I watched the ES most of the day on a split screen showing a 1 min and a 5 min chart. It wasn't until 12:35 pm (mountain time) that I decided to take my first trade. I went short one contract. I held it for five minutes, and then got out of the trade at 12:40. There was no profit/no loss on the trade. Except for my $7 commission charge. Basically I got nervous and bailed. What do you think of the 12:35 short entry? Was it a good spot? Was it smart to go short on a day in which price was in an uptrend? The uptrend seemed to be getting a bit long in the tooth that's why I took the short trade when I did. Thanks for looking. ps... I got short at 1549.25, which was also the price I got when I exited the trade.
You have a choice to treat your trading like a business or a hobby. If its a business, all breakeven trades are losing trades because of commission costs in $ES_F (Emini ES futures). Also, backtest your trade method and you'll know if that location you took that trade was smart or not on a day in which price was in an uptrend all though someone else looking at a different time frame may see Emini ES as range bound. In addition, backtest your trade method on all Emini futures products to determine if you should or should not be trading Emini ES futures. Simply, only your trade method knows if it was a good spot or smart trade and not anonymous users at a discussion forum that most likely are using completely different trade methods for trading the Emini ES futures. Counter-trend trading is ok for daytrading just as long as you understand the difference in risk exposure in comparison to daytrading with the trend assuming you've identified correctly that its a trend. The few good counter-trend traders out there are quick to exit a trade going against them on trend days and/or look for trade opportunities only on range days assuming they got the identification correct of a range day / trend day. Further, at $7 commission costs and trading 1 contracts...I'm going to assume your primary goal is to trade for points and not ticks. Therefore, you need to take a time out from trading for psychological analysis and determine why a 1 contract short position would make you nervous while its price action is barely moving near the upper area of those channels drawn on your chart. Simply, your trade method may be ready (proven in backtests) but you may not be suitable as a trader of the Emini ES futures because you're trading against arguably the best futures traders on this planet and in a trading instrument that's the most traded by professional futures traders...traders that are trading at a much cheaper cost than your $7 commission rates.
+1 t0 everything wrbtrader said except for the last part about not trading es b/c the best traders trade it. IMHO that is no bearing on anything and if anything is a positive b/c of the high liquidity. if you have an edge (trend trade, counter trend, whatever) just execute your plan and ignore everyone else. re the commissions, i know TOS is known for high commissions but $7 is ridiculous. at a minimum email them (now TDA) and ask for a reduction. if they balk, switch your account to ib or another broker if you can't meet the $10k minimum like mirus futures. that extra $2 that you're paying on each RT WILL add up at the end of the year.
I want to echo the advice given on commisions. There is no way you should be paying $7 RT on ES. It's out there for under $4 and if you want to stay where you are tell them you know that and they must immediately lower your rate to $5. You'll still be paying over the odds but it won't be totally absurd. If they won't do it for $5 then find another firm. You'll be around $4 ( + or - $.15) with any of these and there are other options. 1) IB ($10,000 for openers) 2) DeepDicountTrading (they clear through Crossland) 4) Crossland It is always hard to comment on a specific entry without knowing the basis for the trade and what your plan is. PM if I can be of any help picking a feed or a platform. I won't spend forever but I'm always a soft touch for 15 minutes of advice for someone that is new. Getting started is hard so plan on digging in for a long learning curve. Anyone that tells you that you will learn this game in six months or even a year is not giving you any reality.
Thanks for your replies. I got nervous because I only have $4850 in my futures account. Margin requirement for 1 contract is at TOS $4350. So I am very sensitive to loss. I know I am under-capitalized. But if I can take higher probability set-ups using 1 contract, and very little heat, perhaps I can slowly build my account up. I am new, you are correct. It was only since discovering and studying the posts on Elite Trader that I feel I have made a break through. I have a trading approach that I am trying to master. (trend lines for structure, 20 ema for mobile support/resistance, 1 min chart, 5 min chart, with-trend, counter trend). I have heard the term back-trading many times, but I am not quite sure what it means. I practice trading on TOS' "On Demand" platform, which is simulated trading. Is this what is known as back trading? Thank you for the advice about finding lower commissions on futures.
Get out of TOS. You need a much smaller margin requirement -- no more than $1000 or so considering your capital. It leaves out IB but there are many others that are possible.
What confuses me is that it's not easy to compare apples to apples. I know TOS' commission is all-inclusive, whereas broker's that have lower rates require I pay exchange fees, etc. I have considered looking for a new broker, but each time the search became too confusing for said reason. Also many lower cost futures brokers don't have charting software and data feeds, right? So I would have to pay another service provider for these separate services? With TOS I get all three included (charting software, data fees, and broker services, plus exchange fees are included. If you could direct me to a lower cost service in which I didn't have to add each service separately, that would be great. I bet this post will get removed for being in the wrong section. (not technical analysis, that is).
Here is how I am setup with DeepDiscount/Crossland: I pay $3.92 a RT in ES "all in". I have great data (Rythmic) included that price and I use Siera Charts as my charting and execution platform at $27 per month. Those are my costs in total. BTW Rythmic is far and away the best data I have EVER used and I have used a handul of feeds. It is spot on evey day with virtually no downtime in almost two years. The people at Rithmic are great as well. Variable (volume dependent) of $3.92 per contract and fixed cost of $27 per month. If you can't calculate simple costs between brokers -- bundled and unbundled -- you can never come close in this business. if you are older than 14 you can't be confused over this simpleton stuff. It is not allowed. You are being raped on every trade. If you are doing fewer than say 15 trades per month it does not matter but up from there it does.