Micro E-mini Madness (2% per day)

[Seaweed]

I will be tightening up my max stop to $100, so if I really, really blow it, I can still lose 40 trades in a row and still be alive. Of course that would be a really BAD, BAD day though.

This is what worries me. You are already changing the rules from how you actually traded. I'm not saying that its bad to have a fixed stop, but this isn't how you did it for some of these trades.

I went through your journal to look for the charts where I remember seeing this. I only found 2, but at the same time, you have shown very little charts in comparison to the number of trades. Here are the charts.

As I point out, if trading the full contract, both of these trades went over the $100 loss. So now you need to adjust your stats, if you want to be a little more realistic, but at the same time, who is to say what would have happened after the fact if these trades did stop out, so who knows what the statistics would be.

Now don't get me wrong, your trading for the most part has been stellar, but this one simple rule of using a fixed $100 stop, which you obviously didn't use for this experiment, can have fairly big implications. How many more trades were there like this that went against you more than the $100?

There are also several other charts where you had $20 losers, but this would translate to $200 on the full contract. Clearly losing just $100 would have been better, but the point is that sticking to a firm $100 stop has not been simulated. Trading differently on a full contract vs. how you traded on the micro will have implications on your emotions.

 

[volpri]

This is what worries me. You are already changing the rules from how you actually traded. I'm not saying that its bad to have a fixed stop, but this isn't how you did it for some of these trades.

I went through your journal to look for the charts where I remember seeing this. I only found 2, but at the same time, you have shown very little charts in comparison to the number of trades. Here are the charts.

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As I point out, if trading the full contract, both of these trades went over the $100 loss. So now you need to adjust your stats, if you want to be a little more realistic, but at the same time, who is to say what would have happened after the fact if these trades did stop out, so who knows what the statistics would be.

Now don't get me wrong, your trading for the most part has been stellar, but this one simple rule of using a fixed $100 stop, which you obviously didn't use for this experiment, can have fairly big implications. How many more trades were there like this that went against you more than the $100?

There are also several other charts where you had $20 losers, but this would translate to $200 on the full contract. Clearly losing just $100 would have been better, but the point is that sticking to a firm $100 stop has not been simulated. Trading differently on a full contract vs. how you traded on the micro will have implications on your emotions.

Fixed stops don’t work well over the long haul. I use PA stop and takes into account volatility.

 

[volpri]

I did have several losses in a row, and so your concerns are valid. However, I will not be trading the E-mini on a $1500 account. That is a mistake I will not repeat. I tried that probably 25 times in the past 13 years. I have lost a LOT of money, more than I will ever publicly admit.

This is what I will be doing:

After graduating to a funded account at LeeLoo next week (I hope!), I will start with just one contract at time, the very same way I did it with the micros. The daily stop loss is $4,000 and the max account loss is $5,000.

I will be tightening up my max stop to $100, so if I really, really blow it, I can still lose 40 trades in a row and still be alive. Of course that would be a really BAD, BAD day though.

When (if) I surpass the $5,000 total profit mark, then the total max account loss will stay fixed, and my max loss will be my total profit gained. That should give me lots of breathing room if I have a bad week. So if I get to $10k profit, then I will have $10k total buffer.

My average net ticks/day at the end of the micro experiment was 25 ticks. If I change nothing as I trade the E-minis then I should get 25+ ticks per day on the NQ or YM. That is $125 per day per contract traded, or $625 per week and $2,500 per month.

I will add one contract per $5,000 gained, so in 6 to 8 weeks I should be up to 2 contracts and $1,250 per week and $5,000 per month.

I have to pay LeeLoo 20%. So clearly I will withdraw the funds past a certain point and put them in my own live account. Once the live account surpasses the LeeLoo account in earning power, then I would shut it down - because I have learned that trading two accounts simultaneously is a recipe for disaster.

Everything goes fine on the LeeLoo account until I start adding contracts- because the daily stop will always be $4000. For example, with 4 contracts, I "only" have 10 permitted losses in a row of $100. With 8, I only have 5. 10 contract would be 4 bad trades. With 15? Well, that would only be 2 bad trades allowed. So you can see that I will probably never trade past 10 contracts on the LeeLoo account. Interestingly, the only reason I paid for the 15 contract deal was to get the $4,000 daily max loss.

First, I have to graduate to the live account, and I hope to do that next week.

I will be happy to come back and report.

Man that is a big daily stop loss 4000. And trading 4, 8, 10 emini? That is too big too fast. IMO.

 

[Sweet Bobby]

In my opinion, no one should trade over 2-3 contracts in the minis. You can make a great living trading just a 2 lot.

 

[EsKiller]

I don't think its possible to be profitable with a fixed $100 / contract stop on the regular emini's but feel free to prove me wrong !! I can't tell you how many times I've gotten the price structure correct but the timing just a tad off. I'll be 3 or 4 ES points in the hole, but trade still salvageable. So thats $150 - $200 / per contract. IMO, a good disaster stop is in the 6-7 point ES range.

 

[EsKiller]

In my opinion, no one should trade over 2-3 contracts in the minis. You can make a great living trading just a 2 lot.

Because everybody is a single 22 year old living in moms basement. Ask the trader living in San Francisco with 2 kids and an $800k mortgage how great of a living trading a 2 lot is going to get him.

Don't forget to save for retirement.
Don't forget health care costs.

 

[bitang]

Hi,
doubling an account in one month is nothing.
Some say it is stellar, but far from real consistency.
After one month consistency usually comes a collapse.
Follow your current practice until you reach the tenfold gain, you will experience a different mental state when your account reaches 4-5 times the initial size.
Learn these psychological statuses in You before you reach out for the big money.
Maintaining the mental stability is far more important then the real money success, and you have not reached this as pointed out in one of the previous post.
You are good - really - but fine tune you entry points, there were many falsely interpreted possibilities for entry, which means ...
Try to reach the 5% daily gain consistently (which is definitely not agressive) for three month before any big money on stake, only this will gradute You. Outlive any kind of event is your edge.
Follow your current practice.

 

[volpri]

With a small account IMO a trader is better to pay the higher commissions to trade multiple contracts in the micro minis such as MES. I know to trade 10 MES is gonna cost more in commissions than 1 ES, however, MES facilitates averaging down in spite of the higher comm rate. This may be that attractive for small trader. I just don’t worry about commission like all the pundits scream about. If I am trading a small account and have a strategy along with the tactics to be able to average down, take some heat, have a PA SL and stay in the trade until it turns profitable then I had rather do that ..period.

As opposed to having small account, try trading the ES with fixed stop losses, and getting stopped put 60% of the time just try and save on commissions. Fixed SL’s will reduce ones win rate and take more money from a trader than paying more commissions. That is my honest opinion.

I know the pundits, show by math, how much you are paying out in brokerage fees and they will recommend cutting that expense, using fixed SL’s, using RR risk calculations to trade with. When it doesn’t work out and a trader bleeds his account out with losses from SL’s being hit they then say your entries need to be improved. Easy for them to say that from their ivory tower chairs. They write about such stuff, but in the real world that stuff doesn’t seem to work out.

I just don’t worry about perfect entries because 99% of the time there are none. The market runs in a band of 60/40. I know when I place a trade, even a high probability trade that there is a 40% chance I could be wrong and the market goes other way. Then it may and most of the time turn back in my direction but ONLY AFTER it has taken out my SL..LOL

So, I don’t worry about commissions. I don’t worry about perfect entries. I just generally look at price action and the market cycle, look at where my price action stop needs to be at (and most of the time there is more than one choice) and then simply place the trade as a setup evolves. If the context is right I don’t mind averaging down to get in cheaper and INCREASE my chance of getting a profitable trade (I know..I know..guru’s are flipping out on that one LOL).

I have tried showing in my journal how I do this with the micros and even with the emini’s (but it takes more $$ to play with). However, I don’t think traders believe me. I get a few views and a few comments...some not so good..ROFLMAO

 

[Sweet Bobby]

Because everybody is a single 22 year old living in moms basement. Ask the trader living in San Francisco with 2 kids and an $800k mortgage how great of a living trading a 2 lot is going to get him.
Your post shows your ignorance. Apparently, you have never traded ES, or if you have, you have never traded it sucessfully.
Don't forget to save for retirement.
Don't forget health care costs.

 

[sstheo]

ANOTHER ANNOUNCEMENT.

I have changed my mind. I am back in the saddle.

I want to take this LIVE PERSONAL Amp Futures account to the moon - with the MICROS up to 10 (or 20) contracts. I will at least shoot for $10,000. Then I will switch to the Emini's and start a new journal at that time.

Even when (if) I get my funded LeeLoo account next week, there is no reason to stop this, since most of the trades will be similar, and I was having too much fun to quit.

More info soon. Thanks for all the encouragement.