eusdaiki A handle in ES is = Example: From 1428.50 to 1429.50. or since ES is traded in quarters of a handle, a handle is one whole number. each tick is = to $12.50 so each handle is worth $50.00 (or the cost of a steak dinner and a cocktail plus a tip. ..
My answer to the thread title: By reading countless books on trading and traders, staring for countless hours at charts, and visual backtesting for an eternity ... Strategies came and strategies went... the only strategies that I am left with are the positive expectancy ones which are aligned with my personality... albeit a changing personality, and one which, over the years, evolved from the personality of a daytrader to the personality of a longer-term position trader... I feel that I have all that I need to trade with, but I know that within a few months, I will have slightly modified at least one of my core strategies or have come up with an additional one... It's a constantly evolving process and a profitable one too... over time, my trading personality changes and my strategies change too, irrespective of the former... strategies find me and I find strategies... nothing is set in stone... All that matters is that I am making money or at least preserving my capital...
I eventually found out that teachers can't trade and traders won't teach therefore I knew something had to be done. I got pissed off, so much greed I said. So I went at it myself. Started on paper.... Lost a bundle. Kept losing. Started losing less. Started breaking even. Started winning consistently. Then I said to myself.... This is on paper, no emotions, no fear no greed factors. We need to go live. So i got myself a 30k account, btw, I saved as I did paper. Started implementing the paper experience with VERY small shares. The shares were so small commissions were kicking my butt but it was at least real money which is what I needed to do. Lost a little bit, nothing drastic. Started breaking even. Increased the ante, # of shares. This started taking care of commissions. Started winning consistently. Increased the ante. The consistency was still there. Started using margin. Started lossing a bit. Got rid of margin. Started winning again. Re-started margin. Started losing a bit. Loss some more. Started winning again. Fast forward two years, and Im kicking the market's ass usng 4x margin. For 2007, Im doing a futures transition using the same method. - Paper - 1 Contract - X #s of contracts Happy new year!
For years I did not care for indicators. I found them to be lagging. Then I was bored one day and being that Forex has a multitide of free charting programs out there, I started to download them and compare them. As I was going through them I noticed many shared the same basic indicators ...Macd...Rsi....Ma's.....Stoch....CCI....ROC....ATR... Parabolic SAR...Bollinger... I then ran acrss some indicators that were different in a charting package named MarketScope and I thought I had researched all of them in my Investor R/T days 4 years ago...but I had forgottten many of them, because they all lag... Anyway's, I figured out how to use risk, trade and money managment together with a scaling approach, using an indicator that helps me identify a medium term trend. I never trade aginst its direction. You can see it illustrated here: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=81740 Michael B. P.S. I am a believer of trading more than one strategy and I have another one. I switch strategies often and am always looking. Over the years I have learned much and revisiting older strategies has been like a new discovery for me. P.P.S. I think to sum it up...go with a longer bias with your shorter term direction...only take those trades.
I sat next to a trader for 2 weeks and then a few months later for 3 weeks. I wouldn't have believed what I saw if someone just told me it worked.
A "CAR" is what they been auctioning off all day on SPEED channel, Barrett-Jackson . man, some guys have to much money. .... A Chevy Chevelle LS6 goes for 1.1 million. Other 1960's muscle cars going for up toward a 1/2 a million. Ok, in trading before someone asks.........a "CAR" is the same as a contract. The term comes from the older grain traders, a full railroad CAR equaled 5k bushels, the same amount as a corn, wheat, soybean contract. So in trader lingo they traded "CARS". ... Whoever it was that said trading is and always will be always a learning, tweeaking process...i totally agree. Not to mention that daily we are adjusting constantly as the battle unfolds. Gee, maybe i should up the anti to buy a muscle car as a hobby. HA