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Futures is not for swing trading


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Futures is not for swing trading

  #21 (permalink)
 fxfool 
San Jose, CA
 
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Hey Kazz,

I'm in a similar boat to you. I've been trading on and off for a long time (20 years!) but I recently decided that I want to get more serious about it (turn it from an on/off hobby into a regular hobby). I, like you, want to be a swing trader. I want to be a swing trader (that is, one who doesn't constantly looks at the screen but sets orders based on a system and checks up on things occasionally looking to keep trades on for days to weeks) because that fits with my personality. I can't see my self constantly looking at a screen trying to "find" trades.

One big thing I've been studying is how to size trades. Based on my readings, I've decided that I should risk only 1% of my balance (assest dedicated to trading) on each trade. Some even suggest, and I will probably try to follow, risking much less (say 0.25%) in the begining (first year or so). One trader I've been following, Peter Brandt, typically has his initial stops set at 0.2% of AUM (20 basis points), and he's been for 40 years! All my studying has lead me to believe that trading is as risky as you make it, and many risk too much (including myself in the past).

One way to decide on stop placement is to use the 3ATR rule. If you were to use that in trading EUR/USD, at current levels, you would set your stop at 240 pips (14-day ATR is currently about 80pips). If you then wanted to risk 1% on a $10k account ($100), you would purchase (or sell) ~4000€. The M6E contract is a 12,500€ contract so that would exceed these risk parameters. On some brokers (e.g. ThinkorSwim) you can trade 1k Forex lots (i.e. not use the futures contract), so you could use something like that (I'm not sure if TOS is available in the UK). The other advantage of spot Forex is 'round the clock liquidity. That could be something to look at.

Keep the questions coming! This is a great thread.

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  #22 (permalink)
kazz
London
 
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[QUOTE=Rrrracer;699361]@ kazz, liquidity is not an issue with the bigger micros (EUR, GBP, AUD, Yen). You might get a point or two slippage here and there, but it's not a big deal, and if you're swing trading it is no issue at all. Most of them trade at $1.25/tick so your risk is low, perfect for learning. If you're talking about risking $500/trade, you've got a lot of overhead to play with lol.

However... none of these markets are really moving after 3PM EST. EUR and GBP don't really get moving until about 2AM when the Frankfurt session opens; then you've got solid volume from 3AM (Euro open) to say around 5-6 AM where it slows a bit, but picks up again around 7AM and usually goes pretty strong through early afternoon.

Hope this helps. I was exactly where you're at about two years ago, all good questions you have here... glad to help in any way.[/QUOTE @Rrrracer Thanks very much for this really useful post. It's really helped me out with the queries l had and clarified lots for me!

Apologies for the delay getting back to you.

Firstly, great to hear that liquidity on some of the bigger micro currency futures is not bad, albeit most of the movement happens before 3pm NY time. That is really good to know.

Secondly, your explanation of how liquidity is affected by the European opening times is also very useful.

I have a couple of questions that l guile you can help me with:

1. If l am going to swing trade micro currency futures then intra day liquidity is not such an issue? That main concern would be the ability to get out of a trade and, as you have indicated that liquidity for the bigger currencies is OK, this should not be a problem. I hope I've got the right idea here?

2. In your opinion, am l better off trading micro currency futures than testing micro lots with spot forex?

Once again many thanks for your excellent reply and hope you can give me some further insights.

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  #23 (permalink)
kazz
London
 
Posts: 150 since Apr 2018
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fxfool View Post
Hey Kazz,

I'm in a similar boat to you. I've been trading on and off for a long time (20 years!) but I recently decided that I want to get more serious about it (turn it from an on/off hobby into a regular hobby). I, like you, want to be a swing trader. I want to be a swing trader (that is, one who doesn't constantly looks at the screen but sets orders based on a system and checks up on things occasionally looking to keep trades on for days to weeks) because that fits with my personality. I can't see my self constantly looking at a screen trying to "find" trades.

One big thing I've been studying is how to size trades. Based on my readings, I've decided that I should risk only 1% of my balance (assest dedicated to trading) on each trade. Some even suggest, and I will probably try to follow, risking much less (say 0.25%) in the begining (first year or so). One trader I've been following, Peter Brandt, typically has his initial stops set at 0.2% of AUM (20 basis points), and he's been for 40 years! All my studying has lead me to believe that trading is as risky as you make it, and many risk too much (including myself in the past).

One way to decide on stop placement is to use the 3ATR rule. If you were to use that in trading EUR/USD, at current levels, you would set your stop at 240 pips (14-day ATR is currently about 80pips). If you then wanted to risk 1% on a $10k account ($100), you would purchase (or sell) ~4000€. The M6E contract is a 12,500€ contract so that would exceed these risk parameters. On some brokers (e.g. ThinkorSwim) you can trade 1k Forex lots (i.e. not use the futures contract), so you could use something like that (I'm not sure if TOS is available in the UK). The other advantage of spot Forex is 'round the clock liquidity. That could be something to look at.

Keep the questions coming! This is a great thread.

Thanks very much for contributing @fxfool

Like you, I think swing trading suits my personality. I don't think I could muster the concentration to day trade. I also have a day job that I enjoy and currently pays the bills so, in effect, swing trading is a choice made for me!

I was thinking about using daily charts for set ups but l am seriously beginning to think that weekly charts are the way to go. Even though set ups may occur less frequently they are probably higher probability - would love to know your take on that.

I'm a big fan of Peter Brandt and follow him on Twitter. I also recently learnt that he has an amazing track record - something like an average of 40% per annum return which is phenomenal.

I like your thoughts on the 3 ATR rule but concerned that I could not swing trade the M6E using a $10k account. Do you not think that 3 ATR on something like the EURUSD is excessive? I looked at the range and it's pretty steady at circa 80 pips a day. Therefore, could you not safely trade it at 2 ATR?

Thanks!

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  #24 (permalink)
 fxfool 
San Jose, CA
 
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kazz View Post
Like you, I think swing trading suits my personality. I don't think I could muster the concentration to day trade. I also have a day job that I enjoy and currently pays the bills so, in effect, swing trading is a choice made for me!

Yes, exactly. I'm in the same boat. I have a day job that I won't give up for trading. I just hope I can make that arrangement work.


kazz View Post
I was thinking about using daily charts for set ups but l am seriously beginning to think that weekly charts are the way to go. Even though set ups may occur less frequently they are probably higher probability - would love to know your take on that.

I think weekly charts would be fine. It will also allow you to look at overall charts less frequently which is good if you're time compressed.


kazz View Post
I like your thoughts on the 3 ATR rule but concerned that I could not swing trade the M6E using a $10k account. Do you not think that 3 ATR on something like the EURUSD is excessive? I looked at the range and it's pretty steady at circa 80 pips a day. Therefore, could you not safely trade it at 2 ATR?

It's kinda up to you. As LBR says in the video, 3ATRs is what her research has show to be most effective. Other websites I've seen use 2ATRs. These researchers used 10ATRs in their system. Recently, I've been looking at various techniques with the Stochastic oscillator and found that 0.5 ATR would probably be ok. It just kinda depends on how quickly you're willing to take a loss. The more important thing I've see in my research is, move the stop to break even (or even a small profit) quickly, so you're XATR stop is only a worse-case situation.

As for adjusting the ATR multiplier based on the contract you're trading, that's probably not as good because the idea of using an-ATR based stop is to normalize it for volatility. Further adjusting it kinda defeats the purpose.

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  #25 (permalink)
 
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 Rrrracer 
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kazz View Post
1. If l am going to swing trade micro currency futures then intra day liquidity is not such an issue? That main concern would be the ability to get out of a trade and, as you have indicated that liquidity for the bigger currencies is OK, this should not be a problem. I hope I've got the right idea here?

2. In your opinion, am l better off trading micro currency futures than testing micro lots with spot forex?

Yeah, 1-2 ticks slippage for swing trading is absolutely not an issue, you won't have any trouble entering or exiting positions. M6E and 7E can be a little more difficult on an intraday basis where those ticks can matter a lot more, but I've never had any major issues with fills.

As far as being better off trading futures, there's pros and cons. Forex allows for really fine-grained control over position sizing and thus risk, much more so than futures where your minimum is dictated by the contract value (M6E $1.25/tick and upwards from there.) You can open up a $100 Forex account and literally be trading for pennies; a very safe way to learn how to trade.

On the downside, our choices for a Forex broker in the States are extremely limited, as are charting platforms. Also, all the Forex brokers here (as far as I have been able to determine) are market makers, so they will be trading against you. But you're in the UK, so you have many more choices available there.

I can't substantiate any of the rumors as I have never traded Forex, but everyone's heard horror stories of MM's opening up the spread 20-30 ticks to grab stops in volatile situations. However, you have many Forex brokers available over there, and many of them are NOT market makers, so you're in a much better position.

If I were living abroad and had the choices you guys do, I would definitely consider Forex, but as it is here in the states, I'm sticking with futures.

Always glad to help man.

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  #26 (permalink)
kazz
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Rrrracer View Post
Yeah, 1-2 ticks slippage for swing trading is absolutely not an issue, you won't have any trouble entering or exiting positions. M6E and 7E can be a little more difficult on an intraday basis where those ticks can matter a lot more, but I've never had any major issues with fills.

As far as being better off trading futures, there's pros and cons. Forex allows for really fine-grained control over position sizing and thus risk, much more so than futures where your minimum is dictated by the contract value (M6E $1.25/tick and upwards from there.) You can open up a $100 Forex account and literally be trading for pennies; a very safe way to learn how to trade.

On the downside, our choices for a Forex broker in the States are extremely limited, as are charting platforms. Also, all the Forex brokers here (as far as I have been able to determine) are market makers, so they will be trading against you. But you're in the UK, so you have many more choices available there.

I can't substantiate any of the rumors as I have never traded Forex, but everyone's heard horror stories of MM's opening up the spread 20-30 ticks to grab stops in volatile situations. However, you have many Forex brokers available over there, and many of them are NOT market makers, so you're in a much better position.

If I were living abroad and had the choices you guys do, I would definitely consider Forex, but as it is here in the states, I'm sticking with futures.

Always glad to help man.

Thanks once again for a helpful and thought provoking reply.

Posting in this forum has made me realise that:

1. Trading full futures in a live environment is not a good idea for a beginner of you are holding positions for longer than a day. With tick values being quite high you are liable to lose plenty of capital whilst learning and gaining experience.

2. The only viable futures instruments for me to trade, given my risk appetite, are micro currency futures (or any others with an initial margin of under $500). The problem with this is that I am (a) limiting the universe of instruments l can trade and (b) trading in instruments where the liquidity is often poor.

So it makes me ask myself why l am looking at trading futures. There are two reasons, liquidity and a regulated exchange.

The first part, liquidity, I can get trading spot forex here in the United Kingdom.

The second part, a regulated exchange, is a bit more problematic. With spot forex you are often trading against the market maker and the trading is not exchange regulated. That is the downside.

Weighing it all up my inclination now is to go for spot forex using Oanda as the broker. They allow you to trade spot forex to a very granular level using nano lots - in fact you can trade single units!

The advantage of going with spot forex is that you can trade all the major and minor currency pairs. Liquidity will be fine for most of these.

The disadvantage of spot forex is that you are on an unregulated exchange.

Do you think that this is a better option (spot forex over futures) given I am starting with a small account and swing trading as well?

Thanks!

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  #27 (permalink)
 
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 Rrrracer 
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You mentioned starting with $500. I think that forex would be a great place to start and learn; really, it may be your only option with this small of an account.

Let's say you open a futures account with your $500, and in the interest of staying in the market as long as possible so that we may learn, your risk parameters state that you are only willing to risk 2% of the account on any one trade.

2% of $500 is only $10. On M6E at $1.25/tick, this gives you 8 ticks of allowable risk on one contract; not a lot of wiggle room. Factor in commission cost (the cheapest I've found is ~$2/contract round trip) and you've effectively reduced that to 6 ticks. Not looking too good unless your method is super precise or you just get damn lucky lol.

Because of flexibility in position sizing, that same $500 in Forex would be like starting with a $5K futures account. At that point, who cares if it's unregulated or not? It's only $500. Hell you could start with a $100 account, and if you found a broker that offered nano-sizing and only risked 2%, you would be able to stay in the market for a very long time... which is what it takes to learn.

You want to give yourself every opportunity to stay live in the market as long as possible.

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  #28 (permalink)
kazz
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Rrrracer View Post
You mentioned starting with $500. I think that forex would be a great place to start and learn; really, it may be your only option with this small of an account.

Let's say you open a futures account with your $500, and in the interest of staying in the market as long as possible so that we may learn, your risk parameters state that you are only willing to risk 2% of the account on any one trade.

2% of $500 is only $10. On M6E at $1.25/tick, this gives you 8 ticks of allowable risk on one contract; not a lot of wiggle room. Factor in commission cost (the cheapest I've found is ~$2/contract round trip) and you've effectively reduced that to 6 ticks. Not looking too good unless your method is super precise or you just get damn lucky lol.

Because of flexibility in position sizing, that same $500 in Forex would be like starting with a $5K futures account. At that point, who cares if it's unregulated or not? It's only $500. Hell you could start with a $100 account, and if you found a broker that offered nano-sizing and only risked 2%, you would be able to stay in the market for a very long time... which is what it takes to learn.

You want to give yourself every opportunity to stay live in the market as long as possible.

Thanks @Rrrracer right on point as always! Yes, I want to start with no more than $600 and learn to trade forex. Once I have demonstrated that I can be consistently profitable I can invest more. However, I don't see the point of investing more unless it improved my risk managment.

As spot forex will allow me to control risk with granular precision then my decision is pretty much made for me. By trading a $600 account with Oanda I can even risk just 0.5% of the account by trading nano lots or even single units.

I'm a little disappointed as I really wanted to learn futures but needs must. With the account size I'm limited to, micro current futures are pretty much the only futures I can trade.

On the other hand there is a much larger universe of currency pairs that I can trade with nano lots and spot forex.

In theory spot forex should give many more trading and learning opportunities.

The question I have for the more experienced members here is this - say I had a $20,000 starting account, would you recommend that I traded spot forex or currency futures?

Thanks.

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  #29 (permalink)
 bfreis 
Redwood City, CA
 
Experience: Advanced
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kazz View Post
say I had a $20,000 starting account, would you recommend that I traded spot forex or currency futures?

I would stay away from spot forex at all costs. There's just too much counterparty risk that is really hard to quantify, and almost impossible to deal with.

With $600 in an account, you definitely cannot trade futures, micro or whatsoever. It's just not compatible. So starting with spot forex and putting on very small orders might be the way to go, at least while you build up more capital. But I'd think of this as only a stepping stone, where you try to learn more about the dynamics of the market, the different types of orders, the impact of binary events, etc.

With a $20k account, and an intent to swing trade, there are already plenty of things you can do within the boundaries of regulated exchanges! So in this case, I'd keep my money as far as possible from an unregulated spot forex environment. Too much risk.

---

Finally - you mentioned currency futures a few times times. Is that a hard requirement? Or are you willing to look into other things, as long as they fit into your capital/liquidity/hours constraints? Because given the constraints, it might be worth spending some time studying other products and markets.

For instance, trading outright interest rates futures might be a better fit; the shorter term notes (for example the 2-year and 5-year notes, ZT and ZF respectively, or the Eurodollar futures (not the Euro currency!)) tend to move much more slowly than currencies, and they also typically have extreme liquidity and very low capital requirements.

Alternatively, intra-commodity spreads - take crude oil, for example, you can buy Jan/19 and sell Feb/19; you'd need to learn only about crude oil, those spreads have very deep liquidity, and they don't require much capital.

Finally, options might definitely be something worth checking. They are considerably more sophisticated and complex than any of the other things I mention here, but may be worth looking into. For example, using options it's pretty easy to do something like "bet" that the price of crude will not fall below, say, $45 until Jan/19, and make money if you are right, and lose only a predefined amount if you are wrong.

---

Here are some interesting resources I could suggest:

- https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Grain-Markets-Profits-Really/dp/1477582967

- https://www.amazon.com/HIGHER-PROBABILITY-COMMODITY-TRADING-Comprehensive/dp/1942545525

(I tried to send these the other day, but the mobile app didn't seem to be able to post them; apologies if this is duplicate)

The first focuses on the grains markets, but has a lot of concepts, ideas, principles, and strategies that apply to most markets.

The second is for generic commodity markets, and talks about many interesting strategies, including spreads and an introduction to the use of options.

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  #30 (permalink)
kazz
London
 
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bfreis View Post
I would stay away from spot forex at all costs. There's just too much counterparty risk that is really hard to quantify, and almost impossible to deal with.

With $600 in an account, you definitely cannot trade futures, micro or whatsoever. It's just not compatible. So starting with spot forex and putting on very small orders might be the way to go, at least while you build up more capital. But I'd think of this as only a stepping stone, where you try to learn more about the dynamics of the market, the different types of orders, the impact of binary events, etc.

With a $20k account, and an intent to swing trade, there are already plenty of things you can do within the boundaries of regulated exchanges! So in this case, I'd keep my money as far as possible from an unregulated spot forex environment. Too much risk.

---

Finally - you mentioned currency futures a few times times. Is that a hard requirement? Or are you willing to look into other things, as long as they fit into your capital/liquidity/hours constraints? Because given the constraints, it might be worth spending some time studying other products and markets.

For instance, trading outright interest rates futures might be a better fit; the shorter term notes (for example the 2-year and 5-year notes, ZT and ZF respectively, or the Eurodollar futures (not the Euro currency!)) tend to move much more slowly than currencies, and they also typically have extreme liquidity and very low capital requirements.

Alternatively, intra-commodity spreads - take crude oil, for example, you can buy Jan/19 and sell Feb/19; you'd need to learn only about crude oil, those spreads have very deep liquidity, and they don't require much capital.

Finally, options might definitely be something worth checking. They are considerably more sophisticated and complex than any of the other things I mention here, but may be worth looking into. For example, using options it's pretty easy to do something like "bet" that the price of crude will not fall below, say, $45 until Jan/19, and make money if you are right, and lose only a predefined amount if you are wrong.

---

Here are some interesting resources I could suggest:

- https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Grain-Markets-Profits-Really/dp/1477582967

- https://www.amazon.com/HIGHER-PROBABILITY-COMMODITY-TRADING-Comprehensive/dp/1942545525

(I tried to send these the other day, but the mobile app didn't seem to be able to post them; apologies if this is duplicate)

The first focuses on the grains markets, but has a lot of concepts, ideas, principles, and strategies that apply to most markets.

The second is for generic commodity markets, and talks about many interesting strategies, including spreads and an introduction to the use of options.

Thanks @bfreis this is great advice. I'm interested to see your views on trading spot forex. Does this apply even if you are with a reputable forex broker? I only ask as there seem to be some people trading spot forex very successfully with large accounts.

Many thanks for pointing out that there are other futures instruments to consider such as the 2-year and 5-year notes. I'll definitely check these out and see what the overnight margins are.

Another quick question: you say that $600 is not enough to trade even micro currency futures - is this the case even if the overnight margin is $270 or so? Would the $600 then give you ample cover?

Once again many thanks for a great post which really epitomises what this forum is all about.

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