Quote from stock777:
You sure equities are much much much easier to trade? In what way? Easier to make money? Then taxes is the least of it. If they are so easy, then why are so many seeking the sanctuary of the ES , masochism?
Dear stock777,
Yes it is "easier to make money", at least in terms of amount of trading proficiency required, competitiveness and extreme market efficiency, as is the case with futures.
Why are so many seeking the 'sanctuary of the ES'? Well, I think I have explained that. There are several reasons:
- No volume limits, super-high liquidity, higher money velocity. I hope you understand what I mean with money velocity, it means that you can still move eve larger volume ($500K+) with low lag through liquidity problems and low adverse price change.
- Extreme savings in commissions, particularly if you have an exchange seat. Let's face it, more than 90% of the volume on ES is done by serious traders, that is exchange members and institutionals that push 100 cars+ per pos, and not little retail day traders (most of which don't have a chance anyway)).
- Tax benefits of trading commodities
- Highest leverage
- Specialization and many other things
There are many reasons why people trade futures. I trade futures, almost only ES, and my reasons are most of these just named, but mainly that I want sufficient liquidity.
And yes, trading stocks is comparatively easy. I trade stocks for relaxation! If I just want to chill out, I'll have a couple of J&T on the rocks, load a naz Lv2 screen and preferably a Nasdaq semi like MXIM and scalp for a few hours, just for fun.
I won't make much money, because I can hardly do this so effectively with more than a few K shares, so it's just for exercize and recreation, but in % terms I'll do extremely well either way.
While this is all very nice in % terms, I'm not interested in % terms, but in $ terms. If I traded the equivalent of 10 cars on MXIM, that would be $500K face value, equal to about 10,000 shares. Now go and try scalping 10 or 20 cars on ES, then go and try scalping with 10,000 or 20,000 shares on MXIM, then come back and tell me if you can tell the difference.
On another matter, perhaps you should try trading futures for a few months, and then go back to stocks. I know someone here is going to say "Jeez, what's going on, the stocks have become so easy to trade!" You wouldn't be the first one to say so. Almost every futures trader has experienced that. Any futures traders here who can verify that?
Don't kid yourself. The futures are so competitive because they're such nice trading mediums. But that's why you're facing the world's best traders. And unless you beat them, they beat you.
It's all hard, as it's supposed to be.
Who says it's supposed to be hard?
If you did an elicitation of your beliefs, you might find that this is a terribly limiting belief which could cost you a lot of opportunities. To give you a hint, your beliefs are what forges your reality and the world around you. If you think it's supposed to be hard - It's going to be hard for you - Always!
Unless you realize your own limiting beliefs and mental barriers, collapse them and replace them with power thoughts, you aren't going to achieve superior performance - Ever. It is something we all should do.
I can strongly recommend you get a really good and well-trained NLP master trainer to train you in Neuro Linguistic Programming, preferably with
www.inlpta.com they are government-accredited and accepted world-wide. Get some private sessions with the NLP coach to reprogram your brain in a way that will dispose of limiting beliefs and yield maximum output and productivity.
Good Luck,
Scientist.
