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First of all thanks for taking the time to read this, cause im pretty sure you have maybe answered the same question a million times.
Im a beginner trader. Just have a couple of months experience. I took a course on a local company that taught me a very simple method of trading the EMini ES for 2 points daily. Sadly as i was practicing and doing more simulations i didn't feel very comfortable with all the indicators i was using or the rules for taking entries.
Currently i want to focus on Emini ES and aim for 4-6 point profit with a 2 point risk. Im using only a bar chart of 610 ticks and another of 5 minutes, no other indicators that im aware of.
What i usually do, is:
1. Before the market opens, i mark the highest and lowest prices for the european/asian session and usually after the price break those zones or rejects them, usually use them as support of resistances.
2. When i identify a trend i mark trend lines a wait for pullback to take the trade
I would like the polish my method and i was wondering if you could give me some pointers, maybe some books or maybe recommendations on what i should focus on to improve. I do like simplicity and the less indicators i can use the better.
Thanks in advance
JS
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
The best place to start would be to kick the tires on this bet and extrapolate this out into the most likely outcome.
Checking the quick math on your bet this is how it translates.
If trading with market orders, you are giving up 1 of your 2 ticks of stop loss by crossing the spread just to enter the trade.
If trading with limit orders, you will likely only get toxic fills, so you will also give up 1 tick just to enter a trade.
So you are basically betting you can make 4 to 6 ticks of profit before you hit your 1 last tick against you. Now if you are using a stop loss, then you are crossing the spread to get this last tick, so all it takes is a single price level to trade against you.
Because you are going to be down 1 tick to start every trade, then you really have to travel 5 to 7 ticks to get to your original 4 to 6 tick target.
If the market is volatile then most of your limit orders that get filled will come with a price sweep of 2 to 3 levels and fill your stop instantly. If you are trading market orders this won't be as much of an issue...
If you are very very good at predicting direction then you may have around a 60% to 65% success rate in picking the direction correctly. I don't think you will ever get it right more than that, and this is likely best case. Most people couldn't beat 50 / 50 odds if their life depended on it.
But picking the right direction won't lead to 5 to 7 ticks automatically.... It will only likely get you off of the first 1 to 2 price levels which is only worth 1 to 2 ticks. Picking a direction that will yield a run of 5 to 7 ticks would have odds closer to hitting blackjack vs. just not busting while the dealer busts.
So you will likely have an decision tree like this.
Pick the right direction: (Best Case) 60% to 65%
Pick the right direction and get a run to target 1 in 4 change (Best Case) 1 in 10 chance (worse case) This all depends on volatility and luck.
Number of ticks to hit your stop loss 1.
Number of ticks to hit your target 5 to 7.
Commission cost regardless of outcome: retail commission rate
Pick the wrong direction and go straight to your stop loss (40% to 45%) being very generous here.
Pick the right direction but fall short of your profit target and move to your stop loss which is much easier to hit.
Of the 60% to 65% you pick the right direction, this will still happen 3 out of 4 times best case, 9 out of 10 times worse case depending on volatility.
So this is what your particular bet translates to for most traders with nothing more than the basic house edge against you and an above average ability to pick direction.
You can do it maybe.... But you have a very tiny margin for error with your particular settings.
I'd recommend moving close to a 1x1 or greater risk reward ratio if you are trading an instrument that is commonly used by market making algo's playing the spread. If you are going for low odds of hitting a home run and that is your comfort zone, then pick an instrument with a lower spread cost such as the YM. And the mechanics of the spread won't kill you as bad.
Best of luck.
Ian
In the analytical world there is no such thing as art, there is only the science you know and the science you don't know. Characterizing the science you don't know as "art" is a fools game.
Forget everything that course taught you and start again . You are starting one of the hardest journeys you will ever take and outside a marriage/divorce , buying a new E class mercedes or House will likely be the most expensive thing you do unless you have the smarts to win the trading lotto . As crazy as it sounds the best advice you can give most wannabe traders is DONT do it . It really needs to be an obsession to make it in this game . If you must persist learn all you can and NEVER start trading actual money until you can trade sim profitably for six months continually . That little piece of advice would have saved literally 90% of those going down this path thousands for 6 months of profitable every month is super hard to do but i think its a decent enough bar to clear before putting real hard earned on line . Gives you a half reasonable chance of making it rather than trying to face major league pitchers at first time to bat which is what you do starting trading ... Otherwise good luck
You want to risk two points and target two to three times that so your risk:reward is on the right side and you are not intending to just try and scalp a tick at a time. Sounds good to me.
If price breaks the overnight high or low it is making a new high or low for the day. If price accepts the break or rejects the break there should be enough movement over time to reach your target either way. Same with a break of yesterday's high or low.
Great, that will keep you away from the perpetual search for the perfect indicator combination and the huge amount of time wasted relearning things again and again. Choose something simple that makes sense and start with that and give it time and only change things after a lot of consideration based on the careful trade logs you keep. (Keep a trading journal from day one). Good luck.
You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
My little 2 cents that may be worth something here is to look into zooming out a bit more of your current tick chart size if you want to hold for more points. That has helped me a lot. Start with doubling that 610 to 1220 and play with multiple chart sizes. Study market structure, confluence, candlesticks and some basic elliott wave theory.
If you are not comfortable with the strategy you have learned then maybe that strategy is not for you. We are all different and therefore everyone has a different approach which is ok. There is more than 1 way to skin a cat. The journey in this game is to find the right approach for you that stands through the test of time... and that will be your edge.
There are no shortcuts in this unfortunately. Good luck.
Don't listen too much to all of us. We each have our own methods and bias. It is a part of the journey we must all take to become a good trader. We all want you to succeed, but we are not you so while what we say is with the best of intentions, only you can determine if it will work in your own world.
I am old, here is a bit of song from a band I followed when I was young- (Songwriters: Jerome J. Garcia / Robert C. Hunter)
There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone
If you want to see how someone else does what you are talking about he puts up a free YouTube four evenings a week. He trades the ES with one moving average and some trend lines hitting reversals, with an automatic two point stop. Only difference is he uses the 2,000 tick chart. By the way, I don't get toxic fills. Yes, my entry can slip a tick or so but part of the issue is trying to get the trade off (operator slowness) I have very little problem with bad fills on the profit stops and stop loss in the ES. But that is automated and my place in the que is secured the split second I enter the trade. So Mack has been doing what he does for years with no change to his methods. Plenty of doubters that come and go on these forums but they never seem to post results. Not saying discussion is bad, but I am saying there are lots of opinions voiced on this board that are not supported by data. You know the quote about the difference between theory and practice. There are lots of active frauds selling expensive trading advice and the folks on this board do a good job of taking them down, but Mack is not a fraud. Main issue is folks assuming risk reward is the same thing as win loss. It takes both to calculate expectancy. So for those that say you can't make money with a two point stop and a 1 point profit exit I say yes very correct if you are on a random entry. But if you are hitting a good entry 80% of the time or better, well that is not the same thing. By the way he also urges people to sim trade until they figure it out. That is excellent advice. When you go live something happens with your brain and it messes up your performance for a while, until it decides trading is boring. Check out the videos all tilted Lear How to Trade with Price Action and the date. Here is a recent one.
Also, simplify your life and download Fat Tails (all his stuff starts with ana in the title) opening range indicator. You can turn off opening range and just leave the overnight high and low on your chart all labeled and everything.
Personally I am in the audience every morning for Morad's before the open free briefing. Now he is a different style but once again pure price action with just VWAP and the Median price on the chart along with a volume profile. Five days a week a half hour before the open on You-Tube as FuturesTrader 71 Trader Byte. He is all about identifying possible support and resistance areas for reversals. He is respected around this forum and has been doing the exact same thing for years. Very much like Mack. Of course he would love to have your account at his brokerage but the daily videos are free and open to all.
So to sum up many have made what you are doing work. There are several who do formal education. It is not an overnight learning curve. Many who are succeeding with this style of trading are less visible here because they are no longer looking for indicators and methods. Good luck.
