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first of all, I would like to thank all the members here for their contributions. I've found lots of awesome information in this forum.
Just to give you a little bit of context: I recently lost my job... but, on the good side, this will allow me to dedicate more of my daily time to learn something new.
It's almost a year now since I have been reading about trading in my scarce free time and a month ago I started with some trials using real money and micro futures contracts.
I'm using only DAX and S&P500 micro futures contracts but, unfortunately, with only breakeven results.
I do only daytrading because I do not feel comfortable with overnight and unwatched positions. I usually keep them open for a period starting from 10 minutes up to a few hours.
My (probably poorly developed) strategy is entirely discretionary and is based upon volume profile and price movements between high volume and low volume areas.
The problem with this is that, at least for me, it is always very difficult to glean if price is really moving from an area to the next one. Or if it is just reverting to the previous one or a new area is developing.
I would appreciate your opinion about the following: do you think that I'm approaching this in a "good" way and I will have some chance to be able to gain "consistently" 10-15 points daily (on DAX for example) to enter in a sort of surviving mode? Or do you think that I should consider more efficient way to approach this, maybe less discretionary systems?
Or maybe I should simply give up?
To be honest, right now I'm more on the give up side... I'm studying and trying as much as I can, but I don't see any good results.
Any further help will be appreciated.
Thank you
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
You say "only", but that undoubtedly puts you well above average. (Yes, I know Blackgrey has already said this, above, but some things are worth saying again!).
I do. You're very new and you're breaking even. Those are good results. Especially for someone starting off on Dax futures - far from the easiest thing to trade, IMO.
I'm afraid that part of your post disqualifies me from trying to help you, or offering any suggestions, because (to my shame) I know nothing about volume profile at all. Others will reply more helpfully than I can. I seek merely to suggest that you may be doing rather better than you think. And to wish you good luck!
Even though I noticed some difficulties in dealing with DAX and S&P500 futures, you are making me realize that maybe those two futures are too challenging for my current knowledge and experience. Thus, I decided to stop trading them with real money and return to paper trading / study.
Do you have some other futures to suggest which may be simpler to approach in a discretionary way? Maybe I can consider them and see if my broker has them. Unfortunately it doesn't have a lot of choices.
Would you have other approaches to suggest for trading other than volume profile?
I actually like volume profile because I see a "reasoning" behind it and I'm not a big fan of mechanical ways based on the usual indicators.
But maybe I should broaden my horizons.
So sorry - I've only just seen your post now, about 3 weeks after it was made!
I suspect it may not be a very popular or representative suggestion, in these parts, but I wonder whether "6E" (Euro futures) might be suitable for you? Only if you don't have any aversion to currency futures, but I think it's fair comment to say that "they're typically relatively well-behaved".
Neither am I - I try to trade "price action", but don't let my total ignorance of volume profile put you off it!
Thank you for your suggestion, I will have a look at it (hope to have it within my broker's portfolio).
Do you have any reading to suggest to get more info about its behaviour?
I have another question, maybe someone can help me: how "dangerous" it is to keep a position open overnight / over the weekend, even with a stop loss? Is there a way / good practise to manage / prepare them?
I mean, I would be interested in swing trading too... but I always have the fear that the stop loss may not protect me.
1. Just close it before weekend.
2. Try to find the biggest overnight/weekend gap on SP500/Dax and think if your account/brain can handle same situation.
3. You can hedge yourself using options for example.
4. Stoploss won't gonna help when it comes to the gap and be real careful with stoploss on dax outside cash hours, because it's super thin market and stoplosses almost always have slippage, to complicate it you have 3 different DAX futures, different volume and liquidity.
