I understand your not risking more than 1k... However, are you saying your doing such with a trading account balance at/near 2k or did you start trading your current method successfully via growing the account with an initial 2k balance ??? This is important because I know a veteran and successful trader that proved one can scalp the Eminis successfully with just 2k. His profits on average per day was about $125 dollars...he stopped his experiment after about 2 months. However, he was already a veteran successful trader (not a beginner in that particular trading instrument) and his actual trading account was 215k. In addition, he's getting dirt cheap commission rates, using a T1 line and using something (can't remember the name of the tool) from one of the most reliable/accurate data vendors called CQG. What he did was open a second account with 2k to prove his point via a method with an edge... Same edge he used for many years. Therefore, it was an unfair comparison he made because the psychological pressure is not the same via any of the following: * New to trading * New to a particular trading instrument * Using a new strategy or method * Has only 2k Simply, I'm not saying it can not be done. I'm saying is your trading situation the same as ksonsinc because ksonsinc falls in one of the above categories after I read many of his prior posts here at ET ??? I already know the answer is NO because your talking about treasuries where ksonsinc was talking about the Eminis. By the way, are you scalping the treasuries ??? Are you doing such via Interactive Brokers...the same broker that ksonsinc plans on using ??? Mark (a.k.a. NihabaAshi) Japanese Candlestick term
I am some where in between the two. On a $3000 account I have had many weeks in a row of $600-$700 profits. I give some of that back when the markets breakout and gave a lot back during the hurricane. Before I started trading ZF I had worked at swifttrade and traded QQQQ backspreads. However on the whole I am a very profitable futures trader pretty much from the time I started. Ib is my broker. I guess you could say I "scalp" the overnight market, I don't really trade during the day. As far as indicators go I don't really believe in them, that is I think most of them are just sales tools for brokerages. I just assume the market will retrace itself.
Like Niha said, You can't really make money with $2k but $2k is good enough to trade 1 contract and learn and experience. In fact I had a $5k account futures where I only lost $1k in the learning process. Then started depositing more money once I had something working. $2k is good for experience , you won't be making any kind of living being a newbie to trading though for awhile
i actually think its not a bad idea to start out with $2,000 for the beginner. your going to lose it anyway so start small. then you will get to experience the following 1)what it feels like to be ahead 2)what it feels like to be losing 3)what it feels like when your platform doesn't work right. 4)what it feels like to not be able to get your broker on the phone to fix a trade and you feel the sky is crashing down. nobody can describe those feelings to you except when your there live.
Why not get your account with IB and then trade something like QQQQ? I'm not sure if you can trade 100 shares of QQQQ with $2000. Maybe you can. If so, you can learn that way and eventually transfer your knowledge to trading NQ (the equivalent futures contract but equal to 8 x QQQQ). With $2000, you can really only expect to get your feet wet. I'm not sure if ES is the right place to start. One large move intraday and your account is GONE. We haven't seen really big moves in ES in a while, but you don't have to look back many years to see they are possible. Have you tried demo trading on IB's system? It is well designed.
interesting, since almost no trading activity during the night, you can practice buy/sell and most of time lost only 2 ticks in learning process and, it will train you to be very patient for sure.
demo trade..........realtime............for a few months..or years......develop system that works............risk/reward........at worst risk 1 reward 3.....LOSING IS BAD...BREAKEVEN IS GOOD....PROFIT IS GREAT.....trade with the current trend..........intraday........pt target YM emini 15 pts .........buy low sell high........buy dips sell rallies in other words..........channel trade/trend trade......demo trade.......trade only 1 $5 contract until you have total confidence in yourself and your system........edge means system.......with rules....no rules, no system........ once the trader begins to think he really is sharp, 3 enemies arrive on the scene...........fear........greed........and anger.......stop loss setting and trailing require time to perfect......to think about instantly trading real money with no experience is goodbye 2,000......previous experience in any other market doesn't give u the edge........as usual porgie gets attacked at this point.......too negative....? best wishes
To All ET pll who have replied to my thread and given me some great information Thank you very much I guess $2000 is nothing to trade the Es NQ and then YM But what my plan is to only trade intraday on certain day when i feel i am comfortable I believe no matter what chart we see or what we calculate we can only try to predict the out come but no once can be %100 sure And i do realise that $2000 is not much but to get my feet wet and start trading on 1 contract of the indexes would be a good start. p.s. how come no one talk about the YM and only the ES Is the ES much better to trade then the YM