Patak, math and opportunity....

[austinp]

Quote from euclid:

Sounds like you clicked the "T" button and created a trailing order.

to my eyes there are enough different buttons on that dome to safely land small aircraft with. Like I said a bunch of times now in various threads... anyone used to the T4 platform, it's fine. Those of us with one-click experience since 2005 with NT? Different story.

The platform itself ain't a problem... individual trader's inexperience with a somewhat complex platform relative to others is the challenge. Either way, inadvertant order errors = can be the difference between profit or loss days. That remains the irrefutable fact

 

[volente_00]

Quote from austinp:

... and if you want to prestage an order to enter on pullbacks, said order will change price values as the market moves

i.e. CL trades 96.00 and you want to sell pullback 96.10 > stop 96.25

CL trades down to 95.84 and your prestaged order moves to 95.92 sell on its own. Watched that happen a dozen times and found no solution to the dilemma. Online instructions do not cover that aspect at all.

If you try to make a habit of market orders in CL, the actual fills you get over the course of time will be a real adventure. This ain't the stodgy ES I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about market orders.

Why is your sell order moving if you entered at a set price ?

Are you using a trailing stop for entry ?

 

[volente_00]

Quote from austinp:

to my eyes there are enough different buttons on that dome to safely land small aircraft with. Like I said a bunch of times now in various threads... anyone used to the T4 platform, it's fine. Those of us with one-click experience since 2005 with NT? Different story.

The platform itself ain't a problem... individual trader's inexperience with a somewhat complex platform relative to others is the challenge. Either way, inadvertant order errors = can be the difference between profit or loss days. That remains the irrefutable fact

fwiw you can add and remove the different functions off of the dom to k.i.s.s

 

[Don Bright]

Quote from nazzdack:

1) ?.....that's the "sigma". :eek:
2) Price times implied volatility divide by 16 for an approximate, expected, daily range.
3) The calculation is the same for all markets.

Actually on number 2, since time decay takes weekends into account, I think the square root of time = 19. Just a small change, but can make a difference when dealing with specific time frames.

All the best,

Don

 

[nazzdack]

Quote from Don Bright:
----Actually on number 2....
----weekends into account....
----square root of time = 19.
----can make a difference....

1) I was wondering when a "rocket scientist" would say that.
2) The square root of 256, the approximate number of market days per year, equals 16.
3) The square root of 365.25, the approximate number of calendar days per year, ~equals 19.

 

[Jtrader342]

Keep up the hard work jtrader.

Thanks! I am enjoying it so its not that bad.



Some of the advantages to futures are they trade 24/7. So you don't have gaps, they just keep trading. Obviously there are no hard to borrow issues when shorting which is very nice. Generally speaking, your commissions will be substantially less trading futures, even at the retail level then trading stocks. Leverage. This is a big one. You can get the same leverage at the retail level that you can get at the prop level for equities. This is one of the reasons why Don get's angry I think. He knows that retail traders don't need to go prop to trade futures but usually have to if they want to trade stock.

No overnight Gaps would be fantastic, lol! The leverage is fairly good with my DTBP, but the grouping of size under contracts trumps that I guess. I haven’t run numbers side by side yet to actually see the difference. I will do that soon.



The last advantage I think comes down the road when you become very successful, you can move far more size in futures then you can in stock. You can move 100 million worth of bonds in seconds. No way you could be that nimble in stocks. You can lift an offer on the e-minis with 10k on the offer and you just bought 650 million dollars worth of s&p 500 futures on a single print. Try doing that with stock.

I hope I become successful. That would mean I get to do something I enjoy as a long term career instead of just watching from the sidelines when I am not slaving away at something I do not enjoy in order to stay afloat. Not sure I understand your comment of “lifting an offer with 10K on the offer”, but I will look into it and figure it out. The interesting thing about Futures vs. Stock is that with stock it is blatantly apparent how much you just put out there and that can play mind games when swinging out 80K+ on a single trade, but with Futures even though you control more, you only see X amount of contracts. This would seem to take away some of the apprehensive if you focus on the contracts and not the cash behind them. However, that detachment is most likely what causes carelessness and ruins many who attempt a market with such leverage. Interesting. I will have to start practicing putting a cost behind the visual of the contracts so I have a sense of responsibility and aware of the margin for error. Keep myself accountable for my success or destruction.



The hard part for a lot of guys who come from the stock world, especially if they trade small share size, is that futures contracts are very large. So by default you are already trading a very large position even on a one lot. And most newbies don't understand how much capital they really control. So try to be cognitive of size and the volatility of the product you are trading. A lot of guys look at dollar ATR's. Take the ATR times the tick value. So if CL has a 2 dollar ATR that's 2k per day per contract. The e-mini might have a dollar ATR value of $600 per day.

Most of what I responded above applies here I would think. The amount by default is why I am pretty insistent on building the calculators and running the numbers quickly, consistently and accurately. I understand your math for the daily range determination, but expand a little if you don’t mind in the difference of this between the e-mini and a standard Futures contract. I know the e-minis where created for a “smaller” market and are the same except for size. I understand this was done to allow more participants access to futures without having to have billions. Enlarging the pool of participants. No biggie if that is a lesson in and of itself and not on topic with the current post. I’m sure I will do some research on that as well in the near future.



Good luck jtrader!

Thanks, I will need it!




... and if you want to prestage an order to enter on pullbacks, said order will change price values as the market moves

i.e. CL trades 96.00 and you want to sell pullback 96.10 > stop 96.25

CL trades down to 95.84 and your prestaged order moves to 95.92 sell on its own. Watched that happen a dozen times and found no solution to the dilemma. Online instructions do not cover that aspect at all.

If you try to make a habit of market orders in CL, the actual fills you get over the course of time will be a real adventure. This ain't the stodgy ES I'm talking about.
This is an example of the devil in the details that I worry about. Not so much the execution error, but the slippage in the fills when using market orders. I usually do not use limit orders with my equities because I trade at a level where they fill almost instantly. A cent here/there does not make a huge impact on the overall trades. If it has more spread than that I am usually not trading it. This would be something to be aware of with the extreme leverage of futures trading. What’s everyone’s take on limit orders vs. market orders in this arena?



fwiw you can add and remove the different functions off of the dom to k.i.s.s

I like simple. I have eliminated much of the “dazzle” with my equities stuff and have found much more success by doing so. I only have available what I use and the rest is no longer displayed. I find that by running through everything accessible one tends to be a “jack of all trades and a master of none”. I prefer the simple focused approach. Works for me at least.


1) I was wondering when a "rocket scientist" would say that.
2) The square root of 256, the approximate number of market days per year, equals 16.
3) The square root of 365.25, the approximate number of calendar days per year, ~equals 19.

I based my 60/40 win:loss ratio on 260 days (52 weeks per year, 5 days a week). However, if futures trade 24/7 for the most part, would this still apply or would it in fact be based on a full calendar year as Don’s math reflected?
I knew a guy who English was not his first language so he did not have all the “sayings” down correctly. When he became frustrated with someone incompetency he would yell “IT’S NOT ROCKET MATH!!!” Funny stuff no matter how difficult the situation was. Couldn’t help but laugh.




Thanks everyone,
J.

 

[ScalperJoe]

Quote from Jtrader342:

I am not necessarily worried about the excess profit being at risk.

Well, it's always a matter of trust, regardless of where you have equity/capital at stake. The reason why many equity traders inquire about Bright and Echo on these boards is due to their solid history, reputation and financials.

Those who have been burned by a prop that goes bust without returning funds learn a difficult lesson on the risks of leaving excess profit/capital in the account. Anyone can go to SEC.gov and see the capital structure of a registered prop firm. With TST, once you're funded and you start making profits, it is unlikely you are going to see the capital struture of the backers, unless they're willing to share the financial details of their LLC. Therefore, it's always safer to limit/minimize your "at risk" capital once you've made the profit cushion by requesting a withdrawal.

Quote from Jtrader342:

With my equities I risk 1/2% on intraday trades and only 1-2% on swings. This equates to about .10cents plus commission for daytrades usually. I may stop out several times, but when I catch a nice confirmed momentum it pays enough to absorb those losses as they are made up along the way with that run.


When comparing futures to stocks, just review the amount of shares you have to trade to make those 10 cents to achieve a specific dollar amount of profit. For example, each tick movement in the Aussie (6A) trading one lot will cause your p&l to fluctuate by $10. This is the same p&l fluctuation as trading 1,000 shares of stock and watching it go up/down each penny.

If you normally trade 1,000 shares per trade in your equity account (or less), then starting out by trading ONE lot of a futures contract makes the most sense.

Quote from Jtrader342:

I agree the 30K and 50K accounts may not be worth messing with.

Actually, this is what TST recommends for the scouting combine. Again, see my example above. I'm also approaching this as an equity trader. Although the goal for obtaining "main income" is the larger combine, jumping in with the 100k combine doesn't make sense unless you routinely trade close to 10,000 shares of stock and watch your p&l fluctuate in $100 dollar increments for each penny of movement. It doesn't matter if you're trading 3 products and 3 lots each, or 9 lots of one, the amount of p&l fluctuation is the same. Yes, you can always "scale up" when you're in the money on a trade with the 100k account, however you can lose it just fast with an abrupt turn in the market.

My plan is to take a conservative and structured approach. Try the smaller combine, get the funded account, build the profit cushion, take the withdrawal, THEN go for the larger combine. Of course, you can select any combine you choose, this is just the way I would do it. If you select the larger combine up front, then you have no choice but to build size to meet the p&l objective, and thus see large swings in your p&l that you may not feel comfortable with.

Quote from Jtrader342:


BTW, I asked another trader I know (from another community) to check out the offer and let me know what he thought of it. His reply was "scam...ask yourself why would they take that chance or offer that to just anyone". Hence my math and these questions. I am "asking" myself that question. The more I dig, the more I like it though. I doubt he looked at the program actually as I described it in my message to him.

Thanks guys,
J.

Opinions are abundant, just review the other TST threads, lol. I actually prefer reading a broad spectrum of posts, whether it's positive or negative, as it causes one to conduct proper due diligence before making their decision. A "scam" in my book is when a firm closes shop without returning capital to their traders, or if a firm doesn't honor its terms of an agreement, but to each his own.

 

[Jtrader342]

Quote from ScalperJoe:

Well, it's always a matter of trust, regardless of where you have equity/capital at stake. The reason why many equity traders inquire about Bright and Echo on these boards is due to their solid history, reputation and financials.

Those who have been burned by a prop that goes bust without returning funds learn a difficult lesson on the risks of leaving excess profit/capital in the account. Anyone can go to SEC.gov and see the capital structure of a registered prop firm. With TST, once you're funded and you start making profits, it is unlikely you are going to see the capital struture of the backers, unless they're willing to share the financial details of their LLC. Therefore, it's always safer to limit/minimize your "at risk" capital once you've made the profit cushion by requesting a withdrawal.

Quote from Jtrader342:

With my equities I risk 1/2% on intraday trades and only 1-2% on swings. This equates to about .10cents plus commission for daytrades usually. I may stop out several times, but when I catch a nice confirmed momentum it pays enough to absorb those losses as they are made up along the way with that run.


When comparing futures to stocks, just review the amount of shares you have to trade to make those 10 cents to achieve a specific dollar amount of profit. For example, each tick movement in the Aussie (6A) trading one lot will cause your p&l to fluctuate by $10. This is the same p&l fluctuation as trading 1,000 shares of stock and watching it go up/down each penny.

If you normally trade 1,000 shares per trade in your equity account (or less), then starting out by trading ONE lot of a futures contract makes the most sense.

Quote from Jtrader342:

I agree the 30K and 50K accounts may not be worth messing with.

Actually, this is what TST recommends for the scouting combine. Again, see my example above. I'm also approaching this as an equity trader. Although the goal for obtaining "main income" is the larger combine, jumping in with the 100k combine doesn't make sense unless you routinely trade close to 10,000 shares of stock and watch your p&l fluctuate in $100 dollar increments for each penny of movement. It doesn't matter if you're trading 3 products and 3 lots each, or 9 lots of one, the amount of p&l fluctuation is the same. Yes, you can always "scale up" when you're in the money on a trade with the 100k account, however you can lose it just fast with an abrupt turn in the market.

My plan is to take a conservative and structured approach. Try the smaller combine, get the funded account, build the profit cushion, take the withdrawal, THEN go for the larger combine. Of course, you can select any combine you choose, this is just the way I would do it. If you select the larger combine up front, then you have no choice but to build size to meet the p&l objective, and thus see large swings in your p&l that you may not feel comfortable with.

Quote from Jtrader342:


BTW, I asked another trader I know (from another community) to check out the offer and let me know what he thought of it. His reply was "scam...ask yourself why would they take that chance or offer that to just anyone". Hence my math and these questions. I am "asking" myself that question. The more I dig, the more I like it though. I doubt he looked at the program actually as I described it in my message to him.

Thanks guys,
J.

Opinions are abundant, just review the other TST threads, lol. I actually prefer reading a broad spectrum of posts, whether it's positive or negative, as it causes one to conduct proper due diligence before making their decision. A "scam" in my book is when a firm closes shop without returning capital to their traders, or if a firm doesn't honor its terms of an agreement, but to each his own.

I would agree with all of that ScalperJoe. One perspective I have on trading the larger account and size though is this...if everything is measured in percentages then the parameters stay the same regardless of size. As long as you calculate out and know your parameters going in, then trading by percentage eliminates the phsycological mindf*ck that comes from focusing on the dollar amounts. If you know you can swing 1/2% down and target 1-1.25% upside, then it is relative whether you are trading a 10K acount, a 100K account or a million dollar account. As long as you stick to your parameters then you "should" be ok. So in saying that, as long as the math behind the restrictions on the combines are realistic percentage wise, you know the percentages and how they add up and can stay within those parameters there would be no real difference in trading the small account vs. the large account. It's all relative.

That could be entirely wrong, but it makes sense to me. The swings don't bother me as long as they are proportionate.





Also, I just watched a tutorial on the T4 platform as well as the Ninja platform. It's like comparing DOS to Windows! Not just the asthetics, but the streamlined efficiency and all together function/capability. The "ATM" feature is gold in and of itself to me! I want badly to be able to input a combo order with my equities that automatically inputs the stop with the order, but my broker does not provide that as they say you have to own the shares "before" you can enter a stop. More of an inconvenience with my equities trading than a hinderence, but it would be nice to just send everything through at once. The fact that "ATM" would let me structure a trade before hand and then send all parameters through at once and just watch it work itself would be phenominal. Set a buy, stop, 3 different target steps and a ratcheting trail stop with one click....fan-freakin'-tastic!

Not saying using Ninja will make me a rockstar trader, but if you have to learn a platform one way or the other...why not spend that time learning what appears to be the better fit of the two.

Apparently Ninja is $50/month, but the only lease on a minimum of 3 months. I guess thats were I got the $150 I mentioned earlier.


Gonna start watching the tutorials on both, comparing and then direct my attention to one or the other predominately. As of now, Ninja is ahead.

Thanks,
J.

 

[Jtrader342]

Also, with regard to the excess profits and withdrawls. I would intend to build the cushion as quickly as I could in order to obtain the highest split ratio and then count that as zero. Anything over that I would withdrawl as I would need that for living expenses. Any excess beyond living expenses would be added to my personal brokerage account and then compounded through my equities trading or traded through a IRA. The growth of the buying power by leaving the excess in the TST account would be nice, but as you mentioned, you are exposing yourself to additional risk. Withdrawn and in my brokerage account I know at least that I have total control.

Thanks,
J.

 

[ScalperJoe]

Quote from Jtrader342:
No overnight Gaps would be fantastic, lol!
J. [/B]

Actually, that's not quite correct. If there's a news event over the weekend, or even between a break from one session to the next, gaps can and DO occur. They are not as frequent as stocks, from what I've noticed. I think that's what Maverick was trying to imply.

However, TST doesn't allow for swing trades, since you cannot hold beyond one session, so even if there was a gap, it would not apply to the combine, or in trading the live account.