Ive heard many successful e-mini daytraders saying they make a good living trading just 1 e-mini contract. And they don't see any need to up their size. Am I understanding correctly?
Kay: I am meeting with a gentleman tomorrow that does this for a living, so I'll tell you how it goes. I'm looking to him as my mentor and teacher. He's up to a maximum of 5 contracts at a time which brings in around $150K/yr. When he was trading 1 at a time, he was pulling down around $75K/year trading 3 days a week. I'm going to start trying this trading style, as the leverage appeals to me. I think it's important to have all the tools ready before jumping in though. I'm going to start by using the CME's real-time trading simulation for $35/month. I'll play with that for a couple of months (at least) before laying the money on the table. Also, I'm looking into Interactive Brokers to place trades, which seems to be the lowest cost, quickest, and preferred broker for futures. Making the switch from corporate environment to index futures trading is going to be tough though. Especially with a family at home. Hopefully the MetaStock pro e-mail/paging features will allow me to place a few trades at work w/o watching the screen all day long. TAHOE
dozu: I fully expected a response like yours. It is very common. I understand that trading e-minis takes serious attention. However, at the same time, people like myself actually need to hold down a job to pay the bills. Yes, I do have some liquid capital available that, yes, I can afford to lose. NO, it's not more than $100K. It's a catch 22 and very frustrating. It seems that people who are trading for a living usually have some "special" circumstance that allows them to start. Either a previously high paying job, or disability, or whatever. Unfortunately I don't have any of those benefits and am trying to use tools to help me transition. TAHOE
Tahoe Please do keep us updated, especially on the CME trading simulation. I would be interested to know your thoughts. If the simulation is worth the money, is it realistic, etc? This is an area of particular interest to myself as well. Thanks alot.
Tahoe: If you want to learn about e-mini and have simulation i suggest try simulation program from Best direct futures broker and their http://www.pfgbest.com. Their cost $ 29.95 / mo and their software are windows bases not web bases. I have been trying for a month (e-SP) and making net 2 point a day does not make a dream. 1.25 point in the morning and another point after lunch. It does mean net $ 200 /day by 2 size contracts after commissions But I still needed another 2 months make my self converts jump to arena. Part times ? yes you can do for my opinion as long as you can read the charts well. Good luck !
traderkay: Spent my first day with my mentor today. We will be trading live tomorrow. He uses a very simplistic, however effective, approach based on application of logic to the markets (believe it or not!). We ran through the data point by point and scrolled through the charts one bar at a time, making trading decisions along the way. It was very interesting, to say the least. He actually trades 4 accounts, including his mother's and his own. He makes more like $4K/week with all the accounts. More info to follow. TAHOE
TAHOE, Do consider some contingencies if you are placing a trade from work based on a cell phone page. It is a certainty that your CME feed at home will go down, internet connection will drop, IB will glitch. There always seems to be something. Check out the ELocal trading thread on these boards. Or any other futures broker that will answer your call right away, or call you if there's some glitch in your account (yes, they've done both for me). Also, if you are a systems trader, after you've done all the building and testing, run some simulations on your fully configured trading system with some random early exits while you are in a trade. This will give you a feel for how it will perform in real life, if you are having bad internet days (too many of those) and closing up positions early because you are going into a meeting, your feed went down(hopefully, there's a way to alert you of this), and you've got to call the broker to just get out of the trade. Missing the entry is one thing, but a failed exit for whatever reason can be very painful to an account, as you might imagine.