Excuse the ignorance, but I am fairly new to the futures and e-mini markets, as I strictly have traded stocks, but my interest has been piqued in the e-mini's. I have followed them for a bit, but damn, they seem to shake around so quick, that I dont think I have time to trade them, as I work a full time job where I am often away from my desk. Is it even possible to hold these things for more than day, or swing trade them. Seems every thing I have read is about scalping them in a matter of minutes (or seconds). And if I was to hold them, I could be wiped out in little to no time. Thanks in advance...........
I have seen some guys trade the NQ mini's with a 2 hour time frame but I have never seen anyone swing those things.
I am more of a fundamental trader, and my holding period is between 1-4 days. This works well for me, as I am not interested in being glued to the screen and watching every tick. Of course the swings are greater, so you have to be more capitalised and/or trade few contracts than a scalper.
Thanks for the link and info........ I simply think I do not have the time in the day to trade them, nor am I capitalized enough to hold long.........but the info has been great, keep it coming if you have it
Zentrader.....how capitalized are you and how many contracts are you carrying and for how long? And if you dont mind, how is your success rate and how many times has the market raped you by holding them?
cookpr: âIs it even possible to hold these things for more than day, or swing trade them?â Depending on the circumstances, Iâll hold a position for a couple of days, but my setups are derived from shorter timeframes and not daily charts. Unlike zentrader, I observe the market throughout the day and trades that evolve into swing trades are often the remainders of positions Iâve almost entirely liquidated. I only feel comfortable carrying a small percentage overnight.
cook - the number of contracts you trade is a personal thing based on your risk appetite and a/c size. If you want to swing trade the ES and decide that you need to run a 10-20 pt stop, you can work out how big your account needs to be to keep your risk at x% per trade. eg. 10 point stop, 2% risk, a/c size should be around $25k for 1 contract. If you haven't traded futures before, I would recommend you have a look at something with less $ volatility such as short term interest rate futures. When you are learning, it is a good idea to trade a position size small enough so you hardly care whether you win or lose, then you can focus on proper form. If you are having wild $ swings in your account, it can be hard to make the right decisions. You may want to check out Eurex or LIFFE, there are lots of liquid products there that may be suitable. Also, you can place your trades in the morning before going to work, and not worry about being distracted during the day (been there, done that!). Hope this helps.
Here's two cents - Seems a couple of people might be confusing "swing" trading (which typically implies intraday setups and position management) with "position" trading (which usually has little or no-intraday aspect). The former is relatively low (or at least controllable) risk, the latter has much higher risk and often uses larger stop sizes. Holding what was initially an intraday swing position overnight (or even for multiple days) that kept going in your favor into the close (and that hopefully you've already taken some of the profit off the table) isn't all that risky and about the only time I'd think anyone would even consider using a 10-20 point stop on an ES swing position is if they're already 20-40 points in the green and were trying to give it maximum room to move without stopping out due to volatility (although a true position trader might be forced to use such a large stop because they can't react intraday).
The first trade for the Schindler Fund was going long on September 10, 2001. The market was rallying nicely that day. I wish we had decided not to hold overnight. We finally were able to get out 12 days later.