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How would you start learning futures all over again if you had to?


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How would you start learning futures all over again if you had to?

  #1 (permalink)
 davidusn 
Tampa, FL USA
 
Experience: Beginner
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Trading: Emini / looking into Bitcoin
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I am going to buy the elite membership, Just missing the 1st ever discount for black friday; however, that's ok because I did save alot of money shopping on line for other things. I hear that the membership may be all that I need in education. I have been following the ES daily for several years and ready to open an account with a broker as soon as I get some type of self structured education. Looking at the AL Brooks course but open to suggestions. I think his course is fairly priced and I'm smart enough to know all the con-artists out there. I think there is a one month free to his trading room with 1st time purchase of his course and the elite membership, but don't know if you have to buy them in any order. Again, I'm open to suggestions on education because up to this point, I've just been following the markes on my own with good results and ready to go. Thanks! David

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  #3 (permalink)
 
Rrrracer's Avatar
 Rrrracer 
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I feel very strongly that the Elite membership is the best thing I could have done to gain education, and was very fortunate to stumble across FIO so early on in my process of becoming a trader.

The quality of information is outstanding, and there is an overwhelming amount of it. Big Mike and the mods have gone above and beyond to filter out the riff raff stuff.

I've only been here since February, but I feel like I'm on a fast track learning program; the only thing slowing me down is myself, because it's all self-directed... and I only have so much time to spend combing through literally thousands of very useful posts and threads. The search button is your friend!

Best of luck man, look forward to hearing more from you.

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  #4 (permalink)
 
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 jackbravo 
SF, CA/USA
 
Experience: Beginner
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Don't trade live.

Just know that there are a lot of different ways of trading: price action, volume profile analysis, Wyckoff, spread trading, automated trading, fundamental trading, cross-market correlation trading....

So you'll have to find you what suits you, and it may not be the first thing you try. That's what I wish I knew when I first started. It may also takes years to find your way of trading, which market(s) to trade and so on, so I wish I had resisted jumping in, even when profitable on SIM.

1. Trade SIM until you get profitable for a few months in a row, and tired of trading SIM
2. Then choose the smallest future contract you can, such as micro Euro if interested in currencies. Trade that until you're profitable. It will be hard because you have to overcome expensive commission. But really you're still learning, so it just saves you from potential massive losses.
3. I wouldn't have started off with ES.

For education:
Look at the journals here for what people are doing, then follow and look into anything that's interesting to you. Here is an excellent journal:


Look at youtube videos of MACK Price Action Trading systems. They're free.
Look at youtube videos of other people trading Mack's system.

Look at Duomo initiative on youtube. Also free videos. Try to understand and emulate the system in SIM.

Try out all these different styles and anything else you find until you get a handle on exactly what trading is, how to do it, how you like to do it, and how you don't like to do it. This will take a while....months to years.

"It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop." Confucius
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  #5 (permalink)
 danielk 
Stavanger, Norway
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: Ninjabroker, Continuum
Trading: ES, CL, Bonds
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In general:

- Never spend money on "education" (i never did, but i noticed you mentioned Brooks..). If they're selling, its cause they dont make enough money trading. Even if they are legit, a successful trader has found a way that works for them, and replicating that will very seldom work for others so best case scenario is that you pickup some decent general advice, which you could find right here/online if you dig a little and listen to the right people(the ones who usually seem boring). So feel free to learn general stuff you can find free, but find your own way and logic that resonates with you by staring at charts and focus more on what a market actually is and works rather than fancy indicators and complex setups.

For me, personally, my advice to myself would be:

1. Stay away from indicators, spend your time looking at charts with minimal amount of distraction. Stare. Analyse. Look at all the timeframes you can and chop it up until you see the subtle differences. Keep it as simple as possible, the answer is right there in how its moving, swinging up and down. Simple stuff like Donchian channel, MA, or vwaps can be used purely to get a bearing and a relative feel for where price is and context- but never attempt to use as a "green/red light" system where you buy-if-this and sell-if-that. Engulfing candles and emoji doji whamwoji 123 setups etc are fiction. Add 5 minutes to your chart and see if you can find Waldo again.

2. Stay away from small timeframes(anything below 120min). While this turned out very educational to me, i wasted way too much time trying to tame chaos. Approach trading futures the same way you would other investments (you wouldnt buy APPL stocks and hold just for 2 minutes, right?). Big timeframes and stops/targets give you the wiggle room you need and price moves a lot more predictable. Pay attention to monthly, weekly, and daily charts, specifically highs and lows. Consider using hedging instead of stop losses (not emergency stops ofc).

3. Dont bother with All in/All out. Learn to leverage and manage risk with the amount of contracts you add and subtract from a position. Plan on scaling in, then slowly bank profits at natural milestones and prepare to potentially add them on healthy pullbacks and squeeze your winnings(resist the urge to get out too soon). However the key is to protect your money, that doesnt mean 10 tick stoplosses.

4. Ref. 2 and 3 above: Dont trade futures. The leverage and margin req will most likely cause too much pain and lead to bad decisions and huge losses. Stay in SIM until you with a realistic approach can stay green a minimum of 3 months in a row. If you cant resist the urge to lose money (hey, most of us couldnt) then at least use stocks, FX, microfutures(m6E) or as non-volatile and cheap instruments you can (ZF is great) for learning purposes. Futures are the veterans playgrounds, and you should have at least 20-30k to start off with and have little trouble replacing it should you blow up.

Dont use trading to fulfil some craving for action, the more boring you make it the safer it is in general. Volatile instruments like CL and GC have a way of luring beginners into thinking thats where fortunes are made. The opposite is usually the case and those are imo the most unpredictable/hard instruments to trade.

A basket of good funds can fairly safely yield 10-30% returns without you lifting a finger. Make sure you can leverage your agility as a small trader to substantially outperform those figures before placing a live trade.

Took me a good 5 years to beat this into my skull, even tho all the veterans were preaching it. There is a reason for the majority of struggles being focused on small timeframes. How many swing traders do you see struggling or bleeding out?

Just my 2 cents, and they would be meant for myself 5 years ago, not necessarily everyone else in general.

"Hey! I've got 10 fresh apples to sell, any hungry buyers out here today?!" "Maybe! Just let me check my moving average and RSI!"
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  #6 (permalink)
 
Rrrracer's Avatar
 Rrrracer 
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Excellent advice in the last two posts... I also agree with looking at higher timeframes, just now getting it into my head as well after being torn up in the lower timeframe action. There's just too much randomness, you have to be much more precise on your entries and exits, much less wiggle room for error. It will literally chop you into pieces (well, it's done it to me anyway.) Death by a thousand cuts... one step forward, two steps back.. however you choose to look at it.

@danielk, excellent post over on Gruttepier's journal, very eye-opening and reinforced exactly what I was thinking but absolutely not doing LOL. I believe higher timeframe swings are the way for me to go, and probably a lot easier for just about anyone trying to get into this business.

Disclaimer: I am still an absolute newbie to trading, and I'm making all the mistakes, but feel like I'm getting it out of my system and learning quickly. Just started trading live a little more than a month ago, some success but lots of tuition paid already LOL.

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  #7 (permalink)
 Traderjohnsblog 
Tampa florida usa
 
Experience: Advanced
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I could have saved myself a ton of time and some money by doing one thing differently. I would have asked myself what is working for others? I would have then duplicated what they are doing before experimenting.

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  #8 (permalink)
 luigizerozero 
hong kong
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Ninjatrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 35 since Oct 2014
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Great advice from @danielk

- Never spend money on "education" (i never did, but i noticed you mentioned Brooks..). If they're selling, its cause they dont make enough money trading. Even if they are legit, a successful trader has found a way that works for them, and replicating that will very seldom work for others so best case scenario is that you pickup some decent general advice, which you could find right here/online if you dig a little and listen to the right people(the ones who usually seem boring). So feel free to learn general stuff you can find free, but find your own way and logic that resonates with you by staring at charts and focus more on what a market actually is and works rather than fancy indicators and complex setups.

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  #9 (permalink)
 
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 bobarian 
whitestone, new york
 
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I would stay away from indicators all together.Only real time things like volume would be used.Also, I believe the tails and the wicks on all time frames are the best for candlesticks.Also Engulfing.These are statement candles.I honestly wasted many years ignoring price action, and looking at indicators.

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  #10 (permalink)
False
Wilmington Nc/USA
 
Posts: 2 since Oct 2017
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Go to the nearest bank and withdraw 10k. Then take the envelope and burn it right there on the bank sidewalk.

Getting rid of that emotion right off the rip would have saved me some stressful times

Honestly, learning proper money/risk management and expectancy is 100x more important than price discovery. Took me a while to get to that point.

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Last Updated on December 6, 2017


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