New E-Mini traders (under 25K traders) trading journal

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GaretJax

Hi,

Today was my first day trading e-mini's - I traded the NQ. I had been trading stocks for two weeks and my account was locked out after 3 trades last friday. I opened a futures account at IB and transferred some funds. Today was easy because of the market - +$950 trading only 1 contract. I don't understand why I can only buy 1 NQ contract with >$20000 in my account at IB - from reading other threads on this board I thought I could trade 3 at least.

It is definitely a lot less distracting when you concentrate on 1 stock. Also I found that stops actually worked well - if I had a stop at 1220 I actually got a price of 1220. Also the NQ's bounced real well between bollinger bands so entry and exit points were fairly predictable - at least today :)

Anyone else have anything to share with emini trading?

GaretJax
 
Do you actually have >$20,000 in your futures account or you are counting funds from your equity account as well? You should be able to buy 3 NQ contracts.
Also I don't think today was a tipical NQ trading day. It looked more like YHOO from early 2000.
 
Michael,

I started the day with a little over $19,000. I first tried buying 3 and I got rejected - I could only buy 1.

GaretJax
 
Dozu,

Thanks for the advice!- I just went onto IB and requested to raise my contract limit. This site is the best!

GaretJax
 
GaretJax:

Don't take today to be the norm.

I would say about once a month you will see a trading pattern like today. You can tell from early in the day that it will only trend in one direction by how tight the trading range is.

Good Luck :)
 
I traded the S&P e-mini for the first time today, and was profitable. As mentioned, it was an easier day than many lately, so I won't let it go to my head.
 
juggernaut

"You can tell from early in the day that it will only trend in one direction by how tight the trading range is. "

Would you mind expanding on that statement a bit. I have found it extremely hard to predict a trending day early on. I'm glad they dont happen too often as I usually get killed trying to short the top. I'm a little confused when you say "trading range" cause I didnt see any today.
 
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