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I day trade the E-mini Dow Futures.
The size of my trades is 1 contract per every $12500.
As i cannot afford risking that money now, I will track my performance using this trading journal.
Each day I will type my trade here with its SL and TP at the moment I would open it so it get registered at the correct time avoiding that way to fool myself. At the end of the trade I will publish the result of that trade and I will add or substract the points from the total record.
I didn't go in further explanation because I created this for myself, but hey, if someone wants to know, I can talk about it without problems.
My background consists in 4 years learning about mainly futures and options (premium buyer side, premium seller side and all kind of spreads). I have a complicated situation so I couldn't trade with real money, but despite that I still like to use my time learning about it
Talking about my strategy it is pure discretionary, I don't use indicators, level 1 or 2 data, or anything like that; I just rely in my screen time. I know that a lot of people in this forum prefer the systematic approach and I respect that, but in my case, going the discretionary way I guess the direction correctly the majority of the days and going systematic no. I just get an opinion about the Dow when the US markets open based on how it has been moving previously and what it is doing in that moment.
I can express that opinion (always directional, if I think that it is going to be a range day I just don't trade) in different ways: /YM futures, DIA shares (etf), leveraged etfs like DDM or UDOW, ITM options with short expiration in the DIA (and in the /YM itself), and even with CFDs (but I know how the CFDs business works and I prefer to stay away of it). All of them with different leverages and characteristics.
I choose the /YM because of the liquidity, the tighter spreads and because it is pure directional (if I choose options for example, despite the fact that going ITM they behave like futures, I still have to take care of the volatility and time decay in certain situations). The only thing is that I need more money in order to trade the futures, but I am not in a hurry, I totally prefer to wait and do my thing in a proper way.
For the SL thing I do it in an easy way. As I've said I pick a direction at the US open and set a TP based on how much I think it is going to move. Then I get that TP and flip it to the other side as a SL. That way I only care about if that day I've chosen a correct direction and eliminate from my head the extra pressure of the management of the SL and TP (I know that this is not the best way to do it, but it works for me and it lets me a lot of room to fail and still get the correct direction at the end avoiding short-squeezes and quick sell-offs for example).
The reason I use 1 contract per each $12500 is for taking control over my losses when they occur. I know that for 1 contract I just need like $4000 in margin depending of the broker, but then losses are bigger when they occur and I don't feel comfortable taking that much risk according to the average quantity of points I use to go for.
And regarding your first "PS", don't worry, that is the reason why I've just started this journal, I will go live trading once I can afford it.
