how to start futures trading (emini)

[Birinhos]

I don't quite understand what you're asking, to be honest.

I was trying to understand why people say 6k is not enough ... I was not understanding and thinking to myself: "is there something I am not seeing" since I have been simulating everyday and taking this "training"more serious last 6 months it must be some kind of extra fees (?) or maybe the values I see on NT are downscale with some factor... Why everybody says 6k its not enough ? that was my question.

So far the answers used to justify this "impossibility" (of 6k) use the market dynamics.

I agree, if you are going to do long terms tradings on ES, use more than one contract, or if you even take your eyes out of the ladder when you have an open position : ok 6k is not very much.

But for day trading where you are looking to gain 4-6 ticks per trade and use stop loss of 5 ticks and many times close before it reach there, and you are there always looking to the ladder, and looking for the order entries matched to see the force of money, with the finger over the price ladder (superdom view) ready to fire and close the position ... 1k does the job.

Saying this type of trade is impossible is incorrect... and so far I am doing well and since I do lots of trades per day the variance is very low (it is not luck .. )I even simulate with the worst commissions that I will not use in real ...

My type of trading is similar to this :

 

[nonlinear5]

.. 1k does the job.

You'd be severely under-capitalized if you trade 1 ES contract per $1K of account. I am not even sure there are brokers to allow you this low margin. I use IB, and it requires $3443.75 as an intraday margin. With $6K per 1 ES contract, you would still be severely under-capitalized.

 

[Birinhos]

Ok broker limitation.

I will use one of ninjatrade site, probably Dorman.

I have questions about this. They will close my position automatically when my account reach that margin right ?

How does this work ?

I am day trader in betting exchange (horse racing pre-live This was the case study for my PhD). There I know all in detail the "lather view" and the way of working is very similar to ES - even the market dynamics have similarities - (I can answer questions about that if anybody interested lol ) but Futures "bureaucracies" I am testing the path ...

 

[nonlinear5]

I have questions about this. They will close my position automatically when my account reach that margin right ? How does this work?

Most brokers have real-time, automated monitoring systems to track the exposure to risk in your account. If the market moves against your position, and your account balance falls below what's known as the "maintenance margin", the broker will liquidate your positions.

 

[Xela]

There I know all in detail the "lather view" and the way of working is very similar to ES

Yes - you're right about this. Things like the Betfair "pre-off" (and even "in-running") markets are strikingly similar to "depth of market"-based trading with financial futures (because of course Betfair's software was originally designed taking a "level 2 stock screen" as its starting-point).

The difference is that doing the same thing with (for example) ES is much more difficult, though I'd agree that if you're good at it, there are certainly more opportunities to do it with financial futures than is the case with horse-racing.

As I mentioned above, in theory, on paper, on demo, $6k sounds like enough to trade one contract of ES, if you're very careful, know what you're doing, avoid dangerous times, and have very tight stops ... but in practice I wouldn't try it myself, as I'd feel very undercapitalised for it. (I might be willing to try it with one contract of NQ, I suppose: that moves at $20 per point in contrast to ES's $50 per point ).

 

[lovethetrade]

With $6K you might be better off finding a good system on C2 with a proven track record and auto-trading it. That way there's less pressure and you have another source of income coming in while you refine your logic. The key is to diversify your trading/investing activities so you don't blow all your capital.

 

[Birinhos]

Most brokers have real-time, automated monitoring systems to track the exposure to risk in your account. If the market moves against your position, and your account balance falls below what's known as the "maintenance margin", the broker will liquidate your positions.

Thank you. I have been in some workshops for CFDs and I was assuming that mechanism, just did not know the "maintenance margin" amount was so high for ES. I will put the money to cover that margin but I hope I will never use it. Like I said one day losing 300$ is already a lot for me, for my type of trading. I have to be careful when the market start to have high volatility and at the beginning of the day when the volume is high... I already have this tackle in my simulations .. You can see also the "bots" disappearing on the ladder when the market goes crazy... For example there are bots to "mask" the available amount to match putting all prices with amounts near to 2000. This way only the owner of the bot really know what amount is there and the real wight of money (when the transaction price goes 2-3 ticks near it jumps off, high volatility is danger for this bot)... This bot has disappeared during elections and only two weeks after elections it came back ... Also have to be careful when the market suspends. Have to be with my all positions closed before it suspends...

With $6K you might be better off finding a good system on C2 with a proven track record and auto-trading it. That way there's less pressure and you have another source of income coming in while you refine your logic. The key is to diversify your trading/investing activities so you don't blow all your capital.

My goal is to gain "sensitivity" to the market and then try to automate with machine learning. For this I have to know (beside others things) what are the optimal inputs to feed the models.

(I might be willing to try it with one contract of NQ, I suppose: that moves at $20 per point in contrast to ES's $50 per point ).

I also use NQ to make correlations with ES. Sometimes there is a "spike" on NQ and I try to enter on ES (I never go on front, just put my order at best price if it is absorb nice ... if not - I wait for another "spike" - never go after the price). On NQ each ticks gives 5$ but the commission per trade is 4.3(worst case) you have to do at least 2 tick to go on a litle considerable green.... But since it has more precision (on price ladder) and more volatility is good to decide entry points and also to decide the closing on ES. I use charts of very fast updates (updates every 20 matches.. beside the 1min. and 10min. to get the global trend) and also look a lot to the T&S window, that display every matched order and the quantity of the order (to sense the force of the market).


I have here on my laptop one print of some months ago (I am a the the cofe ) Here I send 14 days in day trade - 1 contract each time- simulating :

by the way my setup for betting exchange (2h work 400€ this is real money has you can see ladder view is very important for me) :

 

[lovethetrade]

My goal is to gain "sensitivity" to the market and then try to automate with machine learning. For this I have to know (beside others things) what are the optimal inputs to feed the models.

Don't worry, you will get all the sensitivety you could ever ask for. I would've thought the less costly way to establish the optimal inputs would be by real-time time and historical data analysis, not blowing all your money with minimal understanding of the logic that drives the market.

 

[Birinhos]

Don't worry, you will get all the sensitivety you could ever ask for. I would've thought the less costly way to establish the optimal inputs would be by real-time time and historical data analysis, not blowing all your money with zero understanding of the logic that drives the market.

When I start on betfair (8 years ago) I had a lot of comments of that type ... In the beginning I was showing cents of profit (making people arrogant) and people saying "that" and "this will not work", "you will blow your money..." " that is the hard way to lose money", "you will belong to the 95% of losers", etc ...

Now I live well (better then before) and the people that were saying that are still waking up at 8:00AM to go for traffic and work for another guy lol And I am sleeping until 11:00 going to the gym, to the beach (like where I am now), and working 2h a day (if i am in the mood) and another 2h just to train ES...

there is no shortcuts in this business.

(This is the second comment saying I will lose in this forum ... ok lets see ... )

 

[Overnight]

So you made 1000 Euros in 3 months? You certainly must be living well. Don't pick on the people who "wake up at 8AM to go for traffic and work for another guy lol", as you say. They help support people like you who wake up at 11AM and go to the gym and the beach.