I am sure I may be repeating myself, but since new people join often and the markets keep evolving, I wanted to hear about some of the SIMPLE tools some of you use that work and/or newsletter advisory services. A client of mine (who is actually doing well !) mentioned he uses MACD on a 5 minute chart, follows the cash dow, cash sp and cash nasdaq comp he has the DMI indicator and folow some services that make daily calls and thats it... any good tips I can share with begining traders?
For the beginning trader of the E-minis I would advise that they start slow with 1 contract and get a good feel for how they trade.
What bugs me about the e-minis is that I find it hard to get out of a position. Lets say I can get in at a turn, at a good price say.... 00 and then I put in a limit order to get out at 75. The market will butt up against that price, not once but several times and my order is still not matched? Then I end up with a wash or a 0.25 gain (thankfully I no longer hold on to such positions until they turn into losers). What is going on? It used to be easy to get out of an emini position, even if you sent in an order at the last second. But no more. As soon as the market pauses anywhere, zillions of traders line up on the bid ask spread like birds on a wire. What is a person to do?
I'm using IBs Trading Work Station but this is really more of an emini matching engine question. TWS allows you to modify an existing order that has already been submitted to the exchange. Can I enter an offsetting order immediately (but away from the market) and then modify the price to bring it in closer. Would this allow me to keep my original place in line, hopefully affording me a quicker fill in situations I outlined in my earlier post?
If you are starting trading the Emini's first of all just do one contract at a time. There is a good chance you will lose money when you start out and there is no sense in doing it with 2 or more when you can do it with one. Next I would say dump complicated indicators. Use pattern recognition to trade them in multiple timeframes. Market internals that are worth watching: TICK, Trin, A/D line. Brandon
Fees are too much. Maybe some day when I become a true BSD. BTW, do you know if modifying the price of an existing order preserves your place in line over just sending in a new order?
No. A modification is treated just like a new order and you are reset in the queue. The reason that you are seeing those trades go off at your limit then fall away without your order getting filled is that you were further back in the queue. (It's based on the time the order was submitted--assuming that your order went to Globex and isn't sitting on the broker's servers.) Whenever I'm testing a very short term system on the minis, I require that price trades through my LMT in order to assume that I would have been filled. The shorter your timeframe, the more important this is.