Traded MES Yesterday

illstep said:
I recently started trading MNQ (was trading NQ previously)
Demo trading. Still trying to get enough statistical significance to encourage me to go live!!
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/ta-forward-testing-sample-size.332501/#post-4865006

So, is there a broker than uses ninjatrader where there is no monthly fee for the platform to trade LIVE(not demo)?
And where you can trade the micro contracts? What would the commissions be?
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Check AMP if yu interested in trading micro’s. They have cheapest comm of all I believe.
 
hurricane_sh said:
With such a small leverage, it's going to change how I trade...mostly for the worse.

I traded reversal yesterday, when it hit new lows, I added more contracts instead of cutting my loss. When ES dropped to 2807, I placed a sell order at 2820 and went to bed, usually there would be a retracement after 3PM to reach this point, if it doesn't, no big deal, I can handle another 10 or 20 points drop.

1. I no longer wait for the best opportunity, my entries are sloppy.

2. I stopped cutting losses and started adding to losers again.

Gosh, all my bad habits came back.
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My experience with MNQ has been the opposite. It has helped me immensely! I've actually made decent small profits trading MNQs. It helped me cement good trading habits. Before I would be shaken out of noises in the big contract. But with MNQ I can see through the noise and ride the bigger trend.

I think it's a great product with lots of potential to help small retail traders refine their strategy before they scale up. At least for me it did.
 
gaussian said:
Even though the underlying is the same the market in MES is different. I'm sitting out of it for now. It's not a new market, but it has the potential to go uncorrelated which means I can't trade it like ES. The person trading MES is not the same as ES.

I'm not surprised at your experience at all.
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I disagree. They simply cannot go uncorrelated aside from a couple of ticks, for a brief moment.
 
hurricane_sh said:
With such a small leverage, it's going to change how I trade...mostly for the worse.

I traded reversal yesterday, when it hit new lows, I added more contracts instead of cutting my loss. When ES dropped to 2807, I placed a sell order at 2820 and went to bed, usually there would be a retracement after 3PM to reach this point, if it doesn't, no big deal, I can handle another 10 or 20 points drop...

Gosh, all my bad habits came back.
More...

The only thing the MES is going to do is reflect your same trading habits, but by 1/10th the size of the ES.

All else is equal. Don't listen to people here who talk about arbing and correlations. For a retail trader, the MES is the exact same thing as the ES, just 1/10th the size.

Trust me on that.

For example, I'm live on a swing long on MNQ from 7619. At the close today, the thing is down 307 points. So it is unrealized at -$614 instead of -$6,140.

This will be a roll into Sep, most likely. But at least it won't break the bank. And I have been trying an average down idea with it in sim, and am up to 1.4X the margin on a NQ mini. That one is down $5K. (14 contracts.). So on that one the margin is, oh, ~$17K or so?
 
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Overnight said:
The only thing the MES is going to do is reflect your same trading habits, but by 1/10th the size of the ES.

All else is equal. Don't listen to people here who talk about arbing and correlations. For a retail trader, the MES is the exact same thing as the ES, just 1/10th the size.

Trust me on that.

For example, I'm live on a swing long on MNQ from 7619. At the close today, the thing is down 307 points. So it is unrealized at -$614 instead of -$6,140.

This will be a roll into Sep, most likely. But at least it won't break the bank. And I have been trying an average down idea with it in sim, and am up to 1.4X the margin on a NQ mini. That one is down $5K. (14 contracts.). So on that one the margin is, oh, ~$17K or so?
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Fedex AKA Overnight is right about this. Here are two charts from today... 5 min both. One on left is MES and the right one is ES. They track step in step like an ole mule on a mountain trail with 1000 ft dropoff. He puts his back foot right where his front foot was.

ES MES 5-24.GIF
 
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Overnight said:
The only thing the MES is going to do is reflect your same trading habits, but by 1/10th the size of the ES.

All else is equal. Don't listen to people here who talk about arbing and correlations. For a retail trader, the MES is the exact same thing as the ES, just 1/10th the size.

Trust me on that.
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You are exactly correct. I have been trading the MES, MNQ, and the MYM.

This product is about your account size, and your risk management. If I was trading over 7 figures, I would not mess with these micros, but I am not.

So I am taking a lot more trades, versus previously trading the NQ,ES, or YM.

My trades now have a greater range, and a lot more ability to scale in or out. Flexibility has increased to enter and manage trades.

Now I pretty much only exit for losses on major moves against me, versus moderate intraday reversals.
This has resulted in much more relaxed trading.

Bottom line for last several weeks , more profit, less drama and stop outs than the Minis.
Until I become much larger, I think I will keep the Minis on the shelf and stay with Micros.
 
gaussian said:
but it has the potential to go uncorrelated which means I can't trade it like ES.
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Ummmm... No, it has ZERO probability to go “uncorrelated” in any meaningful way for any meaningful period of time.

If it did - the known WORLD would be spreading 10 lot MES versus 1 lot ES because that’s free money. Any dislocations would be for fractions of a second or would be due to latency artifact errors from your data vendor.

Put the MES and the ES order books side-by-side - you'll see my point. Never trust your data vendor in this regard.
 
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