bobwest 

You cannot really learn that much from being told by other people; you just have to learn from experience.

This is mostly true, but:



Mike

blackberry 

$2000 DAX, RB, CL, GC, 6E and TF. I will observe daily and 240m charts to find direction and 60m chart to trigger my trades and to position my stop loss.

I think why so many of us are reacting to your game plan is that the timeframe and instruments you are talk about, 2,000$ is literally 5-10 bad trades. For instance. the average sized 60m bar on TF and CL today is 550$. Just buying the top of a bar and setting a stop a tick below is going to cost you 500$. 6e is running 325$ a 60m bar also. The math doesnt work, and several experienced traders who trade these instruments for a living know that the game plan isnt good. We want you to launch with a mathematical chance of being right!

If i may suggest you consider LEVERAGE as a key component of your game plan. Forex, like 6E can be traded for 1$ a tick (as can 27 other currency paris that are very good trading instruments via Forex/FX), that 325$ 63 stop becomes 25$. Crude can be traded via USO for as small as 50$ per 100ticks. same with GC via GLD, TF as IWM etc. I do this all the time. I will trade SPY using an /ES chart and BUYMKT buttons on spy.

Here is the catch. you need to put 30k into the account, due to stock PDT rules. you could also do this inside of your IRA at TOS or IB. You wont need to 'risk' 30k, but you have to have 30k to have enough buying power to buy a 20$ a handle position in TF via IWM. This allows you to scale as you make money without having to step right up to the 400$ stop arena.

here is a list of delevering opportunities.



There is a reason that experienced traders laugh at this video

hobart 

I think why so many of us are reacting to your game plan is that the timeframe and instruments you are talk about, 2,000$ is literally 5-10 bad trades. For instance. the average sized 60m bar on TF and CL today is 550$. Just buying the top of a bar and setting a stop a tick below is going to cost you 500$. 6e is running 325$ a 60m bar also. The math doesnt work, and several experienced traders who trade these instruments for a living know that the game plan isnt good. We want you to launch with a mathematical chance of being right! If i may suggest you consider LEVERAGE as a key component of your game plan. Forex, like 6E can be traded for 1$ a tick (as can 27 other currency paris that are very good trading instruments via Forex/FX), that 325$ 63 stop becomes 25$. Crude can be traded via USO for as small as 50$ per 100ticks. same with GC via GLD, TF as IWM etc. I do this all the time. I will trade SPY using an /ES chart and BUYMKT buttons on spy. Here is the catch. you need to put 30k into the account, due to stock PDT rules. you could also do this inside of your IRA at TOS or IB. You wont need to 'risk' 30k, but you have to have 30k to have enough buying power to buy a 20$ a handle position in TF via IWM. This allows you to scale as you make money without having to step right up to the 400$ stop arena. here is a list of delevering opportunities. There is a reason that experienced traders laugh at this video

That video should be mandatory for all members. Summarizes my first 3 years (out of my 10 total) of experience!

Wow, I'm sort of speechless. Did not expect this much response. I thank you all in your time+energy=effort in expressing yourselves, truly, thank you! I will post an article that most of you most likely have seen already. And should mention that I agree with those 8 points the author of this article wrote.

8 Things To Learn From Japan?s Biggest Day Trader ZorTrades


The most important thing in the game plan is my trading stop loss. And what I have learned through my micro forex day trading experience is to cut the losing and keep the winning trades. In life I have to focus on living not on dying in order to create and be alive. The same rings true in trading. In order to focus on my trades I have to accept the fact that I may blow my account. In other words, that is my ultimate stop loss. And I'm alright with that. Again, thank you all.

That Awesome New Chart video is great, it should be a sticky in the Beginner's section.

Hi Blackberry,
I just read your text above mine saying you traded a micro forex account. It reminds me of something I wrote to somebody else recently.

matthew28 

Hi, Also remember how much an ES contract is worth. The ES is currently at a value of about 2,000, with a big point value of $50 ($12.50 per tick). Therefore one contract of the ES is worth about $100,000. The same as a full size 100K forex contract ($10 per pip), or ten mini 10K contracts ($1 per pip), or 100 micro 1K contracts ($0.10 per pip). Think about how many contracts, or the value, you traded in your forex account. Sometimes people forget how large a futures contract is and trade far too much size. Apologies if stating the obvious.

And a few of the products you mention: a 6E contract is worth $125,000 and a crude contract is about $46,000 or so. I don't know about the Dax but I remember FT71 saying that 'it would take your head off' and I think he said it was about 30 Euros a tick. Even only trading one contract you will be taking a huge step up in leverage.

ps Don't think people are jumping on you. I am learning myself but the point is it isn't actually necessary to blow out an account to learn and one only learns over time anyway and with futures leverage, and if things go badly straight out of the gate, there won't actually be many trades or much learning available before you have to stop any way. With a $1000 margin you can only lose $1000 before you have to stop. In practise you can only lose six or seven hundred before you can't put a trade on and still have enough left over for a stoploss. That doesn't allow many trades.

matthew28 

Hi Blackberry, I just read your text above mine saying you traded a micro forex account. It reminds me of something I wrote to somebody else recently. And a few of the products you mention: a 6E contract is worth $125,000 and a crude contract is about $46,000 or so. I don't know about the Dax but I remember FT71 saying that 'it would take your head off' and I think he said it was about 30 Euros a tick. Even only trading one contract you will be taking a huge step up in leverage unless your micro forex account had around six figures in it. ps Don't think people are jumping on you. I am learning myself but the point is it isn't actually necessary to blow out an account to learn and one only learns over time anyway and with futures leverage, and if things go badly straight out of the gate, there won't actually be many trades or much learning available before you have to stop any way. With a $1000 margin you can only lose $1000 before you have to stop. In practise you can only lose six or seven hundred before you can't put a trade on and still have enough left over for a stoploss. That doesn't allow many trades.

Yeah, to piggyback on what Matthew is saying: You are starting out, I wish someone would have told me to slow down in the beginning. I blew out multiple accounts in the beginning. I too traded FX, started with $6K, got it up to $16K in two weeks, then increased my contract size like crazy and got up to $87K in < 3 months. Should have cashed out and paid off a car or two and started over...but instead I increased contract size again, again and again until I was started losing $20K per day. I would give anything to go back to those days with the knowledge I have now.

But you will only truly learn from trying it yourself. I just hope you make better decisions than me (never forget to pay yourself first).

I wish you nothing but the best! Keep us updated!!

Also, my best advice would be to not use your $2k for an account. Use that money for TST Combines...heck even start with a $400.00 $150K account combine. You will find out VERY QUICKLY if your strategy is profitable or not.

**Just a thought

No not at all am I taking any of the comments as bashing. I'd say it shows very much how much passion every trader has about their craft. I opened a micro account with FXCM $50 and in a little over a year now have $266.97. While I was dancing the micro forex dance opened the AMP account with $500 just to study futures. And in time learned to appreciate respect and love the velocity of DAX and RB the most. So now it's time for me to dance with futures. And for as long as I remember that I do have a left and a right leg to dance with, the game plan is why not. Will start dancing with the YM, NQ, DX, 6B at first and go from there. I'm afraid that I would be terrible @ topstep trading since the emotional content of live trading is what keeps my trading decisions accountable. Topstep trading even though a noble idea would (knowing myself) not help me much.

Daily bar, Euro to be bearish and it's counterpart the mighty Dollar to be bullish on Monday. Will look for the buying trigger on DX 60min chart tomorrow. Per tick DX movement is $5 vs $12.50 on Euro.