You cant make money trading 100 shares of $ 6 stocks. Unless making $ 10 a day is money to you . If you are doing this to get your feet wet I can understand. You want to Day Trader you need at least $ 25,000 not $ 2,500.
If you trade the e-mini s&p with a 2000$ account without any proven system/method, you will blow your account in a few weeks. The e-mini is wonderful for daytrading BUT with the high leverage you will use, there will be no room for mistakes which will put a lot of pressure on your shoulders. Apparently, there are good trading simulators which use the IBfeed. Maybe, you should try one of them during a few weeks.
I don't think IB will let you trade minis if your account drops below 2K even though intraday margin is less than this. This is a good thing. Great market to trade overall, but you need more money in your account. Jay
Thanks for the input everyone. Musicman, I did get them wet today. Started trading NQ as its multiplier is less than ES's and I've been trading tech stocks for a while. Did 7 trades, one contract each. Boy it's something else, being able to put on as many trades as you want. Can work against you too, and so it did because I got trigger happy. Marathon, I only plan to trade one contract until I get used to it. One of my main concerns will be to keep my account above 2k, as Jayford pointed out (thanks Jay). As far as the simulators go, I tried them before trading stocks and they were useful for getting familiarized with the market, but it was nothing like trading real money where you have to deal with emotions. So I will do it with real money, and try to be disciplined and follow my rules. So here it is for today (chart green lines - buy, red lines - sell): P=$80.80 L=-$178.60 P&L=-$97.80 I really blew it on the last two trades - trying to catch the bounce after the pullback, I went against the trend. Was also trying to close positive for the day (was down only about $10 before that). Even worse, I closed the 2nd trade only after market close. One reason I botched it was that I didn't really have a strategy for trading Eminis since it was the first time trading them, and evidently I'm not ready for discretionary entries. Must work on one or two strategies. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks Surfer, didn't want to leave you out since you were the first one to suggest trying Eminis with my account.
trading just to get even for the day is a classic no no. Done it lots myself. Almost always makes things worse. Definitely get some sort of system or methodology down, and try to follow it. Don't worry about P&L so much (to a point). Just try to follow the system. Jay
Is what I've done today. I've given away money. And some of you were out there taking it . It was like a rollercoaster, but going only one way, down. I always seemed to be on the wrong side of the market. List night I put together two strategies: Reversals - retest of higher low/high or lower high/higher low formation - entry with supporting ES and TICK on the 2nd candle after retest. Trend following - after minor correction of trend, entry in direction of trend with supporting ES and TICK, on the 2nd candle after correction. Entry only if trend continuation/change visible on 5 min chart, and if at least 3 pt room to supp/resistance. Stop at 1.5 pt, target at 3 pt. Traded NQ 1 contract/trade. First trade - it looked like it was going to break below LOD at 1008 after correction, but it bounced off it instead. Real fast, looked like a short squeeze. P&L=-$55. 2nd trade - bot on the 2nd candle up after a higher low. Was up 1.5 pt then it failed at 1017 and stopped out. P&L=-$25. By the 3rd trade, was already in a bad mindset, wanting to get even. Shorted on 2nd candle down after retest of 1017. Stopped out with slippage. P&L=-$45. And the 4th one was a disaster - shorted on 2nd down after correction. Didn't take stop right away, then didn't exit after it failed to break below 1013.50. Then it popped and by the time I fumbled with the order I was already down 4 pts (I should've covered at market, I even set up a hotkey for that) . P&L=-$85. Daily P&L=-$210. That $2k account limit is closing in fast. I gotta tell you, after this wild ride I felt like stopping trading for the day. It seems that the system is too discretionary until I learn to read the market better. So I will look into finding a mechanical setup, backtest it and if it looks ok, will ONLY trade that setup until I feel I got more experience. Any thoughts?
Buying strength and selling weakness in a range-bound/constricted type 'terrain' is like chewing on cactus...
This is a post I made elsewhere today. You may find it helpful. If so, it's from the Keep It Simple thread under Futures. --Db Tony, there are a number of examples in this thread with charts, but as I said in the previous post, it's become awfully long, so perhaps it might help if I applied my particular strategy to today's action (on the NQ). The opening range was established by 0940. Entry would be a 2pt breakout from the top of this range, or a 2pt breakdown from the bottom of the range. The breakout occurred at 1035. However, it was a false one, and the trade failed for -5 (I use a 5pt stop on the NQ). There was no other trade until 1151, when price broke down through the opening range low. The target for the day was 992.5 (the ten-day average of the daily range, deducted from the day's high). This was reached at 1504. At this point, there are several exit strategies that could be used. You could use a point trailing stop, a percentage trailing stop, a trendline break, the last reaction high, sell at the close, or even sell outright when the target is reached. Today, the exit that would have made the most sense would have been selling at the close, but even if you sold at the target, you should have made at least 13.5pts. Deducting the loss from the first trade, your net before commissions would be +8.5. If you had held till the close, you would have made 5 extra points, +13.5 altogether. Total trades: 2. No indicators, no more than two charts, no MAs, no T&S, no LII. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. --Db