Search results

yes. some people just like the volatility. if they see it move sharply one way on heavy volume, that's all the confirmation they need to fire away.

Day 4 Net +1841 on 23 ES traded. Shorted at 60.5, rode it up to 65, rode it back down to 58.5. Need to stay disciplined and cut losses sooner. Hard to short at S2. Anyways, calling it a day and week.

Thanks. I wanted to see if I can get cheaper commissions w/ IB, but it looks like no.

I trade on Tradestation now, and they have the same price scheme for futures commissions as IB's unbundled rates. If you trade >300, the commission is lower, >1000, etc. But at TS, every month, the clock starts over. I got the discounted rate for middle/end of august. But this week it's back to...

start with 1 futures contract like ES or ER2. make your account size the minimum to trade that contract. Tradestation and IB min account open size is 5k, so put in only that amount until you are consistently profitable. What happens is most new traders (me included) see the leverage possible w/...

DJ or Reuters news usually put up separate headlines for guidance and items of note from the release. But yes, most people just trade without all information.

Yes, thank you. One bad habit I have wrt rangebound days is to think something will break out of the range. Very much psychological, and something else I have to work on.

Thanks DonKee, good lesson. One thing I also have to work on is rangebound slow days. It's usually when I do something stupid and lose money. I do better when there is a strong trend vs a lot of back and forth.

Yes, I learned the hard way that, indeed, some areas are heavily defended on ES. I didn't have floor pivots on as a chart, but have now turn it on with its own 5 min chart. I should have taken the offer when I was in the money on the short, but got greedy and kept 1/3 of the position. That...

Admin/moderator, please move this thread to the Journals section. I'd like to use it to keep trake of progress. Thanks, Bandit

Day 3 Couldn't stay out... gotta work on that discipline. shorted around 73, covered around 78 for loss. went long at around 78.25, sold at around 80.25. Net +2215 after commissions on 63 ES traded. I think I'll stay out for good now for the rest of the day.

Day 3 Net +1525 on 15 contracts. I'm loving the liquidity ES provides. Basically shorted from 78.5 to 76.5 averaging in and out. One thing I've noticed with ES is that since the multiplier is smaller at 50 vs 100 for ER2, I take on bigger position, but scale in and scale out at limit MUCH...

Day 2, net +2800 after commission on 15 ES. basically rode the drop from 80 to 75 and called it a day. volatility helps when trading ES since it moves it faster. efficiency is also getting better, yesterday I traded 48.

I thought about that to save on commission cost. however the downside is that I couldn't scale in/out as much as with ES' 1 contract, or would have to take on bigger positions than I'm comfortable with right now to scale in/out. we'll see though.

1st day trading ES full time. Today's net is around $1300, so I may call it a day early just to get the win under the belt. I made about 900 on the morning move up, tried to short it around 84, lost the 900, then made it back and then some with the 1300. some observations: 1. it's much...

Thank you Austinp, very good points. I've been reviewing ES tick data and it does seem better suited to thought out entries instead of emotional gunslinging. I think the 10 to 20 tick target is the sweet spot that I try to shoot for on ER2, which also looks like what you shoot for on the ES.

Thanks GC. I'll do a search for ES scalping and see what I come up with. DAX hours are a bit early for me. Does Tradestation have a good DAX feed? What do you use for DAX datafeed/charting?

Yes, what do you want to know?

Yes, I do very short term trading on the ER2. My average hold time is 10 minutes, and I try to capture $0.50 to $2. Will this be a problem on the ES as it jumps less and has more volume (and hence takes more time) to move the same number of ticks?

Thank you brownsfan019, increasenow, NihabaAshi, and DonKee. Very interesting point about time not really being a factor on volume in ES. ER2 the volume usually drops off dramatically 1-2 hours after the open and action becomes more random. And it's usually when I stop trading. Interesting...