Quote from HopelessTrader:
With regard to ES, what changed in your trading during that time?
We are getting off-topic for this thread, however to answer above and your PM question of difference between ES and FX:
Actually I grappled with this question of why I am making money in FX and losing money in ES for months - This question baffled me for almost 8-9 months. Only after that I began to develop an understanding of why it was the case.
There are actually many reasons for this:
1) When I started trading ES, I found it very hard to determine where exactly I should put my stop. I used to put stop at 2 pts and I will get stopped. Then I will put it 4 points I will again get stopped. And then price will suddenly move in my direction for 10 pts. In FX, I found my stops were flexible since I was trading small. Say I buy 30k, then scale in with 40k at -20 pips and cover partial position say 50k at +15pip. So, I will be left with a position of 20k only. So, much less risk.
However, ES being a full contract, I found it hard to scale in and scale out like FX.
2) Range/Tick size in FX > ES. E.g. EURUSD daily range = 100 pips, tick size = 1pip. So, ratio = 100. ES daily range = 15 pts. Tick size = 0.25 pts. Ratio = 15/0.25 = 60. Although I am comparing 24hr session for FX with RTH for ES, you get my point.
3) Above really becomes important when you realize that it is much easier to scalp FX than scalping ES. E.g. it is fairly easy to find many 10-15 pip oscillations in FX in a day, so you can scalein scaleout and your costs of doing business is 1 pip, so ratio is 15. However to make 2 pts in ES, cost of doing business is 0.25 pts, so ratio is 8.
4) I might be long EURO but see an opportunity to be short AUD and then after some time might take a small position in USDJPY. Can't do all this diversification with ES. So, FX trading in general was more smooth compared to ES.
5) FX is a single market (e.g. Yen is a single currency) whereas ES is a contract representing 500 underlying stocks. ES get impacted by index arbitrage, stock-sector specific news, some fund manager buying/selling etc. Whereas FX is impacted mostly by macroeconomic news. This results in different kind of intraday moves in these asset classes.
Finally, how I became profitable in ES - I think I lost around 15k-20k usd in ES in the process of becoming profitable in that contract. This happened over a period of 9-12 months. It was just intense studying, research and backtesting that turned things around. I coded many simple concepts and backtested them to see their efficacy. After a while, I started to combine separate concepts - and that started resulting in equity curve with much less volatility. Also, I think market experience of 4 yrs has been very helpful. I think had I tried to trade ES at the start of my career (without first trading FX), I might have found it much harder to become profitable in ES. I had left my job to pursue trading - so I was able to devote around 12 hrs per day on this thing. I think that really helped.
I wrote a thread earlier on what not to do while trading ES. At that time, I was still not profitable.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=241226&perpage=6&pagenumber=1
Hope this helps.