(These questions apply to stocks, options, fx, and futures, which is why I'm posting them here.) For several months I've done well on assorted option spreads and recently began trading index and currency futures with some nice returns from the dollar-yen both on-paper and for real. It's all been pretty straight activities - nothing "advanced" or complicated....but I have two questions that after searching around ET and on Google I've not found the answer to, and hope that some kind folks here might know. (1) Trailing Stops. I've NEVER used 'em before, but have used manual stops and adjusted them as needed during those days where I was actively trading to execute market buy/sells at a certain price -- which can get awfully tedious when something's moving quickly! But I have not come across what price to trigger a trailing stop from....For example, if you're long a position and are showing some nice paper gains, to preserve a fair amount of those gains, would one set their trailing stop trigger off the the bid, ask, or last price? (I would think the bid or last, and vice-versa for if you're short a position, but that's a guess -- as I said, I've never used trailing stops) (2) Index Futures. I've read plenty of how to day-trade them (which I'm not particularly interested in due to schedules) but for those who trade them, in VERY general terms, how does one trade them in the overnight and US premarket? IE, if Asia, and then Europe are showing up VERY green overnight, are you waking up at 4AM to buy (for example) an ES contract, set a trailing stop (just in case of a reversal) and let it run for a while? This is more of a curiosity than anything else -- I've only sold index futures into some of the intraday declines over these past few weeks and earned some gains, but I have always wondered how folks trade them here in the US "as the world turns." As I said, I've been fairly-successful in my 'active' trading and manual stops. So my first question is directly-related to try and streamline my trading activities, and the second is more of a curiosity. A sincere thank you in advance for your insights.
First of all, to trade ES in the overnight you need to know what it is reacting to. * Asia (not often) * Europe (very often) Thus, you need to be watching the futures or index (preferrably the futures) that's associated with Asia and Europe. The fact that you mention 4am tells me you should be watching Europe. Thus, you need to be watching their futures and know when those key market events (ex. europes economic reports) will be released so that you'll know when the big price movement is about to happen. If your unwilling to follow Europe's key index futures and unwilling to follow the release times of those key market events... Don't bother trading ES in the overnight trading session. Always have a profit target prior to entry and that will save you many times from the let it run for a while problematic method. Every successful ES trader I know that trades it exclusively (only) in the overnight trading sesssion... They start preparing for their trading of ES within an hour before Europe market opens. As far as I know they are using the same method they would use when trading the regular trading session. However, do to the low activity at times... They obviously must not get as many trade signals in comparison to trading the regular trading session. Mark