Micro E-mini Madness (2% per day)

[sstheo]

Sorry to interrupt. But if there are new traders here please print the quote out below (I did). Remember to correctly trade you ALSO need a belt with these suspenders, by setting a daily loss limit with your broker for one of those real bad days or at least a hedge to lighten up the exposure. Folks! this is leverage and the Micros can can indeed cause you to start off with less cash compared to the Emini to correctly get the yield on it that you desire. But it is still a lot of cash for the Micros. I myself am using just $6,500.00 in my future Journal (I am waiting for funding) which is really pushing it. I will be trading one Micro for a long time and if I have an edge maybe next year I will be closer to "not gambling".

When gambling in Blackjack you need to play Blackjack correctly or you can choose to play Roulette and put it all on red.

ES
Have you voted?
Is trading Gambling or not .."What say You" Vote here.

ES, it sounds like you know what you are doing, so I was surprised when you said ". . .IF I have an edge . . . ." I propose that all traders should trade on sim only until they can say "I have an edge."

Then they can trade the micros. Then they can trade the full E-mini. Then they can trade the majors....

The edge is truly what it is all about - tightly coupled with good money management. Good trades with bad money management is probably much worse than bad trades with good money management, but lets shoot for good trades with good money management.


p.s. Your survey about gambling has been going for 14 years. Awesome!

 

[ElectricSavant]

Yeah I need the confidence you have...but more importantly I need to focus on ONE method...Perhaps you can help me when I get my Journal going...

I am trading every day but forward testing takes a long time...

ES

ES, it sounds like you know what you are doing, so I was surprised when you said ". . .IF I have an edge . . . ." I propose that all traders should trade on sim only until they can say "I have an edge."

Then they can trade the micros. Then they can trade the full E-mini. Then they can trade the majors....

The edge is truly what it is all about - tightly coupled with good money management. Good trades with bad money management is probably much worse than bad trades with good money management, but lets shoot for good trades with good money management.

 

[sstheo]

ES, My main reason for posting is to hold myself accountable. The second reason is to help others learn to trade in a sane fashion profitably by seeing someone like me (hopefully) succeeding at the task. I have been trading almost 13 years now but only now believe I am really turning a big corner to profitability. I have had great runs lasting weeks only to give most or all of it back. No More!! I will be happy to do all I can to help....

 

[ElectricSavant]

congrats SS I feel I am sitting on a boiling pot of water and I want to share it in my Journal. I am containing myself and remaining sober minded. But why am I constantly looking and not focusing? Because I know edges do not last and I want an ace in the hole.

I am my biggest problem as others have pointed out to me. But they are on ignore and blocking because of the way they pointed it out. At my expense they whipped me when I was down only to pump their pride and cast a stone, some it is personal thing as the truth hurts when I was on the other side. They know the truth and every trader has faced losses...or they are not traders. I go back a long way here sstheo, WITH THE SAME HANDLE. Truth is like a double-edged sword, along with another entity that I worship which also seems to be a problem for some people.

The hardest thing for me to do is to post a serious Journal here. I admire your ability to be candid and fearless and to hold yourself out to this very, very toxic community (ET will never change). I read some of the other Journals here and they are awesome. I am older now and am not a trouble maker and I would never want to pose any problems to Magna here, so I hesitate.

Carry on SS and keep it as entertaining and serious at the same time as you have.

Es

P.S. I am going to great pains to keep the haters out of your Journal through my posts. This is a great Journal that should go down in the archives to be referred to over and over by many now and to come.

ES, My main reason for posting is to hold myself accountable. The second reason is to help others learn to trade in a sane fashion profitably by seeing someone like me (hopefully) succeeding at the task. I have been trading almost 13 years now but only now believe I am really turning a big corner to profitability. I have had great runs lasting weeks only to give most or all of it back. No More!! I will be happy to do all I can to help....

 

[sstheo]

congrats SS I feel I am sitting on a boiling pot of water and I want to share it in my Journal. I am containing myself and remaining sober minded. But why am I constantly looking and not focusing? Because I know edges do not last and I want an ace in the hole.

I am my biggest problem as others have pointed out to me. But they are on ignore and blocking because of the way they pointed it out. At my expense they whipped me when I was down only to pump their pride and cast a stone, some it is personal thing as the truth hurts when I was on the other side. They know the truth and every trader has faced losses...or they are not traders. I go back a long way here sstheo, WITH THE SAME HANDLE. Truth is like a double-edged sword, along with another entity that I worship which also seems to be a problem for some people.

The hardest thing for me to do is to post a serious Journal here. I admire your ability to be candid and fearless and to hold yourself out to this very, very toxic community (ET will never change). I read some of the other Journals here and they are awesome. I am older now and am not a trouble maker and I would never want to pose any problems to Magna here, so I hesitate.

Carry on SS and keep it as entertaining and serious at the same time as you have.

Es

P.S. I am going to great pains to keep the haters out of your Journal through my posts. This is a great Journal that should go down in the archives to be referred to over and over by many now and to come.

Thanks for the glowing endorsement. "Should go down in the archives" Wow, thanks. I hope my 2, 3, and 4 week performance can now equal the rhetoric for sure.

I fully support the idea of everyone posting a journal. It is therapeutic on bad days and fun on good days. You have to speak truth to yourself at the end of the day, no matter how you did. And truth can only help you improve.

Sorry you have had a bad experience at times on ET. I am not sure why people are not supportive of everyone who comes here and is willing to share ideas. This is a wonderful community overall! I have been here since 2009 myself, but have not been really active until last month. Toxic posters either are not parents or are bad parents. We are all children in this adventure, and some have said that trading is the hardest thing on the planet. I say that trading futures is the hardest niche of this almost impossible task. So we all need lots of help!!! A good parent will ignore most of the bad and focus on the good, knowing that the bad will slowly be replaced as more and more good is absorbed by the little minds. So I am confused by some posts as well. Maybe they are simply frustrated traders themselves....

Regarding the boiling pot of water, I get the sense that you are really trying hard to get out and move forward but feel like you keep getting pulled back in. Is this correct? I sounds like you definitely need a few small success to build on.

Here is my basic trading plan. I would say go back to sim for 2 weeks and do this: Put up two time frames. Maybe a 15 minute and a 3 minutes. Draw support lines where there was a strong bounce up. Draw resistance lines where there was a strong bounce down. Put a 50 sma on each chart. Now trade only on the 3 minute chart. Try this:

• If the price is below the 50 sma on the 15 min ONLY take shorts on the 3 min chart when the 50 is angled down.
• If the price is above the 50 sma on the 15 min ONLY taking longs on the 3 min chart when the 50 is angled up.
• If you are close to but above a Support line, don't short.
• If you are close to but below a Resistance line, then don't go long.
• If you are in a tight range then get flat and stay flat until there is a clean breakout up or down - unless you want to try to scalp the range. If so, then ONLY trade towards the mid line of the range, then only try for 2 to 4 ticks at a time.

This is the basis of how I trade - with lots of little tweaks that I will share over time. And this is just one way to trade. But this should, at a minimum, keep you out of that boiling pot of hot water!!!

 

[ElectricSavant]

Thanks for sharing...this is definatly archivable. Does it work on the MNQ?

Es

Thanks for the glowing endorsement. "Should go down in the archives" Wow, thanks. I hope my 2, 3, and 4 week performance can now equal the rhetoric for sure.

I fully support the idea of everyone posting a journal. It is therapeutic on bad days and fun on good days. You have to speak truth to yourself at the end of the day, no matter how you did. And truth can only help you improve.

Sorry you have had a bad experience at times on ET. I am not sure why people are not supportive of everyone who comes here and is willing to share ideas. This is a wonderful community overall! I have been here since 2009 myself, but have not been really active until last month. Toxic posters either are not parents or are bad parents. We are all children in this adventure, and some have said that trading is the hardest thing on the planet. I say that trading futures is the hardest niche of this almost impossible task. So we all need lots of help!!! A good parent will ignore most of the bad and focus on the good, knowing that the bad will slowly be replaced as more and more good is absorbed by the little minds. So I am confused by some posts as well. Maybe they are simply frustrated traders themselves....

Regarding the boiling pot of water, I get the sense that you are really trying hard to get out and move forward but feel like you keep getting pulled back in. Is this correct? I sounds like you definitely need a few small success to build on.

Here is my basic trading plan. I would say go back to sim for 2 weeks and do this: Put up two time frames. Maybe a 15 minute and a 3 minutes. Draw support lines where there was a strong bounce up. Draw resistance lines where there was a strong bounce down. Put a 50 sma on each chart. Now trade only on the 3 minute chart. Try this:

• If the price is below the 50 sma on the 15 min ONLY take shorts on the 3 min chart when the 50 is angled down.
• If the price is above the 50 sma on the 15 min ONLY taking longs on the 3 min chart when the 50 is angled up.
• If you are close to but above a Support line, don't short.
• If you are close to but below a Resistance line, then don't go long.
• If you are in a tight range then get flat and stay flat until there is a clean breakout up or down - unless you want to try to scalp the range. If so, then ONLY trade towards the mid line of the range, then only try for 2 to 4 ticks at a time.

This is the basis of how I trade - with lots of little tweaks that I will share over time. And this is just one way to trade. But this should, at a minimum, keep you out of that boiling pot of hot water!!!

 

[sstheo]

The MNQ and NQ are virtually identical. And they are usually in full harmony with the MES, ES and MYM and YM. So YES, it works on the MNQ. But this is not a mechanical system. You need to keep an eye on the overall bias for the day as well.

Generally the 50 sma on the 15 min chart will keep you on the right side of the market, but you could watch the stock chart of GS (Goldman Sachs) or Amazon to solidify your long/short bias. Remember that the market will generally be in one of three modes: long, short, or balanced (reversionary). Your job each day (and hour) is to try to figure out which mode we are in.

Speaking of "mode," when people talk about "hardware" in trading, they are usually thinking about CPU's and graphics drivers and monitors. I present to you my trading hardware! Enter Mr. PVC. If you are like me, sometimes you just need a visual reinforcement so you don't do something stupid. So at times I just take this here pvc coupling and rotate it according to the prevailing market condition. (I used to use a big white eraser with colored arrows on each side).

Enjoy!

 

[Overnight]

Admission that his journal is not serious, or just saying that it is hard for him to post every update he makes to his serious journal?

"The hardest thing for me to do is to post a serious Journal here. I admire your ability to be candid and fearless and to hold yourself out to this very, very toxic community (ET will never change). I read some of the other Journals here and they are awesome. I am older now and am not a trouble maker and I would never want to pose any problems to Magna here, so I hesitate..."

*clucks* Be like Nike. Just Do It.™

 

[volpri]

Average true range (20 days, SMA) on ES futures is 58 (Volatility). Twice that is 116 (my stop loss; if I buy at 2900 I exit at 2900-116=2784). Multiply that by $5 (MICRO E-MINI S&P 500 multiplier) is $580. That is ~3% of a $20.000 account. I wish my unit of risk was 1.5% but I would require $40.000 account for that.

Well I’ll be a piss ant. 40 grand to trade a micro es? I mean like it moves a buck .25 a tick and is mean reversion. Give me a break! If I can’t do better than that then best make haste and take to selling bubble gum on the street corner.

 

[ElectricSavant]

Well I’ll be a piss ant. 40 grand to trade a micro es? If I can’t do better than that then best make haste and take to selling bubble gum on the street corner.