ES Journal - 2014
- Thread starter murica
- Start date
I have been trading mostly long, so I have survived. Not thrived as I do not hold as long as I should. I do see this going up continuing, till it does not. So if I may, a question for the very successful (mostly) long traders here.
I do not see a stop posted with long positions. I do see a target, but no stop. Do you all have one? Because someday we would all be wrong. Horribly wrong. So what stop do you have on ES? 10 point? 50? 100? Broker closeout?
I must stress that I am not trying to ding anyone here. Quite a few of you clearly are making a lot more than I do, provided you are doing more than a few lots. I am genuinely curious. What is the stop?
I do not see a stop posted with long positions. I do see a target, but no stop. Do you all have one? Because someday we would all be wrong. Horribly wrong. So what stop do you have on ES? 10 point? 50? 100? Broker closeout?
I must stress that I am not trying to ding anyone here. Quite a few of you clearly are making a lot more than I do, provided you are doing more than a few lots. I am genuinely curious. What is the stop?
I am the opposite of you, at some point I go short when many traders are still going long. I have made 3-4 attempts now of trying to find the highs.
I got stopped out of the short futures on June 25 at breakeven as intraday price went far enough to go to breakeven stop, but kept the Calls on Indexes and got out with nice profit other day. I did it again July 3rd selling ES at 1975 average price and hedged along with other indexes. I got real lucky here getting in so high, but I know the stats on July 3rd last 50 years and market tend to go up so I was using a longer timeframe and when lows were broke I started selling. My only target is between 35 and 50 points in ES where I take profit on half position, then go to using weekly bar charts with breakeven stop to factor in what is lost on the options. Had I not been stopped out on June 25th, I would have sold options on close. I don't like saying how much I use as protective stop cause I have a pretty good amount on but it is between 5 & 30 points away, and it is a mental stop. And recently have been using ETFs as a means to hedge the options but not using when I first put position on, more like after I get stopped out on the futures position, but it is not to make a great deal of profits as it is to help out on lost prem using the options, sometimes one gets a little more lucky.
gap down Monday & retest of Wed's HOD? stranger things have happened 
Stops are for losers (well, that's what emg says):
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?t=222458
gap down Monday & retest of Wed's HOD? stranger things have happened
Fed are throwing in nearly 5 billion on Monday and Tuesday.
Shouldn't be any real downside. Only upside expected.
I believe emg recommends you have a margin of $500,000 per ES contract traded so no stops are necessary. You just hold until your 1 point profit target is hit. :eek:
