It did for me. When I first started I used a mental stop and found that I could not mechanically pull the trigger when it got to my stop. My first 3 YM trades went like this. I went long 1 contract and sold it for a 10 point profit in just a few minutes. Wow that was an easy $45. So the very next trade I buy 4 and then the market starts selling off and I had told myself I would sell after a 10 point loss, then a sell program kicked in and before I knew it I was down 59 points on the trade. I could not take anymore and I sold it and received a nice ($1200) loss on one trade. The market then fell another 20 points and I went long 4 contracts and made 22 points on the trade for $420 profit. I ended the day down $735 and I remember it like yesterday. So why am I telling this story you ask ? Before I started trading YM I paper traded it and had good results, but when real money was on the line I could not exit the trade for a loss on my on. This I why I stress physical stops when trading futures because if you enter the stop as soon as entering the trade, the trade either makes money or you get stopped out but there is no emotionally trading going on when you are wrong to keep you from getting out. Automation is a great thing because as humans, our emotions are our greatest nemisis while trading.
This is a little off topic; but I follow computer hardware etc and read this http://www.driverheaven.net/#news85118 info on the r520 ati vid card. My question is; can someone slander a company to make their stock fall or is that illegal? I thought it was illegal; I like ATI so I hope the person gets fined and jailed.
Your welcome hedg, Feel free to contribute anything you find relevant or if you have questions I am more than happy to answer them for you as I am sure others on this board are too.
Was not aware. But thanks. I'm definately going to have to consider TradeMaven. With Greenstreet, they offer CQG for free, and TradeMaven for $50 a month. So, i'll definately look into it once I get set-up.
I starting using Trademaven on the advice of a friend who trades es. I love the layout and the charts are awesome once you get them configured. I pay $50 a month for it. I have heard good things about CQG and my broker actually recommended it if I was using an alternative source for charting. What like about TM is that the charting is included and you don't have to pay $115 for esignal.
Yeah, eSignal is pricey. But I think it will be worth it once I get set-up. *If you tell eSignal you have an account at FXCM or Alaron trading, they will give you 50 dollars off the first 2 months* There are probably more, but that is what I got. CQG doesn't seem bad at all. But I can't paper-trade the YM, only ES.