Right now I'm sharp and focused trading one contract.
Stay Sharp, just like this high quality $3,610 Japanese knife.
Don't be a plastic knife amateur trader and person,
ES Journal - 2021/2022
- Thread starter Buy1Sell2
- Start date
Stay Sharp, just like this high quality $3,610 Japanese knife.
Don't be a plastic knife amateur trader and person,
This what was happened Friday. I played it safe to secure a green day. I was also a bit on a schedule as I'm sadly not doing this full-time.
I expect this behavior to correct as I grow my account.
It's a good suggestion.
The all in rates with Ninja and a lifetime license is $2.04 for 1 ES and $5.60 for 10 MES.
So, the cost per trade is significantly higher on MES if you're taking a few B/E exits or 1 tick winners like I do when I'm playing defensively. Maybe there's a bit more slippage on MES, too.
I was considering starting out with MES, but opted for ES. I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind moving forward and I think you make some valid points for sure.
Where have we all heard that it is not smart to bring a knife?Stay Sharp, just like this high quality $3,610 Japanese knife.
Don't be a plastic knife amateur trader and person,
Wow, this is a bit shocking, but perhaps this means I got my numbers wrong. I remember between $4-5 for ES, but that may have been round trip. Yes... because its $12.50 profit per tick, and if I got that, I was left with about $8 profit for me, so the $4-5 is round trip, hence only about $2-2.50 per side, which is your number, and what we have to compare with $0.57 per side for 1 MES.
So absolutely the fees for MES is easily twice as much, but I just don't think fees are ever the sole factor for an unprofitable trader. If after 100 trades, the trader is making 2 ticks average per trade, then I can see how fees might cut into his profits by a large margin. But missing out on another 10 points of profit on half a position is clearly the much bigger loss.
Anyway... keep us posted. I know for me, once I started to get into scaling, it opened up a whole other can of worms by changing too many variables.
So if I were you, the only thing I would do would be all in, just as you're doing, and all out on stops. So if lets say you take a 5 point loss on ES, this would be $250 loss plus $4 in fees, hence $254 total. And with MES it would be about $256 total in losses, allowing for the extra $2 in fees and assuming no slippage.
But if instead its a winner, call its $246 profit ($250 - $4 fees) for the ES, but if instead for MES you exit 5 of those at anything more than +5, lets even say just 2 at +10, which is an extra 5 points on 2 MES contracts, that is an extra $50 profit right there. So the few dollars in extra fees will not matter one bit, and this one profit easily covers any future slippage or fees for many trades. Even having just 1 MES runner overnight can sometimes bring in huge profits. I think its where those 100 point winners would materialize.
What is all this slippage you guys keep speaking of? The front month on both contracts has such a thick ladder that there should be no slippage period on market orders. And because said ladder is so thick, you can just use limit orders so there is no negative slippage guaranteed!
Yes.
The impact of cost of trading clearly correlates with your trading frequency. If your average profit per trade is huge and your volume is low, the difference is negligible.
Which variables did you change?
I don't see what variables would change on my end, but I think the key is to scale very slowly. The main mistake I did in the past was scaling too fast.
For example, I had three weeks with consecutive winning days and thought I knew something. Scaled up and had a few bad days where I gave back most of my prior profits. Psychologically, that sucks.
When I go from 1 to 2 contracts as my all in / all out size, I will wait until my piker account exceeds $20K by a margin. Say $22K. Then, I have a $2K cushion which is 20 ES points on 2 contracts before I'm back to $20K.
Going from 1 to 2 should be harder than going from 2 to 3 or 3 to 4.
Arguably, one advantage of scaling with MES is that you can do so much more incrementally with one new MES per x amount of profits accumulated in your account.
I've considered implementing some MES swing trades, but so far I'm not doing it.
I find that even having a small position on, even if it's profitable, is in a way stressful. Since I'm juggling this with a full time job I find it's better for my peace of mind right now to just be flat by EOD.
But maybe I'll just have to get to it.
Dude. You're HODLING with one trade per month at most. What do you know?
I haven't traded MES in a while, but I had some minor slippage on MES last year trading it. Not enough to make a big impact, but certainly a difference between ES. Even ES can give you slippage on a market order during a fast move.
I use both market orders and limit orders. I may enter on stops using markets orders and I may also use limit orders. I may exit on limit orders (targets) or trailing stops (market orders).
I actually remember an incident earlier this year when the market spiked to my limit order and I was not filled. This was on ES. While liquidity on ES is generally great, it's not unlimited and there's never a guarantee that you'll get filled at all times at your desired price.
I imagine if one is actively day trading 20 - 30 MES there could be some issues, but I wouldn't know for sure.
Maybe someone is trading MES with this volume and can comment?
Dude. You're HODLING with one trade per month at most. What do you know?
I haven't traded MES in a while, but I had some minor slippage on MES last year trading it. Not enough to make a big impact, but certainly a difference between ES. Even ES can give you slippage on a market order during a fast move.
I use both market orders and limit orders. I may enter on stops using markets orders and I may also use limit orders. I may exit on limit orders (targets) or trailing stops (market orders).
I actually remember an incident earlier this year when the market spiked to my limit order and I was not filled. This was on ES. While liquidity on ES is generally great, it's not unlimited and there's never a guarantee that you'll get filled at all times at your desired price.
I imagine if one is actively day trading 20 - 30 MES there could be some issues, but I wouldn't know for sure.
Maybe someone is trading MES with this volume and can comment?
Trading MES recently I did not get any fill on my buy limit at the low of 1M bar, the volume of that bar was 274 contracts.
I wonder why, my order was not big.
SPX Monthly
A good start for September, but we're still contained between 4150 and 3785 as supply/demand zones.
SPX Weekly
ES/SPX closed up + 3,60 % net on the week, so a pretty good up week.
Could the low put in this week be considered what Jack Hershey would call a FTT and the start of a new up trend or at least a test of the upper TL? I suppose. I don't read too much into it.
We're still contained by this large channel/flag and this rally could easily lose momentum as prior ones have done so far this year.
SPX Daily
The daily chart looked like a disaster by the start of this week, but a failure to breakout (FBO) below last week's low on Tuesday marked out the week's bottom for a move above last week's high by Friday.
Friday's high coincided with last week's high and the touch of a TL. Above here, we're running into that 4150 supply zone from earlier. That should be an interesting level to watch out for if we do inch higher this week. Above that there's an open gap at 4228,48.
TL ; DR: I'm a bit suspicious of this rally, so I won't be caught surprised if we roll over again, but if up is where we're going, that's the side of the market you want to be on.
A good start for September, but we're still contained between 4150 and 3785 as supply/demand zones.
SPX Weekly
ES/SPX closed up + 3,60 % net on the week, so a pretty good up week.
Could the low put in this week be considered what Jack Hershey would call a FTT and the start of a new up trend or at least a test of the upper TL? I suppose. I don't read too much into it.
We're still contained by this large channel/flag and this rally could easily lose momentum as prior ones have done so far this year.
SPX Daily
The daily chart looked like a disaster by the start of this week, but a failure to breakout (FBO) below last week's low on Tuesday marked out the week's bottom for a move above last week's high by Friday.
Friday's high coincided with last week's high and the touch of a TL. Above here, we're running into that 4150 supply zone from earlier. That should be an interesting level to watch out for if we do inch higher this week. Above that there's an open gap at 4228,48.
TL ; DR: I'm a bit suspicious of this rally, so I won't be caught surprised if we roll over again, but if up is where we're going, that's the side of the market you want to be on.
Attachments
SPX Monthly
A good start for September, but we're still contained between 4150 and 3785 as supply/demand zones.
View attachment 294813
SPX Weekly
ES/SPX closed up + 3,60 % net on the week, so a pretty good up week.
Could the low put in this week be considered what Jack Hershey would call a FTT and the start of a new up trend or at least a test of the upper TL? I suppose. I don't read too much into it.
We're still contained by this large channel/flag and this rally could easily lose momentum as prior ones have done so far this year.
View attachment 294815
SPX Daily
The daily chart looked like a disaster by the start of this week, but a failure to breakout (FBO) below last week's low on Tuesday marked out the week's bottom for a move above last week's high by Friday.
Friday's high coincided with last week's high and the touch of a TL. Above here, we're running into that 4150 supply zone from earlier. That should be an interesting level to watch out for if we do inch higher this week. Above that there's an open gap at 4228,48.
View attachment 294816
TL ; DR: I'm a bit suspicious of this rally, so I won't be caught surprised if we roll over again, but if up is where we're going, that's the side of the market you want to be on.
My belief as a trader that when trading you only want to look for opportunities that potentially offer positively skewed return distribution, I wouldn’t be going long here based on my r:r model.