Yes, it's very very troubling that the equity has dipped below $1,000 ... bells and whistles should be going off for the OP, but oh well. Hey, I know, maybe Pabst can help him! *** Seriously, stop trading right now, put in the screen time, and get your shit together.
Don't let this dumb asses discourage you. You got to 1200+ and now barely below 1000. That's just a pullback in an uptrend. Looks like discipline is your biggest hurdle, not your strategy. Besides, you playing with 1K, not exactly something hard to recover from. In the meantime the education received will possibly be much higher than anything else out there as far trading goes and that's assuming the experiment fails. My point is, even if you fail, you will succeed. Good luck to you and best of skill in your journey. Susana
I thought the risk was limited by the stop loss. How would the trading capital base increase risk? Perhaps you mean - sounds like you won't have much of a cushion. I'll accept that - but risk is a different animal.
Don Bright Bright Trading, LLC Registered: Oct 2001 Posts: 9035 04-09-08 08:24 PM Just a question guys. Intraday margin for the E's is $2250 per contract, and $3600+ for overnight maintenence....where do you trade with a $1,000? Just curious ***************************** ? Don ,you have multiple 100 empl ... Ask ,they must knew One example http://www.ampfutures.com/ day trading margin for es with AT platform 300$ ,for daxm8 1000$ http://www.ampfutures.com/margins_details.html?PHPSESSID=64132de2cbfda71d2c56cfddbad0f09e $300 Margins Details Please read the additional risk disclosure information below before continuing. For E-Mini S&P, E-Mini Russell 2000, E-Mini NASDAQ and Mini $5 Dow
I am with you on this one Señor. There is clearly more than one person on this thread who misses the very essence of scalping the ES. The reality of this thread is that since march 20, on a daily basis, the OP has shown no signs of growing consisentency, but rather seems to lurk his own thread in some sort of masochistic ritual. Now, the plan might be to suddenly turn this thing around and show us all a fine display of consistent positive daily trading. The would be very nice and I do hope that it happens. But it will take the steady application of advice already given to the OP by a number of posters. The big winners are the other newbies who have joined in this thread. regards f9
I'm sorry to disappoint all participants of this thread. After thorough analysis of all my trading activity since I started this journal, I decided to take a break for a few days to fine tune my strategy. I feel I'm going around in circles. There appears to be no consistency in my trading - everytime I increase my balance I end up giving all my gains back the next day. My plan is to papertrade for at least a week to gain confidence in my system. Yes, my biggest problem right now is lack of confidence and the pressure to perform knowing I'm only a few bad trades away from blowing up my account. I will increase my account balance as many of you suggested. I think the optimum starting balance to trade the ES is somewhere between 2-3k. I want to thank all posters that took their time to share their wisdom and experience, especially Mandelbrotset, fearless9, austinp, osorico, Pekelo, eminimouse, gurucandidate (sorry if I missed anyone). Even though it appears that I didn't listen, I actually made significant changes in my trading and expect to see the results soon.
While we all await the Rth open, I have some time to kill and I thought that I would pass on a few thoughts concerning intraday trading the ES. It is not scalping, because scalping refers to trading the spread for a tic or two, it is really the next level above where you are hunting in 5-15 tic range. Anyway here are some thoughts. They are not meant as absolutes,rather that is the job of the price. It will soon tell you where its preferences lie. ... Think as you would like to be, but always be aware of exactly where you are at. ie, do not allow commissions to bother you if you intend to buy/rent a seat when you become big enough. They are a small % of a good strategy, but will help sink a bad one. ... think in terms of tics, not handles, as the price moves in tics. Yes it likes round numbers, but you will find that it has an attraction for any number for that matter. ... what price likes is history. It is a history buff. It is drawn to the scenes of the almighty battles of the past where the bulls and bears have poured thousands of contracts into a say 5 tic range. ... a tic is a sacred little person and demands your respect. A tic can throw you out of a good trade, keep you in a bad trade or deny you entry. Be kind to the little person it is your friend. ... commissions. Your comms are a small part of one tic and will become even smaller as you make progress with your trading. So why let your trades go against you by several tics, when you could wiggle out at b/e and re-enter for an even bigger tic take. ... fibonacci lines, dont you just love the name. It sounds so romantic and mystic. A fib 50% is the merely middle of a channel and yes it can be an important level, particularly if it coincides with the 50% level of another sized channel. I think that Donchian claims the fame here, although I use a differing method of calculating channels. Always remember that channels commemorate the price battles. Think about that carefully as you construct your channels. ... exit trades on an expansion and re- enter upon resumption of trend. Why let the price back up on you by 10 tics when for the price of one comm, most of those 10 tics could be to your account. "The price is breathing" is a quote you best forget. ... decide what is trend and what is not. Trade counter trend for a tic target and trade trend with your knowledge of tic behaviour. regards f9
Goodluck IndexS, But be very careful when increasing your account balance as it just might mean that you lose more. At 1K your mind was focused, unfortunately in the wrong direction. Never the less you had focus. Do not throw it away lightly. regards f9