What to trade next?

Dear fellow traders:

I am not getting much support from career forum and this is the place I should have started.

I am seeking your help in deciding what to trade next, having traded nyse stocks and options for over 10 years.

My current setup is day trading stocks, not swing or long term. It is rare I hold any position over an hour. And I always try to go flat overnight even if I have to take a loss.

Right now I am leaning toward ES/YM/NQ because international situations can blind side me in F/X. Same but to a lesser extent in the US equity market indexes. You can have occasional crash/rally in financial indexes but that's where I am hoping a tight stop would limit my liability ?

I sincerely seek your advice on what my next project should be. I like to build winning strategy instead of making the greatest return at this point.

Thank you in advance.

 

Sir,

Not being a jerk here – but have you ever stopped and thought for a bit….

If you can trade – then you can trade

And as only you know yourself – who better to ask - or know


Food for thought

Regards

RN

 

ES and YM are fine to daytrade. These days they are often slow paced and offer much less points than when the recent financial uncertainty was ruling the markets for several months. There are about 2 gyrations per YM session (gyration = upswing followed by a downswing or vice versa). If I take the last 27 trading days, gyrations per YM session varied between 1 and 3 & half.

If you rate yourself more highly you can try CL and NG which are excellent. Here there are lots more points offered per session. Currently there are about 4 and half gyrations per sesssion in CL 10.00 am to 2.30pm (actual variation being between 3 and 7 gyrations for the last 12 trading days). If I take the last 12 CL trading days again (10am to 2.30pm each day), a maximum of 8497 points were offered. Thats 110 swings at a mean average of 78 points per swing (minimum 35 points per swing, bar close to bar close).

However none of the above means much unless you know what you are doing and deploy a reliable methodology for sequentially buying the upmoves and selling the downmoves as they follow each other.

 

Thanks for your comments so far.

At this point I want to build on winning strategy rather than highest return,

in other words, what is less risky - I know they all are risky thats a given - FOREX vs ES ?

 

Help Please. Thank you

 

As usually it depends.

First of all. unless you plan to trade currency futures forget about forex. It is not a real market on retail level. You order exists solely within your brokers platform, paired against other traders within the same platform, and without central price, funny things happen.

ES is a great market to trade if you want deep liquidity. However, if not careful it will chop you to death intraday. I would say try YM and/or TF to see how you fare in thin, but fast markets. Then branch into ES to compare where you do better.

Another great and liquid market to trade is KOSPI futures (South Korea). It mostly resembles ES (a bit less liquid), but it has a better range and higher tick value. it opens at 8pm EST, so you can trade it regardless of US trading.

 

if you like a lot of movement I would suggest a look into CL crude oil future which has had really good volume since it's spike when Katrina happened. If your good there is much more potential for good money trading only 1-2 contracts.

TT

 

ES is a professionals' market and therefore one of the most difficult for retail traders to prosper in.

CL, FGBL, TF, and all the currency futures are better suited for the retail trader despite the lack of deep bids and offers.

Best of luck.

 

Thanks for your comments. Is trading currency better suited for retail trader than ES/NQ/YM, easier to build on success ? I thought E-mini (ES) were created for retail traders in mind.