GS put position was doing well until the late day buying surge. At midday the position was up 10% of account then closed -110. I will liquidate these puts if not green EOD monday. Few key takeaways. 5000 to 100K is doable with options if one takes profits quickly and is glued to the screen all day. 5000 to 100K is unlikely to happen day trading ES futures, because key reversals and the larger moves occur during the overnight session. Much of the intraday is trend continuation with the usual high intraday noise. I find it is difficult to trade the intraday contratrend noise. At this point I have decided to put this little exercise on hold. Continuing to spend all day watching the market for a possible trade signal that may or may not occur is simply not a life choice I care to make. I am contemplating automating the signal generation, however the time commitment required to learning how to program and then implementing a automated system is unappealing. The thought of refunding my trading account back to its original size simply to day trade profitably is even more unappealing. If I decide to automate at least the signal generation, this thread may continue sometime in the near future. The account is now sitting at 5600.
Swing trade the NQ's over day's not minutes. Catch the first 10% swing book $5,000 profit. Scale up to 2 contracts, catch the next 10% swing book $10,000 profit. Scale up to 4 contracts, catch the next 10% swing and book $20,000. Now you have $40,000.....ect. These could be 5% swings also and it just takes longer. Depends how the market is moving, but if the market moves and you catch the trend it can happen. YOU have to flip at the right pivots. It may take months until you can flip. Already 2 times you could have done it this year about 5% swings. Catch the big swing after you've scaled up....booom
I can see why you suggest the NQ. Less slippage more volatility. Also if the directional position is correct, since overnight ranges are larger than intraday ranges during trending, holding overnight means getting a larger % of the move. When is the next 10% swing pivot?