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If you look at mutual funds from 401k's or 403b's after the financial meltdown showing a 45% loss and then look at how long it will take to catch up there is your lost decade or more.
I read somewhere the Emini had the best leverage and I wanted to learn a skill I could use to a few hundred $ or more to fund a semi retirement . My goal is to get and organized algorthym to identify the best set ups and maybe automate it.
I did get an option trading service in 07 and did fairly well and was ablbe to pay for a wedding but it cost 5Gs but the market scared me off and had a divorce to contend with over the last couple of years.
An interesting survey was recently made over 700 traders (pros, semis, and newbies). Interesting to notice that many theories, like 10'000 hours, fear, psychology are not the driver but part of a more complex cause/effect system on beeing successful. As many factors are subjective, for instance the time you spend on your charts is more related to the learning curve rather than time itself, don't take the survey as gold but at least you have a truly benchmark of a traders' statistical population.
Dido itrade2win advice and I will add, take a picture of the screen when you make trade this way you will have a visual es to what you did and for what.
Broker: Advantage, Trading Technologies, OptionsCity, IQ Feed
Trading: CL, NG
Posts: 1,038 since Jul 2010
Thanks Given: 1,713
Thanks Received: 3,863
Yes, the buy and hold strategy is really become a joke for the last decade. I think it's great that you are taking this into your own hands. To successfully accomplish your goal of making a few hundred dollars a week you will need to educate yourself on how the markets work, learn about trading systems, proper money management (risk/reward, etc.) creating a trading plan, and as others mentioned, develop a high level of confidence and mental strength in knowing what you are doing just to name a few things.
As for good indicators and set ups for trading the ES, it all depends on your trading style preference. There are so many indicators and trading methods out there, you will need to find one that you are comfortable with that fits your monetary goal and risk tolerance. I think a good first step is to get a simulated account and start watching the market. Learn and decide on which chart intervals that will work best for you and your system. Educate yourself on how and why certain indicators work and begin plotting them on your charts to get a real-time feel for how they work. Read lots of books. There's a ton of them available. Become an elite member by donating to this site and read through all the trading journals to get a grasp of what other traders are doing with set ups and indicators.
Take all that you've learned and begin to create a trading strategy that you are comfortable with using the indicators you like the best. Make it your own. Many people buy and subscribe to educators and trading systems which can be very helpful when first starting out. But be very careful, there are some real snake oil salesmen as well trying to sell the "holy grail". Just do your due diligence if you go down that route. But again, take what you learn from them, move on and develop your own system which can be based off of what you learned. I can't say this enough, what may work for one person may not work for you. Always remember that.
The one thing you don't want to do is rush into trading live. You will most likely get hammered in short order. Continue to SIM trade until you are completely confident in knowing what is going on in the market you are trading and are consistently profitable. Once you do begin to trade live, hopefully you will have an adequately funded account.
Also, the ES can be a meat grinder for newer traders as it is a favorite for the world's best traders and heavily traded by Black Box algo's that look to take advantage of the inexperienced traders and eat their lunches for them. I don't want to steer you away from a market but definitely look around at the other markets as well. If you want to trade equities, look at either the Dow (YM) or the Nasdaq 100 (NQ). The tick size is smaller and provides a little more wiggle room for setting stops, etc.
Also, don't be afraid to ask questions along the way. It will only make you better.
A week ago PerryG told me the ES can be difficult , I started trading stocks 2 yrs ago moved to futures (ES) 4 months ago. So if Im getting what everyone is saying. I'm playing in the toughest Instrument out there,right? If this is correct and I'm still up on a average, then if I switch Instruments my days would be alot easier huh? Because its tough on certain days with the ES roller coaster ride from negative to positive. I see alot of traders in 6E and others. When I switched to a future broker from my stock broker I assumed they had all the futures.mine only have 6 different Instruments. At the time I switched I was only looking for the ES.
New to futures.io (formerly BMT)... 4 months ago when I switched to Ninja found you guys, and many thx for all you guys helping everyone out.
Broker: Advantage, Trading Technologies, OptionsCity, IQ Feed
Trading: CL, NG
Posts: 1,038 since Jul 2010
Thanks Given: 1,713
Thanks Received: 3,863
Whoa! Old post there you quoted. Lol! Your broker only offers 6 markets? Who is that? It doesn't sound like they specialize in futures if that is correct. You really need to work with a broker that specializes in futures trading only.
Yes, ES can be difficult in the way it moves throughout the day. But if it's working for you, why change? There is no such thing as an easy market to trade with regards to easy profitability. The market you're trading should depend on first and foremost the amount of risk you can take on each trade vs what makes sense to place a stop on a trade that truly invalidates your entry. What I mean by this is if you can only risk $50 per trade, the ES will eat you alive and you'd better look into a smaller market. I started my trading career with the ES and still trade it from time to time but typically rotate between different markets based on the attention that market is getting. But I prefer to stick with the ES, 6E and CL. I also believe your trading method should work in all markets to a degree if that's any help when looking at other markets.
You've definitely come to the right place here on futures.io (formerly BMT) to continue to learn and perfect what it is you're doing. But one thing I would caution is to not get into the search for the trading holy grail. It's good learn other methods but make sure to take the value from them and enhance your own method while keeping it simple.
