Micro E-mini Madness (2% per day)

SPX Blaster said:
I'm not a day trader, but I have no set goal for profits. it is not likely to do everyday +2%. Some days will be minus 3% or more, or plus profit of 5% or more. Because my account is small, (here come the haters) I use high leverage and on one trade netted about 70% gain in less than 24 hours. And then several losing trades in a row. Still up 26% since beginning on August 15. And I do use stop loss orders on all trades.
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I am not sure if you are trading the tanking Euro or Futures in one of the most volatile US index range conditions ever, but there has been some craziness in the market for sure. As long as the Tweeter in Chief occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, then hold on to your cash. "Risk Adjusted Returns" is a mouthful that means we all need to be really careful.

The fact that you said you are using stops on all trades is great, and your 26% deserves lots of clapping - not for the size, but purely for being positive!

So many people have blown up over the past month. In our chat room, lots of people are using TopStep, OneUp, LeeLoo, and E2Trade, and I keep hearing "Reset" way too often. PEOPLE ARE USING TOO MUCH RISK. One "bad" tweet, one tariff, and POOF! you are gone!!!

At 1 micro per $500 in my account and 5% max loss per day, my account has a minimum 20 day lifespan. This alone lets me breathe and have my mind clear. And most importantly, even though I don't like it, when I have a 40 tick loss ($20) on one micro - I DON'T CARE. And this is the key for me right now. As explained earlier, (no joke), I used to try to trade NQ and YM on a $1000 account. I might get up to $1500 or $2000 and then BAM - back to $500 and margin call. I am really looking forward to $2,000 then $5,000 then $10,000 with the micros and then really show myself what I have learned switching back and trading the NQ's and YM's safely.
 
Wouldn't you need to start with 1 contract for wiggle room? Sorry for my late post...I am catching up.

ES

sstheo said:
I will explain my trading plan soon in another post, but will start out with just 2 micro contracts and build from there as my account grows. I think I will require a $500 margin per micro contract, so I will trade 3 simultaneous micro contracts only after I reach a balance of $1500, and so forth.
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Excuse if this is rude, I do not mean it to be. This does not make sense to me. Why would a serious trader trade from a phone? Especially with leverage.

ES

S2007S said:
With AMP can you try a mock trading account to see how futures work? And can you trade using a smartphone?
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Carry on sstheo and good trading to you...

sstheo said:
As mentioned in my introductory post, I came in 13th out of 1,400 traders in a contest of those who traded the Micro E-mini contracts for a full week on the official CME sim platform. While I admit that this leader board placement certainly guarantees NOTHING about my success going forward, I thought it would at least be a sufficient enough standing to persuade the tough critics on EliteTrader to give me a chance to show what I can do with real money. Are you suggesting I just give up and go home? Indeed the journal is called "Micro E-mini Madness" for a reason. I am probably mad. But let me have some joy in my insanity for at least a couple weeks???
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attaboy ss...

sstheo said:
Thanks for the thoughtful post. Indeed the market is highly volatile right now. And I may need to scale to 1% or 1/2% or just "2 ticks" average per day! But at least now with the Micros, I now have a tool in my tool box I didn't have before.

I agree with you that the emotional side of trading is much larger than us rational types are prepared for. And we have to be careful.

Knowing I am not alone in my frustration with the market I want to share my journey. Hopefully I will have some good results to share in the next weeks and months.
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sillyw10 said:
Mr Cramer..I wish you will change your avatar :) is correct..talking and doing are not the same thing..if you do not have the exact same feeling with a $25 loss as a $250 loss..then forget it..seriously..the knowing is the easy bit..the actual doing is the hard bit

so far so good..but I am very sceptical about your reliance on volume analysis..I spent many hours testing various combinations of bid/ask volume analysis..as well as VP and POC..what I found was all it done was to stop me looking at what i should be looking for!!!
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Some people use volume analysis extensively. But my reliance on it is secondary to the price action. It is only a confirmation tool for me. And I rarely if ever look at the actual numbers during the day, it is just a very fast visual cue on a 10 to 15 tick range bar - red or green? Red or green? To me, the SHORT TERM volume aggression is a very real thing, just like the NYSE Tick is. It's just like the speedometer. So I generally don't short on a green bar (unless there have been many in a row and we are probably near the end of a trend). And I generally don't go long on a red bar (unless we have been tanking). So really, the volume delta bars mostly keep me out of trades. I think following trend bars and the breaking of support and resistance levels is more reliable for entries.

All this being said, you got my attention, and I am trying to be open minded. What is it that "I should be looking for???"
 
Not only that..but you can widen your stops if your system improves by doing that.

ES

sstheo said:
Indeed the epiphany for me came when I realized with the micros I can add contracts one at a time and scale up gradually. I will post my official rules, but I will probably add 1 micro with each additional $500 in the account balance. $1500 would then allow me to trade with 3 micros. If I keep looking at a % growth and keep things reasonable and not try to swing for the fences, then I should succeed.
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ElectricSavant said:
Yeah... it is a flag to do a MAE and MFE study.
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I would love to use a platform that has these built in. I use Multicharts, but I am not married to it. AMP will actually let me use several different platforms for free: MT5, Sierra, CQG Trader, Market Delta, Rithmic, Volfix, and Zlan. Anybody know if any of these have MAE and MFE analysis?

On the topic of data reports, I know I could report my results publicly with TraderVue, (awesome!) but I don't feel like paying $30 a month to post my trades. Does anyone know a way to synchronize any of the above listed platforms with a public reporting tool? It needs to be free and happen automatically, but only at the end of the day if possible, so that when I become famous (haha) people aren't just copying my trades.

It could go to a website, or I could give out a pass code to actually view the real data on the platform. (MT4 had something called an "investor password" for example)
 
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