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You might have a point there. I happened to be long from earlier that morning and just wanted to see if he and I were seeing the same thing or opposites.

tango29: Sorry if I have to ask, but are you long or short ES? hypochondriac: You seem to be the only ET member who believes discretionary trading is BS. I realize there are lots of mechanical traders here, but you are the only one I can think of who believes everyone who does not emulate...

If you're ok with the status quo, that is not necessarily a bad thing. But if there is nothing you would like to achieve, that is called wasting away waiting for one's death.

None of the categories includes what I would like to be: I would like to understand everything that can be understood. Maybe Nobel prize winner approximates that best, but I don't care for the "honor", and I don't want to dance on a stage among other monkeys in suits to accept the prize. By...

In the 2 years I have traded with IB I have had a similar problem maybe 5 times on different types of instruments. Another thing that is also annoying is that occasionally your GTC orders just disappear, but they usually notify you of that kind of screw-up as soon as they find out (a few hours...

This is a very interesting and insightful post. However, it assumes that you favor the "American" approach to trading (How can I make the most money by putting forth the least effort?) What if my reason for trading is that I WANT to work on improving myself, and the P/L is just an objective...

You can say that again! I just spent half an hour searching through their slow and ill-organized website, and it gave some sort of shitty, i mean equivocal, wording, something like "a/c/e closed for the day session and open overnight". I am reasonably sure this means that ZN and ZB will open...

I have a better tax question: If I made HKD 10000 in lots of little HSI trades during the course of the year, how does that go onto my tax return? Do I have to or should I convert the gains into USD before year end?

Funny you should ask about 10 tick charts. I use IB's emini data and wrote my own little charting application, which gives me only one thing: 10 "tick" charts. Of course, IB's data feed is not 100% tick-by-tick, but close enough for all intents and purposes. I wouldn't want it any other way...

I'm not a good trader, but I will give away a secret that I have not read on ET yet: One can be very profitable cutting winners short and letting losers ride.

When I am stressed, I don't trade well. Last time I was stressed I knew I would not trade well and therefore decided to stay away from futures and play around with stocks a little bit. Of course, did I mention when I get stressed I don't trade well? So I bought IMCL and next thing I know I...

Maybe as a celebrity. But if you are a good trader the only thing that could keep you from making a lot of money would be risk aversion. Can you really be a good trader if you are not willing to take the next step? Actually, if you happen to be good only at trading tiny stocks you might also...

Welcome to elitetrader.com! Perhaps it would be helpful if you could explain your reasons why you are so sure you want to become a currecy trader. I could understand how someone may know for sure that he wants to be a day trader, but why currencies in particular? I personally don't know...

You're right on the money! How did you know? This is a mystery to me, but I always start the day trading ZN and ZB, and after 30 minutes or so, there comes a time when a voice inside my head tells me to put on a position in ES or NQ (or sometimes both) to complement my open position in ZN...

I don't know what you mean by #1, but the only property ES seems to have more than any other futures contract in the world is that it is difficult to daytrade profitably. I don't think it's the highest volume or best known contract in the world.

My guess is he didn't account for commissions in one of his calculations, but he did in the other. IB's account window is not entirely consistent in this regard, I believe last time I checked they were including commissions in stock and option P/L but not futures P/L. But who cares? I'd...

If arca were a stock it would probably be trading at <$0.000001 by now. I mean, if you can't get rid of those problems after years and years of almost daily outages with bad prices and hung orders across the board etc BEING THAT IS ALL YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO (provide accurate quotes and match...

I completely agree. Sometimes I wonder if they spend time programming "equivocal" systems that can be interpreted one way or the other, like compunding interest per second, minute, day, business day, month, year, etc. or if they round up or down differently depending on whether it is a credit...

Thanks for all the replies and votes! spyderman: There was a time over a year ago when I was reasonably profitable scalping SPY off of emini action. Obviously, at that time there was occasionally a sufficient lag between ES and SPY to exploit. I paid about 60% of my gross profits from this...

After years of devoting most of my time to trading, I still don't see how one can trade ES and/or NQ profitably. Obviously, it can be done, but short of forex these contracts are probably the most difficult instrument to trade. Or is it just me?