Noob question about futures

Hi, all. Just joined the forum yesterday. I've been playing around with paper trading futures (/6N, /ZW, etc), usually trading just one contract with my fake $10k account. If/when I decide to ever move real $$ into my account, is it possible to trade just one contract if the signs all look good to me? For example, I went long on /6N recently, and it worked out. I was wishing I'd done it with real money!! Is that all there is to it?

Thanks for any tips.
Have you not heard of "beginner's luck"? :D Seriously, go light at first and build the necessary disciplines and skills to succeed. It's never too late to increase the size later.
 
Sure, but I figure a forum like this is a perfect way to get more of the nuance of everything from experienced traders. Forums are like living books for me, if you will. Thanks.
 
The main issue with Futures and especially Forex is leverage. You need to understand how to size your trades to not blow up by too many contracts.

Then you need to work on a trade setup that has positive expectancy.

Then you need to decide on how high of a win % you can achieve based on risk vs reward.

You can have a lower win% if you are willing to have your winners run more than your losers. With equal risk vs reward, you need a higher win% rate to overcome transaction costs.

You can also keep a trade journal for example in Excel, where you list your trades, and then say a Word document that has your trade setups strategy with some charts inserted showing good trades that you took.

After that its really practice and screen time. This can take many years until you are able to recognize patterns. Once you can see them in real time, you are to enter you trades faster and hopefully get better over time.

Finally, you may need to work on psychology in that each trade should be taken the same way where you accepted before you place the trade it may be a loss and not make you angry or cause you to revenge or over trade. Many traders will take a small win and large loss because they are not able to accept the statistics of their strategy. Also, be aware, you might not make money every month, but you want over the year to achieve a positive outcome.
 
Sure, but I figure a forum like this is a perfect way to get more of the nuance of everything from experienced traders. Forums are like living books for me, if you will. Thanks.
I agree with you. Forums help you get the perfect answers from traders who might have had similar issues like you.
 
I agree that the Elite Trader Forum can help find answers to common and uncommon problems. That said, you have to take into account the source of the response. They might have had a bad experience with a trading strategy that might not apply to you. You have to separate opinions from facts and weigh the opinion with a bias the member might have.

Forums help you get the perfect answers from traders who might have had similar issues like you.
 
I agree that the Elite Trader Forum can help find answers to common and uncommon problems. That said, you have to take into account the source of the response. They might have had a bad experience with a trading strategy that might not apply to you. You have to separate opinions from facts and weigh the opinion with a bias the member might have.
That's actually right! Got to be careful about that.
 
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