hello i have been trading for years the ES futures and past few month i started to trade es options cause i didn't like that the futrues have unlimited loss but i noticed on my reports that i have been down almost 30-45% on my profits as for the delta of an options that i buy are 0.500 average and futures are 1 so i was making more with futures but buying a an option with a very high delta is as well very expensive and already similer to a future contract and has less time to expiry so what would you guys suggest to do?
Is it the instrument that is your problem, or you inability to trade the market? I think it's the latter. I would suggest that you don't trade real money, until you develop an edge.
Think of it this way. Buying a call is similar to going long ES and buying a put for protection. Whether going long the underlying and buying the appropriate option as a hedge, doing a synthetic version of the same, etc, all have varying degrees of hedges against the position going against you. Those protections are not free. Your stated purpose for changing your trading strategy was to reduce risk (ie reduce max loss). Reduction of risk is not free.
This is the Ultimate Best Advice and it is simple and cost $0.00. There is no sense in trading if the odds in not in your favor of winning consistently.
It is not unusual when trading long options to give up 30% just for spreads and commissions. If you were profitable trading the ES, then stay there. And keep a close eye on your stops if you are concerned about potential losses. If you were not profitable, then options are simply going increase your losses. It's as simple as that.
Look into weekly SPY options. The SPY trades similarly to ES and the weeklies are cheap, even fairly deep ITM.