I have about 5k to get started with. I am curious if anyone has daytrade emini forex and if so any kind info you could pass on. I am trying to decide if I should go that route as im extremely interested in it or stick to finding profitable stocks.
Daytrading mini forex ?
- Thread starter bigtymer29
- Start date
I only traded the cash market, and frankly I don't know what advantages 6E offers unless you also trade futures and you'd rather keep your account with one broker. I'd trade cash because the ability to have easily scalable contract size is awesome. With 6E you're stuck with the standard emini lot size which is a bit large for a 5K account. A 10 pip rip = a loss of $125.00. With a cash FX account you can trade a tenth of that if you want, and the tax treatment is the same.
If you're looking for an approach/strategy to trading, I've spent a lot of time studying Bob Volman's method. The book is under $30, and there's a very active group at trade2win (search for Volman) that shares trades. Bob himself posts his charts every week with detailed notes. There are no sales pitches, webinars, or anything like that, it's all very grass roots. He trades using 70 tick charts, though you could adapt it to other time frames if you want, so it's very day tradable. He gets like 2-3 setups a day on average.
Personally I'm more of a fan of Al Brooks, but Volman's book is 100 times easier to read. Volman developed his methodology around the EURUSD, while Brooks is focused on the ES. I'm sure either approach can work just as well if you put in the time and find what speaks to you more.
If you're looking for an approach/strategy to trading, I've spent a lot of time studying Bob Volman's method. The book is under $30, and there's a very active group at trade2win (search for Volman) that shares trades. Bob himself posts his charts every week with detailed notes. There are no sales pitches, webinars, or anything like that, it's all very grass roots. He trades using 70 tick charts, though you could adapt it to other time frames if you want, so it's very day tradable. He gets like 2-3 setups a day on average.
Personally I'm more of a fan of Al Brooks, but Volman's book is 100 times easier to read. Volman developed his methodology around the EURUSD, while Brooks is focused on the ES. I'm sure either approach can work just as well if you put in the time and find what speaks to you more.
With the volatility so low it can't be the same as it used to be. The market is dead at the moment.
Hi bigtymer29,
it is not too hard to start with 5k. You should not expect crazy returns, but you can do some good trading with that money.
If you want to go the Forex way, maybe you want to try one of those CFD shops like Oanda or ActivTrades. It is not bad for beginners with low capital, you can trade fractions of the regular contracts on several markets (all the currencies, gold, silver, equity index, oil...).
Another possibility is to trade the less volatile futures contracts that have lower margin requirements, like ZN, ZB or on Eurex the FESX, FGBM, FGBS. I would recommend you to have a look at the FESX, there is plenty of action during the day, especially around the Frankfurt and the New York opening, and the (exchange) fees are VERY low, especially compared to the US products like the ES (0.30 EUR per contract, which is about 0.40 $).
Greetings,
CALLumbus
it is not too hard to start with 5k. You should not expect crazy returns, but you can do some good trading with that money.
If you want to go the Forex way, maybe you want to try one of those CFD shops like Oanda or ActivTrades. It is not bad for beginners with low capital, you can trade fractions of the regular contracts on several markets (all the currencies, gold, silver, equity index, oil...).
Another possibility is to trade the less volatile futures contracts that have lower margin requirements, like ZN, ZB or on Eurex the FESX, FGBM, FGBS. I would recommend you to have a look at the FESX, there is plenty of action during the day, especially around the Frankfurt and the New York opening, and the (exchange) fees are VERY low, especially compared to the US products like the ES (0.30 EUR per contract, which is about 0.40 $).
Greetings,
CALLumbus
Totally agreed. I started messing with FX in 2009 when everything was running crazy. 150 pips on EUR/USD for the New York-London overlap was not uncommon. Now the ATR is about half of what it was when I started.
I gave up trying to scalp EUR/USD and switched to ES. It's easier to day trade for me because the levels are a bit clearer. With FX, you have several sessions and more murkiness (for example, do you count the 2 am German open or the 3 am London open?), with ES there's better technical clarity because there's one session that everyone pays clear attention to. You have the prior day's highs, lows, and close which are excellent to play off of. As far as FX is concerned, I like the fact that Bob Volman's approach uses a tick chart because it helps equalize the disparate sessions and create a technical picture that you can navigate.
The ES also gives you some more toys to play with: market internals (TICK and TRIN), and volume. I don't use either, but some traders like them.
Also, with ES even if you get a dead season you can usually count on earnings season to get things moving a bit. That's four times a year that you have something pushing the market to go somewhere.
With FX you're stuck to the global macro picture. For the longest time I remember USD/JPY was pretty dead, then suddenly when the BOJ started talking the pair was making huge skips and jumps, and was very intra-day tradable (it has tight spreads too, so that helps). But now if you look at it, it's gone dead again.
Right now since the interest rate differentials are pretty low as all central banks appear to remain in collusion regarding dovish policies, there's not much natural impetus for things to trend. That could change in a moment, especially if the ECB and Fed part ways as far as stimulus is concerned.