I made the switch this week from trading ER2 to ES. 9/4 1st day trading ES full time. Today's net is around $1300, so I may call it a day early just to get the win under the belt. I made about 900 on the morning move up, tried to short it around 84, lost the 900, then made it back and then some with the 1300. some observations: 1. it's much less jumpy than ER2. alternatively, slower to watch. 2. but then again it won't blow you out of your stops quickly like ER2. 3. the liquidity gives you much more time to react to signals. w/ ER2, I usually throw market orders out there to get the fill. but 90% of the time end up with unfavorable fills. I think today after the first few trades I used only limit orders. 4. it didn't take as long as I expected for the trading to chew through the 300-400 contracts ahead of me on limit orders, thanks again, I'm guessing, to the liquidity. 5. the signals I use work similar on ES as ER2, so that's the good news. 6. I position trade more, since... 7. I put on bigger sized positions than I expected. I started w/ 2 contracts, but upped it to 15 pretty quickly. which leads to... 8. higher commission costs than I expected. I'll have to wait and see if ES consistently chews through more commission than ER2. nothing scientific, just a feel. 9. ES moved more than I expected (I was expecting it to be like paint drying, but it isn't.) so far so good. hopefully it continues. I like the reduced jumpiness of ES vs the ER2 since ER2 very easily takes out stops without the liquidity to get out of positions. wish me luck...
9/5/07 Day 2, net +2800 after commission on 15 ES. basically rode the drop from 80 to 75 and called it a day. volatility helps when trading ES since it moves it faster. efficiency is also getting better, yesterday I traded 48.
9/6/07 Day 3 Net +1525 on 15 contracts. I'm loving the liquidity ES provides. Basically shorted from 78.5 to 76.5 averaging in and out. One thing I've noticed with ES is that since the multiplier is smaller at 50 vs 100 for ER2, I take on bigger position, but scale in and scale out at limit MUCH more than ER2. ER2 seems to give you just enough time to see the bid/ask before reacting with a market sell/buy order. ES lets you sit back a little bit, ie a few seconds more, and make a more informed /less gut reaction decision. And of course, right after I cover, it goes down more by 2 handles, ie if I held on for a few minutes would have doubled my profit. But them's the breaks. Update: Couldn't stay out... gotta work on that discipline. shorted around 73, covered around 78 for loss. went long at around 78.25, sold at around 80.25. Net +2215 after commissions on 63 ES traded. I think I'll stay out for good now for the rest of the day.
9/7/07 Day 4 Net +1841 on 23 ES traded. Shorted at 60.5, rode it up to 65, rode it back down to 58.5. Need to stay disciplined and cut losses sooner. Hard to short at S2. Anyways, calling it a day and week.
I also did the switch from er2 to es not too long ago so far so good I will follow this journal with interest keep the good work!!! wish you the best