to RiceRocket...what would you suggest in your account to trade only 1 ES contract and then for example 1 ER2 contract?...again, suggest a reasonable amount...
to AustinP...when it was at $1,000...what type of stops did you use and not get 'stopped out'...was it mental or hard?
To IndexScalper...I looked for what you had wrote but could not find it...while trading the ER2 with about $1,200.00...what type of stop are you using?...is it a 'hard-preset' stop or simply a 'mental one' that you use when you see your p&L going south, south...hey, the best to you...we are pulling for you!!
25,000 minimum I would recommend for daytrading ES. This allows you to have wider stops and let your winners ride. Today I got triggered long at the double top today, based on my system. When I hit my stop of 5 points my system gave me a short signal. So I went short. then my short retraced, but never hit my stop of 5 points, I let my short trade ride, and added another contract once I was in the money. Then I started to scale out at the end of the day. End result, Profit! What im trying to say here is that I made only 3 trades, came out on profit and let my winners ride. Kept my commissions down. Thats the way I like to trade. And having a pretty respectable account size allows me to do that. I wish the OP the best, however, I personally wouldn't recommend scalping with such a small account. It just adds pressure to trade and might cloud judgment.
I don't get this at some point your system should have recognized the trend long. This was a huge up day, what is your typical profit per trade if I may ask.
With 5K I think you could trade YM. ES and ER2 you need 10 grand. The current volatility is just too big to be able to successfully weather the leverage.
this is such a great point...the more 'cushion' between your account value and the position of margin for the contract you are holding---the more relaxed you trade...AND...keeps you from exiting trades to soon for concern of major loss...great point...PS-I love Tokyo Narita airport
Actually, if he knew how to trade all he would need would be 1k to 1.2k for the NQ or YM and 2k+ for the ES. If you can't make money on a huge trend day or the expected range bound contraction which ususually happens after such huge range extension while overtrading to the tune of averaging 70-80 round turns per day your strategy is seriously flawed and you should seek a new one. You must definitely will never be able to scale-up to any real size which would make this type of effort worth it.
I was using mental stops. I no longer trade the ER2. I made the change based on recommendations from several posters in the beginning of this thread.
I was thinking the same thing. How would you like to be his broker. I bet they have made 1k in the last two weeks.