Been looking at this...if someone has a daily price profit target of $500.00...what is the BEST futures contract to trade only '1 contract' per day to reach your goal of $500.00...considering you may make more than one trade per day...I would say it is either of these: *ER2 *Crude Oil (CL)-large and not mini *Gold (comex/glovex)-large and not mini ...no heavy loading up on many contracts thus ripping away by commission taking... considering a $5,000 or less trading account...thoughts?
ER most likely, once it starts running it doesnt look back so often than ES or YM for example. Disatvantages are fast and jumpy moves eventually and slippage due to not very high volume and less liquidity. CL and ZG are very hard to daytrade unless you have a good method/system. Though ER can be wild and moody when not trending. Until you know it well enough I would recommend that instead of using a hard stop after entry you spread it against the YM immediately after you enter and drop it (YM) again after trend (into ER's favor) is established. Sideways moves wont hurt you much this way and you will learn more intensive as you are in the market and can feel the steam. If you just want to trade a lot signals with small targets then of course this is not an apropriate way.
It takes a plan, knowledge and skills to make money. Since a target is part of your plan. Use the citation to begin to understand the decision you have already made. Substitute 4 for the 2 in the reference because of your target size. Because of your knowledge and skills, use the ES AND only one contract and minimum leverage. Your best ally in using real money is the liquidity of the market you are trading and the fact that it is parasitic to big money AND YOU ARE PLAYING WITH ONLY ONE CONTRACT. On the T&S, in your case, always follow big money on the 50 plus T&S to do 3 or 4 trades a day, maximum. Use 5,000 in the example. Do not advance contracts with less than 20 days on each contract level addition. You can see bigmoney BLOCKING price advances by the WALLS on the DOM. OBEY big money. Do not include playing catchup in your plan. Once you fall behind because of your self inflicted target, then accept it and gradually accelerate your learning curve. Be prepared to try to surround a lot of your present beliefs with alternatives to destroy the possibility that your present beliefs will be your first recourse in the future. http://kingcambo.com/tradingplan/tradingplan2003.pdf