Hello! I've been lurking in the forum for a while and finally thought I would introduce myself.

A bit of background...

Last time I seriously considered trading was in 2009 - I was finishing off my Master's in Financial Risk Management and a career in trading looked like a dream job. But for my sins, I couldn't land a trading related job and even toyed with the idea of shelling out for Futex course in London as an entry into prop trading.

Around that time in another forum, someone gave (to someone else, not me) what seemed like good life advice which was: consider trading for a living when you have become a homeowner, held down a stable job and aren't desperate to make money off trading. This was nearly ten years ago.

Since that time, I put trading firmly at the back of my mind and pursued a conventional career built on applied machine learning and had a fair bit of success including homeownership. I'm now at a stage where I've accumulated some risk capital and gained a better understanding of algorithmic trading, futures market and order flow based trading strategies and Python programming experience.

I've recently opened a funded brokerage account, signed up with Rithmic for data feed and Bookmap for DOM trading (simulated). The goal for me is to prove to myself if this is something I can handle. I'm giving myself April & May to get to grips with order flow trading and familiarising with the Bookmap interface. I'm also tracking my trading performance via Trademetria (see attached images) and if everything goes well I'm hoping to start trading with a $20K account beginning in June.

I've been only trading ES & Treasury Bonds (occasionaly NQ) I usually (Sim) trade one at most two contracts per instrument - sometimes I could have maybe four contracts - one each in different instruments and seem
like I'm managing ok (could be beginners luck!).

Some of you may find this a big red herring (or even a noob mistake) I usually trade (UK evenings, as I have a full time job) without a stop loss during the afternoon US trading session - my account would be down on average by $400-$500 on a bad day but most often much less than that - are there other traders who do this? I’ve heard of keeping a catastrophic stop loss quite far from the day’s trading range just in case if something happens and I don’t end up blowing my account.

Are there other UK traders who trade futures along side a full time job - if so how do you manage time? Any tips on organising yourself for trading the afternoon session in the US.

Many thanks.
BB

blackbear 

Hello! I've been lurking in the forum for a while and finally thought I would introduce myself. A bit of background... Last time I seriously considered trading was in 2009 - I was finishing off my Master's in Financial Risk Management and a career in trading looked like a dream job. But for my sins, I couldn't land a trading related job and even toyed with the idea of shelling out for Futex course in London as an entry into prop trading. Around that time in another forum, someone gave (to someone else, not me) what seemed like good life advice which was: consider trading for a living when you have become a homeowner, held down a stable job and aren't desperate to make money off trading. This was nearly ten years ago. Since that time, I put trading firmly at the back of my mind and pursued a conventional career built on applied machine learning and had a fair bit of success including homeownership. I'm now at a stage where I've accumulated some risk capital and gained a better understanding of algorithmic trading, futures market and order flow based trading strategies and Python programming experience. I've recently opened a funded brokerage account, signed up with Rithmic for data feed and Bookmap for DOM trading (simulated). The goal for me is to prove to myself if this is something I can handle. I'm giving myself April & May to get to grips with order flow trading and familiarising with the Bookmap interface. I'm also tracking my trading performance via Trademetria (see attached images) and if everything goes well I'm hoping to start trading with a $20K account beginning in June. I've been only trading ES & Treasury Bonds (occasionaly NQ) I usually (Sim) trade one at most two contracts per instrument - sometimes I could have maybe four contracts - one each in different instruments and seem like I'm managing ok (could be beginners luck!). Some of you may find this a big red herring (or even a noob mistake) I usually trade (UK evenings, as I have a full time job) without a stop loss during the afternoon US trading session - my account would be down on average by $400-$500 on a bad day but most often much less than that - are there other traders who do this? I’ve heard of keeping a catastrophic stop loss quite far from the day’s trading range just in case if something happens and I don’t end up blowing my account. Are there other UK traders who trade futures along side a full time job - if so how do you manage time? Any tips on organising yourself for trading the afternoon session in the US. Many thanks. BB

Hi @blackbear! Looks like we're in similar situations (though I am in U.S.). I always had a fondness for trading, but like you I've worked hard in tech, and in my case, started with maxxing my 401k and throwing money into vanguard and janus funds, stocks and ETFs. After a while I kinda learned all I wanted to learn about passive investing and came back to futures trading when I had a little extra. I've also looked into trading as a profession, but its very hard to find entry discretionary futures trading jobs so far for me.

As to your other question, I do always use a stop-loss, I am big on risk-management, but this doesn't mean I disagree with what you are doing, do what works for you, we all trade differently. I may change the "depth" of my stops from time to time in the future as I learn to really tune in the harmonic rotation

Cheers!

Quoting 

Some of you may find this a big red herring (or even a noob mistake) I usually trade (UK evenings, as I have a full time job) without a stop loss during the afternoon US trading session - my account would be down on average by $400-$500 on a bad day but most often much less than that - are there other traders who do this? I’ve heard of keeping a catastrophic stop loss quite far from the day’s trading range just in case if something happens and I don’t end up blowing my account.

Right, whether or not you use a tighter stop or wider stop depends on the leverage, trading product, holding time, type of trade, and risk environment. But unless you have a larger account, I don't think it makes sense to trade futures without a stop loss. I always enter a stop loss in place with every trade. So, yes I think it makes sense even if you set it at some catastrophic level at some % of the account or index.

If you think using a stop might hurt your performance, which is very likely as many methods will move from very consistent winning to break even with stop, you could always run an analysis and find the largest possible movement for your holding time and set your stop, always at entry, at that risk. However, if you rely on a huge stop to be profitable then it is going to be more difficult to trade when you go live, as well.

Remember, also while technically unlikely, it is possible to lose more then your account balance when trading futures.