Really. The market will one of two things, it will go up, or it will go down. Where you start is not relevant, as long as the market moves in a direction that is favorable to you relative to your starting point.
This is going to be a lot of fun thread, since the talk started about "if TA works" and "if short term retail ES trading possible".
It will be like the hundreds of others threads on this topic. GL88 will not be swayed, we TA users will continue to make money.
If you read the contract you have with your broker, you will notice that they are allowed ti trade against you. It is also stated that the data feed is not 100% reliable. Given these 2 informations you can have a clue why nearly 100% of retail traders loose their shirt.
The day trade is one of the main source of income to all the broker and market making in recent years. The only way they can continue to make money (and get their fat bonus) is to lure more and more amatuer to trade. 5K for one amatuer account is nothing but 10 000 new accounts a month is a different story. This site is sponsor by brokage firms. Think twice before you believe anything from those so called experience and successful "poster".
I agreed time frame is a key, but to make money in long term, you definitely need a very long term time frame for your trade which this approach is no longer treat as day trade or swing trade. Anyone try to shot for 30-40 ticks in ES or CL is equal to suicide in long term. I did make money on my trading account, but only 2-3% a month which is about 20K/month. I pick up this skill when i worked in a firm and use my bonus as my capital. Anyone claim that they can make millions from 5K account is a completely bogus, aka those gamblers that claim they break the casino with their 2K capital, it can happen but the chance is no different from winning lottery.
I can't find it now and I don't really feel like looking too hard, but a paper I read linked at CXO Advisory's website analyzing retail traders' profitability showed that of the ones who were profitable, they primarily fell into two groups: traders who made 1-5 trades per day and traders who made 750+ trades per day. So, if you're going to try to be a successful trader, try to develop a strategy which puts you in one of these two buckets. Of course, the frequency of trades is only one variable in a long list of variables, but it seems to indicate that if your strategy doesn't put you in one of these two groups, you face longer odds. I think it makes sense because the trader trading 1-5 times is probably working with one or a couple of markets and set-ups and gets to know them well and the trader trading over 750 times/day is really almost like a small hedge fund and presumably has grown from trading a few times a day to scaling the methodology up to current levels.
It is pretty simple. Most traders have no idea what they are doing. -no idea how to backtest a strategy -no idea of market structure -do not fully understand the mechanics of the market or even an accurate understanding of contract specifications -Do not understand the mathematics of trading -Do not understand trading cost relative to intended (in this case hoped for) profit -trade far too frequently and try to earn profits that are not open to them as retail traders given their technology and cost structure. What would be truly shocking is if more traders made money.