in for a rude awakening. risk management is like 10% of the pie. Those things you listed most traders do anyway.
I also know how to scalp. Every trade begins as one. I'm not a novice trader, just new to futures trading.
That will certainly help, I hope your discipline is rock solid, otherwise even with mentor, you will crash.
With 20k, NQ, a mentor, and previous experience I think he'll be fine if his psychology is in order. I'm not sure why you think he's entering a dangerous environment just because he wants to trade futures. Equity markets probably have more nonsense to wade through than futures markets these days.
Yeah, discipline and risk management goes a very long way. I know. My goal is to have a reward/risk ratio of at least1.5 and a winning percentage of at least 50%, while risking only 1-2% of my account per trade. So I'd be risking $200-$400 per trade to make at least $300-$600 per trade. So, if I can get at least 10 trading signals per week, I'll hopefully make $500-$1000/week, around $460-$960/week after commissions and exchange fees. Pay myself 50% of my weekly profits, and once I double my account, double the number of contracts I trade. The good thing is that my partner has a steady passive income that pays for both of our living expenses, so I won't be placing my living standards at risk. I do plan to do my trading through an LLC to make it easier to prove to the IRS that I deserve professional trader status. Futures aren't any more or less dangerous than equities, bonds, and options. They're not Forex!
Backtest your trade method on both Emini ES, EMD, NQ, TF and YM...then trade the one that outperforms the others if you're stuck on trading the Emini futures and not any other futures trading instruments. Yet, keep in mind that ES and TF are to toughest to trade for most beginner traders.
Good idea. I'm going to stay away from the ES though, because that's been taken over by robots. Also, what month do most stock index futures traders trade most often?
Everyone trades the front month contract when it comes to outright index trading. Start at YM or NQ. If you get good, play with TF. I'm not a fan of ES, just don't like that style. TF moves but requires 95$/month ICE data. There's plenty of interesting stuff out there. I do most of my trading in CL (don't start there). GC is also good. As far as an LLC and professional status goes that's not gonna buy you much. In fact its going to cost you because most brokers you trade via LLC entity with will want you to pony up for pro data fee costs which are significantly more. All 1256 contracts should be the same for tax purposes.