S/R Emini Journal

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A belated post on the weekend topic. Refcos futures accounts where never at risk (all the others where), I know I had one. In fact there was not a single point in time where I couldn't transfer out (or so I was lead to believe).

Trading futures intraday, 1-5% a day seems reasonable (maybe closer to 1% for most) with perhaps 1 or maybe 2 loosing days a month. This would be without over leverage (I think I need to put up $10k roughly for each DAX I trade with IB) or undue amounts at risk on any trade.

Some of the hard core scalpers (there are a couple who post on ET that seem genuine) could better this I'm sure.

Cheers,
Nick
 
I agree with those posters saying that stops are critical in trading these futures. At least for me it took a little while when I first started out to get the stop in the right place. I had a habit of putting the stops too close to the entry and therefore got stopped out of many good trades. It took a while to become comfortable with the risk whenever I got into a trade but now whenever I get stopped out it's because the trade didn't work out, not because I got caught up in the "noise." There's a myth that if you set a tight stop that you won't take big hits and blow your account, but what happens is you get chopped up in the "noise" and your account just dies a slow death instead.
 
some call it a death by a thousands cuts....stops being too close to entry/too tight.....i call it time to keep working and don't trade real money until u r a trader.....i went thru that phase also......most do........all bad things a trader can do i have done....still kicking........when my ego got booted out i finished the system.......it took too long......
 
volente,

r your stops loose or tight? do they present a problem since u moved to es? don't mean to be too personal...you used 20 pt stops initially on ym...was that okay? tq
 
Quote from cashmoney69:

I've done some reading about futures. No wonder these kinds of journals are so popular! :D
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Why are these journals so popular?
 
Quote from tradequicker:

volente,

r your stops loose or tight? do they present a problem since u moved to es? don't mean to be too personal...you used 20 pt stops initially on ym...was that okay? tq
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it's not quite one-size-fits-all TQ.

Different systems have different criteria for trade confirmation, and depending on the size of the preceding move when your trade confirms, you might need a little bit more wiggle room before the market begins to move in your direction.

Generally anywhere from 2 to 3+ pts on a Protective Stop should prove to be sufficient. To calculate that as a % of total equity (performance bond) you divide the $ amount of the protective stop by the total performance bond.
---> ie., a protective stop of $150 divided by $3,000 equals 5% of total margin (performance bond) that you have to trade with.

While calculating your protective stops is important, it's a lot more important to have a system which consistently delivers the goods, then when you get stopped out (everyone does), you won't worry about it, because the next trade is right around the corner ...

Best

JJ
 
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