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

one thing i have noticed is, that both of them show decent intradaytrends and -swings. but within these trends and swings the market action appears to be very choppy - few ticks down - few ticks up ...

so i think one point is that it can happen easily that a trader sets his stops too tight.
 
Yesterday in the chatroom I stay in everyone was expressing suprise at the way things were rallying. Nobody saw any reason for it. After several hours I got the word that what set things off was Merrill Lynch buying every futures contract they could get from the open bell to 10:00 AM. This move drew the others in from the sidelines and we had a trend day on our hand.

My question is: Does anyone know of a real-time service that monitors the action on the floor? Like... "Goldie has been selling every move above 1270 for the last 30 minutes"... or "MSDW has been buying every drop to support at 1235" ?

Suggestions?

Thanks,

~EC
 
el c
yeah there are a few web sites that have audio from the s&p pits...they were just mentioned on another post try:
www.los.net
www.realtimefutures.com

i trialed the los.net.....it was ok, but other than the background noise(which was more important) it wasn't much than a guy telling you the bid and offer of the futures which i get anyway...
so my take is, it ws good , but worth $100 a month? I don't know about that
btw...i signed up for realtimefutures trial and never got a confirmation e-mail
 
this move from lynch is very strange and it is a pity it is not investigated. They made millions on probably insider information (eco report).
anyway, who cares, initially the gap was not playable for me, the rest of the day was.

neo
 
tntneo,

are you talking about ML buying S&P's yesterday or day before?

I don't think trading on inside info is illegal in futures. The big grain companies do it constantly, or so I've heard. Perhaps it is illegal for stock index futures but I don't think so.
 
I have been actively following eminis (S&P) for a couple of weeks now and on thursday and friday did a few "test the water" trades.

These are my observations:

They are moving extremely fast and can be very dangerous to trade for novice trader. Think of (JNPR or CIEN) * 10. Executions are instantaneous for market orders but you will most likely be filled at .25 points on top of the usual spread. So with market orders spread is in reality .5 points or $25 per contract. To get out of the position add .5 more for total of $50 + commissions.
This is 1.3% of contract's margin requirement. If you do 10 trades a day you are at 13% disadvantage on daily basis.

If you are using Limit orders you will have to chase the price if it is going in your direction so you will most likely pay more than if you have used market order in the first place. If the price is going against you then of course you will get filled instantly. :)

You should not put tight stops (.25 to 1 point) because you will always get stopped.

If you are caught on the long side and there is some bad news that is not economics related don't sell into the panic. It is already late. Wait for the rebound.

In my opinion S&P minis should be traded with 2-3 trades per day with stop losses of 2.5 - 3 points and target profits of 5 - 6 points.

I'm using real time audio and I'm starting to realize it's value.

My 2 cents.
 
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