I have been trading stocks quite frequently for over a year, have made and lost money, and have kept my account basically even through money management and dedication to learning.
I am tired of stocks as its a harder market to pay attention to when you are swing trading 10 stocks or day trading 4 stocks and have a full time job....
That said, I am entirely interested in books about futures, I want to concentrate on one or two markets - mostly the e-mini nq, es, etc - and want some good resources on these instruments. I have read alot on cme, cbot, chatted with a few good traders, but I desire more.
Any books or links that could help me would be appreciated. I don't need indicators, or technical analysis as I have a simple system that works for me and it hasn't failed me (too much ;-) heh)
Any advice from experts or people who have taken my route would be totally appreciated!!!
First book I would read is the most recent one by Al Brooks.
His self taught observations of market behavior over the last 20 years is a hybrid, summation and real world application of most other books on trading.
And if you like that one so much, head over to the CMT and check out their reading list. It is their job to sift through all the books and find the best and most pertinent ones.
Finally, I would stay away form internet resources. They are good for reference like candlestick patterns, but even still they are pretty worthless, especially compared to what Martin Pring could tell you about them in his book.
I hope you find this helpful. On a last note, I would recommend you study just one market on one timeframe only until you become profitable.
The following user says Thank You to Maletor for this post:
I'm relatively new to Big Mike's Trading blog / forum and wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself. I started trading several years ago (penny stocks (Pennaluna) / 10 - 50 shares in publicly traded companies, varying based on "recommendations" in newsletters, etc (Scottrade) and got 'the trading bug'. Didn't do well, but didn't lose horribly either. I knew there must be a way to make a living at this & that started me on my journey. Finally found Interactive Brokers (some of the lowest commissions around) and that eventually led me to NinjaTrader, which I've been using in SIM mode for the past 2 years, in search of the Holy Grail (I know, everyone says it doesn't exist, but I keep looking). Anyway, being a small business owner & responsible for the continued employment of everyone here, I decided to stay in SIM mode until I found something that I was comfortable with - that COULD make me a living, in the event the business crashes (?) or I decided to sell. Having run it for 21 years, I'm tired of working 8 - 5 M-F with only the occasional vacation (every 2 or 3 years). So, that's my story. I'm creating a HOLY GRAIL thread today (7/22/09) because I've cobbled together a system of indicators that could very well be just what I've been looking for. Please check it out & give me your feedback / suggestions on improving it.
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Tr3nt,
Checkout my Holy Grail thread post for today. It may help.
As far as books go, I've read (and thoroughly enjoyed):
Tools and Tactics for the Master Day Trader, by Oliver Velez & Greg Capra
The Art of Trading, by Bennett McDowell (breakout trading system)
Stikky Stock Charts, Stikky.com
I am seeking for good Books about Futures too. I find out, that they behave in an other Way than "normal" Stocks...
A verry valuable Book for the Beginning - in my opinnion - was "John Carters - Mastering the Trade". It was nice to read, and he gives us a lot Informations and hints about Futures.
I don't know about a calendar, although you could probably go to the CME website and find that info, I just know that the index futures trade MARCH/JUNE/SEPT/DEC and they always expire the 3rd Friday of MARCH/JUNE/SEPT/DEC. But rollover into the next active contract is always the Thursday before the Friday exp., which would make it the 2nd Thursday of that expiring contract. Hope that makes sense.
Here is a simple xcel spreedsheet that you can use to calculate your risk/reward and risk per contract. Just enter symbol, entry, stop, and target. To modify the formulas if needed the sheet password is 1234.
Some of the values look unrealistic and that's correct, just test input to make sure the math was correct, just never cleared the cells.
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Let me see if I understand. For ES for instance
ESE-mini S&P 5000.250000$50.00$5.00
if I see .2500 as the tick size I need to devide by 1 to find out it takes 4 ticks to = one contract. and it the cost for .25 is $5. then that means for a contract to move one point for ES the cost or profit would be $5 x 4 = $20 per contract to move 1 point. Correct.
See attached speadsheet. - let me know if my added columns are correct.
i am a member of a trading room and i see a lot of posts on a must read book (trading in the zone) i plan on doing an internet search of the book and you may want to also. sorry i dont have any more info than that on the author.
