How difficult to trade are ES and NQ?

ES is #1 futures contract in the world, isnt it? Well so you be f-ing with the best. What do you expect? That it'll be a piece of cake? I think if I master ES, I'll be able to trade any instrument.
 
Quote from traderkay:

ES is #1 futures contract in the world, isnt it? Well so you be f-ing with the best. What do you expect? That it'll be a piece of cake?
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I don't know what you mean by #1, but the only property ES seems to have more than any other futures contract in the world is that it is difficult to daytrade profitably. I don't think it's the highest volume or best known contract in the world.
 
...I have to take up for Illiquid here. I find fairly often that I have to override my systems when they are not "smart" enough to know that they are wrong. IMO coding up all the "wrongness" conditions would be an immense undertaking relative to the generation of reasonably optimizable 5-7 parameter systems. I consider my systems to be a guide. I almost always take their entries, but exits are another matter.
 
Quote from Lobster:

Thanks for all the replies and votes!

spyderman: There was a time over a year ago when I was reasonably profitable scalping SPY off of emini action. Obviously, at that time there was occasionally a sufficient lag between ES and SPY to exploit. I paid about 60% of my gross profits from this activity in commissions ($.01 per share). I tried several different approaches to trading ES, usually for a few days or weeks every half year since the beginning of my trading (or learning how to trade) carreer in mid 2001. Sometimes a system seemed to work, but after a couple of weeks a few losers brought me back into the red, and I quit. I traded NYSE stocks quite profitable for over a year until very recently, when I switched to futures because of relatively lower commissions and because the NYSE is probably dying anyway. I was never profitable trading NASDAQ stocks, I wonder if that has something to do with my inability to trade ES and NQ. As of now, I usually squeeze about $3000 per week out of ZN and ZB (1-lots) and lose $1000 per week in ES and NQ. It's almost like these eminis are gnawing at me and I won't rest until I can become profitable. But maybe I should.

Lobster...sounds like your trying to prove that you can trade those 2. If that $3k is net, sounds like you are doing pretty good....(1 lots!)....unless the ES and NQ are like loss leaders and you somehow need to lose in those to make in the ZB! Ive seen that with some traders....

Wouldn't worry about NYSE dying.....they will just enforce their rules.....number one being to keep the specialists hand off the "override" button on electronic order flow. Why not try bonds and NYSE?

we all just arent able to trade all markets!
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Quote from spyderman:....unless the ES and NQ are like loss leaders and you somehow need to lose in those to make in the ZB! Ive seen that with some traders....
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You're right on the money! How did you know? This is a mystery to me, but I always start the day trading ZN and ZB, and after 30 minutes or so, there comes a time when a voice inside my head tells me to put on a position in ES or NQ (or sometimes both) to complement my open position in ZN and/or ZB. It usually works out so that I lose in ES/NQ and more than make up for it in ZN/ZB. The thing is, if I could just not touch ES/NQ and still somehow "pretend" I had open positions in them, I could save myself some money. But it doesn't work that way. I should also mention that I don't have a system or anything, I simply jump in and out of the different futures whenever I feel like it, therefore the stock index futures positions seem necessary to keep the neural net I have in my brain functioning profitably.

Would you happen to know if any of those traders who needed to lose in one instrument in order to earn money in the other ever found a better solution to this strange problem?
 
Quote from Lobster:



You're right on the money! How did you know? This is a mystery to me, but I always start the day trading ZN and ZB, and after 30 minutes or so, there comes a time when a voice inside my head tells me to put on a position in ES or NQ (or sometimes both) to complement my open position in ZN and/or ZB. It usually works out so that I lose in ES/NQ and more than make up for it in ZN/ZB. The thing is, if I could just not touch ES/NQ and still somehow "pretend" I had open positions in them, I could save myself some money. But it doesn't work that way. I should also mention that I don't have a system or anything, I simply jump in and out of the different futures whenever I feel like it, therefore the stock index futures positions seem necessary to keep the neural net I have in my brain functioning profitably.

Would you happen to know if any of those traders who needed to lose in one instrument in order to earn money in the other ever found a better solution to this strange problem?
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interesting ! how about setting up an ES simulator and placing the losing trades here ?

surfer:)
 
Quote from Lobster:

I should also mention that I don't have a system or anything, I simply jump in and out of the different futures whenever I feel like it
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I think you just answered your original question . . .
 
Indexes are easy and difficult to trade.

No doubt about it.

Dealing with pure Technical Analysis is not an easy thing to master. I keep trying to teach my computer to do it for me. I am not great at being logical. Intuition is not a great strategy for trading.

But Fundamental Analysis is a lot of reading. Not necessary for trading indexes IMHO. So once the market closes, you are allowed a life.:)
 
Quote from Lobster:



You're right on the money! How did you know? This is a mystery to me, but I always start the day trading ZN and ZB, and after 30 minutes or so, there comes a time when a voice inside my head tells me to put on a position in ES or NQ (or sometimes both) to complement my open position in ZN and/or ZB. It usually works out so that I lose in ES/NQ and more than make up for it in ZN/ZB. The thing is, if I could just not touch ES/NQ and still somehow "pretend" I had open positions in them, I could save myself some money. But it doesn't work that way. I should also mention that I don't have a system or anything, I simply jump in and out of the different futures whenever I feel like it, therefore the stock index futures positions seem necessary to keep the neural net I have in my brain functioning profitably.

Would you happen to know if any of those traders who needed to lose in one instrument in order to earn money in the other ever found a better solution to this strange problem?
More...

Sounds like you have a "good" hedge strategy. :D
 
Quote from Lobster:



You're right on the money! How did you know? This is a mystery to me, but I always start the day trading ZN and ZB, and after 30 minutes or so, there comes a time when a voice inside my head tells me to put on a position in ES or NQ (or sometimes both) to complement my open position in ZN and/or ZB. It usually works out so that I lose in ES/NQ and more than make up for it in ZN/ZB. The thing is, if I could just not touch ES/NQ and still somehow "pretend" I had open positions in them, I could save myself some money. But it doesn't work that way. I should also mention that I don't have a system or anything, I simply jump in and out of the different futures whenever I feel like it, therefore the stock index futures positions seem necessary to keep the neural net I have in my brain functioning profitably.

Would you happen to know if any of those traders who needed to lose in one instrument in order to earn money in the other ever found a better solution to this strange problem?
More...

Lobster, I dont view this as a problem at all! Somehow "losing" on one side of this trade, is more than being complimented on the other side. The solution? If you could slowly increase your size on the winning sides, theoretically the P&L would improve. You obviously are a discretionary trader, as am I. Sure, we look at charts, volume, internals, key stocks, news, etc....but the trades come from the gut. And there is nothing wrong with that as long as we keep ourselves in check. Overall you are making money, which to me defines a PROFESSIONAL in this business. It seems like somehow these losers are helping us determine the validity of the winning side.....theoretically if you are winning 2:1 and double your size..your winning 4:1! Increasing size is a key issue in a trader really making it....and on the downside, being broken. Don't be a perfectionist! Improve certainly.

There are parallels to the "loss leaders" of running a shop. Say a grocer sells good meat under his cost, people will swarm in, he takes a loss on it...but more than makes up for it in sales of spices, veggies etc. to cook the meat! I know it is a simple minded analogy, but that makes him a better grocer. In any business you have to spend money to make money.....in any war you have to spend on ammunition and unfortunately with casualties. Make no mistake about it, every day we do this, some of the smartest minds on the planet are in the same market. And we have our dumbass selves to deal with it to boot! It is a war.

Sorry for being so long winded about it. I make more $$$$ when im black in 3 positions and red in 2 then when im black in all 5. I think a trader is ready to reach the higher levels when he can look at "losses" as the simply the cost of doing business rather than equating it to actual hard earned money!

In short these top traders use this strange problem to their ultimate advantage and key to success!
 
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