Good at ES but bad at daytrading stocks. I feel the ES is better.

A

athlonmank8

Simply for those who have daytraded both the ES mini's and stocks. I'd love to find out which you feel is the easier (or better) of the two.

Why i've blown up and why I feel the ES is better for beginners. ( I was profitable on ES).

1. With the ES mini's there's 1 thing to watch...the ES. Stocks you can pick and choose hundreds. Not to mention even if you do trade a handful, they all act completely different (those of you who understand them know what that means)

2. Liquidity. How the hell do you fix a stop on this shit? Spreads can move all over the place.

3. Price....you're trading different price levels on stocks. $10-200 you're going to need to adjust for size, volatility, and liquidity. Have fun.

4. Order entry. Where are you going to buy? Ask, Bid, or between the spread.

5. False breaks. Due to lack of liquidity you're going to see some excitement.

The reason I bring this up is because I have personally never had such a problem. I've been here for 9 years and I've swing-traded stocks (pennies and listed), traded options (profitably), and the ES (marginally profitably).

I've developed and am now using a dual moving average system trading everything except for pennies and as far as I'm concerned it's worked great. In addition, i've developed a fundamental system for investing as well.

HOWEVER I will blow up any account that involves daytrading stocks.

I can go on with this, but I'd love to know if I'm the only one who feels this way.
 
You bring up great points in favor of futures.

One thing is missing in the puzzle - leverage.

There is so much leverage available trading the ES, as low as $300 margins, that if used improperly will almost always result in a quick blowout.
 
Quote from brownsfan019:

You bring up great points in favor of futures.

One thing is missing in the puzzle - leverage.

There is so much leverage available trading the ES, as low as $300 margins, that if used improperly will almost always result in a quick blowout.
More...

Thanks. Yes! Completely forgot about that. Leverage can and will kill ya if used improperly.
 
Stocks> Futures, until you need to make more than 2k/day, or 5k/day, or whatever wall you run into owing to lack of liquidity in stocks.

Waay wway way way way way way way way more tradeable easy money edges in stocks.

Also for beginners you can loose much less, risking $1/tick vs. $12.50.
 
i diasgree and the stats show it. few few few make it over time trading futures. part of it is the leverage seems to come back to haunt and many es traders use 1 are 2 pt stops which many times giggles can rip one out. use your head. if one can make 100k a year off a 10k account which is the max most futures trader use thats 1000% a year which nobody in the world can do over time
 
Every person is different and handles different products differently. Has to do with comfort level, experience, background, etc..

You cannot generalize why one product is better than the other for EVERYONE if you know nothing about everyone's different preferences and skills.

The only thing you can say is ES is better for YOU. I neither agree or disagree with your points, but so many people here try to make generlized statements of what is the best product or marekt and that makes too big of an assumption since people should trade what they feel most comfortable trading, not what others claim is the best.

:D
 
Quote from hedgeking:

i diasgree and the stats show it. few few few make it over time trading futures. part of it is the leverage seems to come back to haunt and many es traders use 1 are 2 pt stops which many times giggles can rip one out. use your head. if one can make 100k a year off a 10k account which is the max most futures trader use thats 1000% a year which nobody in the world can do over time
More...



But if one is trading 10 lots to make 100k, the actual return on is only 13%.
 
Quote from athlonmank8:

Simply for those who have daytraded both the ES mini's and stocks. I'd love to find out which you feel is the easier (or better) of the two.
Why i've blown up and why I feel the ES is better for beginners. ( I was profitable on ES).
1. With the ES mini's there's 1 thing to watch...the ES. Stocks you can pick and choose hundreds. Not to mention even if you do trade a handful, they all act completely different (those of you who understand them know what that means)
2. Liquidity. How the hell do you fix a stop on this shit? Spreads can move all over the place.
3. Price....you're trading different price levels on stocks. $10-200 you're going to need to adjust for size, volatility, and liquidity. Have fun.
4. Order entry. Where are you going to buy? Ask, Bid, or between the spread.
5. False breaks. Due to lack of liquidity you're going to see some excitement.
The reason I bring this up is because I have personally never had such a problem. I've been here for 9 years and I've swing-traded stocks (pennies and listed), traded options (profitably), and the ES (marginally profitably).
I've developed and am now using a dual moving average system trading everything except for pennies and as far as I'm concerned it's worked great. In addition, i've developed a fundamental system for investing as well.
HOWEVER I will blow up any account that involves daytrading stocks.
More...
A couple of comments (having traded both):
1) You can reduce the liquidity problems with stocks by setting a cut-off of $2 million shares per day traded on average. Of course, this cut-off prevents you from trading stocks that can really move in one day.
2) The stock "too much variety" problem can be handled by just picking 6 stocks and trading ONLY those. Again, the problem becomes one of what happens when they stop moving ? Low volatility in general makes almost all intraday trading a lousy pursuit of income.
3) Speed becomes a factor when placing e-mini orders (assuming you always have a contingent stop loss order in place at your entry). I've been stopped-out on some orders in NQ futures in ONE SECOND. In another case, I was stopped-out 3 ticks from my stop because the market was moving so fast). Hesitation for entries can result in a whipsaw trade where your stop is taken-out and the market reverses and moves in your direction without you.
4) e-mini trading on a discretionary basis is quite a head game. If you've got good entries, it's not hard at all. But if your % wins is in the order of 40-50%, then it's much tougher as the tendency then becomes one of taking profits too early....thus never achieving the daily goal of several small losses, several small wins, and the oh-so-critical few large winners. I've discovered, that without those "few large winners", you'll just break-even at best....and eventually just go insane and eventually not able to trade because you've put your fist thru your monitors.
 
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