Thanks a lot. I thought you were referring to new debt of different maturity. I understand now that you meant new debt with the same maturity as the old debt. I know what the yield curve is; I thought you were referring to the yield curve in your original response to me. Thanks so much for your help. I appreciate it.
LOL, well probably less than $1286, You will barely last into feburary 06 at that rate. Since you just started trading you should cut yourself off at 1/2 your biggest gain, so $30 (meaning: stop trading). And why not start with 1 lots with such a small account until you show that you can be consistently profitable.
1. Trade ONLY 1 lots 2. Research and test a strategy 3. Set a stop loss tick or dollar amt for the day(ie once i have down 5 ticks I will stop trading for the day because on my average winning days I make 8 ticks) 4. Know who is "going on" in a market before you trade - meaning what is influencing it the most while you are trading it. Not only other markets but what economic data came out(or is coming out) that may make other traders enter/exit their positions on that given day. Or wow, we havent traded at these prices in months!!! I better be careful because a big move may happen.
New bonds are issued or sold at 5% will affect the price of exisiting bonds traded in the cash market. If you are holding a bond with a 7% coupon it will be worth more than new bonds issued at 5%. Your bond will be sought after.
For starters, I keep in mind "fundamental" news/info, but I base my trading decisions on what I SEE ON THE CHARTS. that is the simplest way to do it. I have a blog that shows what I look at to trade the 10yr note every day http://www.protradersmarket.com/blog.php Theoretically, one can day trade 10yr notes without even knowing anything else besides good technical setups. Whatever works for you. For me its all about the setups, I love my setups and I love the volume histogram feature on ensign, very similar to market profile. Finally the best trading book that I have read is Mind over Markets, its really good, it is all about the profile, I suggest you read that.
I keep a close eye on economic figures as well as US treasury Auctions. In setting a daily loss limit, should I use my average day profit or my average trade profit? For example, on wednesday, I was down $350+ and got it all back plus $60 in a single trade. So I have shown an ability to make $400 plus in a single trade with a 3 lot. However, all day that day I had smaller losses. The number of smaller losses was much greater than the number of large profits but hte large profits were able to take care of the losses for the whole day. Unfortunately, this was not the case today.....i traded greater size today, however, so that also had an impact on my PnL. So, on day one, my profits tended toward being much larger than my losses but they occur much less frequently. The strategy I use is basically to follow trends and trade ranges. I look at a chart, find support/resistance and see if the risk/reward makes it worth putting a trade on. Selling just below resistance would be low risk but I have to be ready to reverse the position if a breakout with volume suddenly occurs. Buying just above support would be low risk but I have to be ready to reverse the position if a breakout with volume suddenly occurs. The size of the range determines how big the risk is relative to the reward: small trading range===>high risk relative to reward large trading range===>low risk relative to reward Now I'm looking at the 10-year chart for today and I see that there were definitely opportunities in that market. Somehow, all day I saw the market as very poor and felt, while I was trading, that there were no opportunities. I think to myself, "where was I" to not have seen any opportunity all day....it is as if I was trading an entirely different market than that shown on the chart because now, looking at hte chart, I see opportunities which were not apparent to me before. How can I be blind while trading? Anyways, these are the ramblings of a newbie. It would be nice if I am able to sort these things out soon and stop myself from losing too much money. Thanks for listening