OK, I am throwing in the towel to the Futures/Commodities pits

Overnight said:
It would be a shame to lose a futures trader because they got some ass-kicking from GC. It is it's own animal and flails regularly. It's like trying to trade RB and HO when they are in an "active season." They are monsters.

Just stay away from trying to intraday trade those beasts with any semblance of a normal stop. The index futures? Well, they have not been normal since Labor Day, and have had a few other times this year when they went awry from their "usual behavior".

Take a break from them until Jan 2021, but don't give up on them completely.

The commod markets have basically been the rabbit at the cave of Caerbannog. Wait until the holy hand-grenade of Antioch hath been cast at it early next year, after the inauguration. :)
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I cant remember a better time for trading than the past two years (post VIX spike) since 2008. So much opportunity, so much volatility on most days. If one cannot make money with the markets moving around that much, how will he make money when the VIX crawls back to 15, 12 and below like it was for many years until that volatility spike in 2018.

I remember so many "traders" complaining about the lack of volume and volatility in those slow times, how it is impossible to make money in such markets...
Now again so many people complain. This is so hard, markets are too crazy... Well, some people always have to blame somebody or something.
For a good trader, markets could not be much better than they are now. Enjoy it as long as it lasts. It will not last forever.
 
CALLumbus said:
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For a good trader, markets could not be much better than they are now. Enjoy it as long as it lasts. It will not last forever.
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I recall someone posting that exact same thing about "enjoying the volatility while it lasts" 2 years ago. It really has not abated. I think the old times of ES being stuck in a 10 point range for a week are gone forever.
 
Overnight said:
I recall someone posting that exact same thing about "enjoying the volatility while it lasts" 2 years ago. It really has not abated. I think the old times of ES being stuck in a 10 point range for a week are gone forever.
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I think that was me, lol.

I can guarantee you that this is no one way street. It may last a while, but not forever. Volatility might return to other markets, like CL for example (like it was around 2010), but it will not stay in equities forever. I hope it will last much much longer, but everything has its ebbs and flows.

ES will probably still not return to those sub 10 point ranges for a simple reason: The S&P, ES, NQ etc. are now all significantly higher than 5 or 10 years ago.

10 years ago, with the ES around 1,000 points, 10 points would mean a 1% move. Today, with ES around 3,500, a 1% move means something like 35 points. If the earth keeps turning and the economy keeps growing like it did the past 100 years, the indices like ES, NQ will also keep trending upwards, which means we will probably never return to those tight (point) ranges in the ES from something like a decade ago.
 
CALLumbus said:
...If the earth keeps turning and the economy keeps growing like it did the past 100 years, the indices like ES, NQ will also keep trending upwards...
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And that's exactly why I have tried to be a HODL swing trader on the indices these past 2 1/2 years. I see the pattern you mentioned. If only I can stop panic bailing, I'll be ok. Heh.

Time is the only edge I can find.
 
I am not giving up trading! I will not touch futures in any shape or form, (almost) all instruments can be traded via ETFs - it is the leverage that kills. One tick of bonds, or VIX? That is not form me! I will keep trading stocks/etfs. options...
 
Overnight said:
And that's exactly why I have tried to be a HODL swing trader on the indices these past 2 1/2 years. I see the pattern you mentioned. If only I can stop panic bailing, I'll be ok. Heh.

Time is the only edge I can find.
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A HODL swinger ? Hey man, this is not pornhub ! :sneaky:

Time is a good edge, if global development stays constant, but there is no guarantee for this. And even if that upwards trend keeps existing, it is so tiny that it is almost impossible to use it for daytrading, which means trading short term moves with somewhat high leverage.

I dont say that I have an edge, because an edge is something different by my definition. But there is so much intraday volatility each day in the major futures markets that I dont understand the trouble so many people have. I think many are just suffering from paralysis by analysis, they cannot see the forest for the trees.
So much opportunity, so many "gyrations", like ET-member Cheese used to say. Especially in a contract like the NQ. You can take 10 trades within the first 5 or 10 minutes of the RTH session and be done for the day.
 
TimtheEnchanter said:
I am not giving up trading! I will not touch futures in any shape or form, (almost) all instruments can be traded via ETFs - it is the leverage that kills. One tick of bonds, or VIX? That is not form me! I will keep trading stocks/etfs. options...
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Well, all right, VX futures, VolQ...$50/tick is excessive. But come on, the ZB is only $31.25 per tick! Not so bad, yeah? Hehe

Seriously though, keep them in the back of your mind, and just do what you are most comfortable with. I am seriously thinking of getting my passive dividend fund over to Schwab so I can make money trading stocks on a swing basis.
 
CALLumbus said:
...I think many are just suffering from paralysis by analysis, they cannot see the forest for the trees...
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That's been a big problem of mine, for sure. I've been stuck in this latest swing for so long I'd like to exit for a little profit, rather than take a bigger one down the road. I'm seeing a tree, not the whole forest through the lens of time. Rough stuff for me, mentally.
 
Overnight said:
That's been a big problem of mine, for sure. I've been stuck in this latest swing for so long I'd like to exit for a little profit, rather than take a bigger one down the road. I'm seeing a tree, not the whole forest through the lens of time. Rough stuff for me, mentally.
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I would like to quote Naomi Hunter here:
"What's important is that you choose life... and then live."

For traders, I change this to:
"What's important is that you choose a style... and then trade."

What I mean:
Every style has its up and downs. No trading will ever bring you perfection. There will always be losses, losing days, even losing weeks. Those are just part of the game. So dont try to reinvent the trading wheel every day.
Decide what kind of trading suits you the best. What do you like, what does feel good, fun, enjoyable to you ? Then after you make your decision, stick with it, and just... trade. And get better. Thats the key. You have to practise, a lot, hard work to improve.

Thats one of the huge advantages of microscalping. If you make 50 trades per day, you can learn so much, improve so much in a very short time, because you are so much engaged with the market, you get tons of feedback on your trading, lots of interaction with the market. Thats one of the key principles of futures prop trading firms. Thats why for them it actually makes sense and is possible to teach new traders.

If you try to catch those nice 20 pt swings in the ES, with a "good" R:R of 2:1 (lol) or something like that, you will make maybe 2-3 trades on some days, not even one trade on other days.

How much do you think would Mike Tyson have achieved if his training would have consisted of just 1 jab and 2 hooks (not hookers) every day ?
 
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