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Trading e-minis with $1k starting capital
- Thread starter IndexScalper
- Start date
Quote from IndexScalper:
Trend or no trend I have to stick to my strategy. If I skipped ER2 I would have been up over 500 today.
What strategy? Come on, you can't be rigid in the markets. Every day is a new day. If traders could just build a simple strategy and extract money out of the markets everyone would be rich. It can be done, I'm doing it, but the key is being flexible and trading what the market is doing, not having a pre-defined bias of what you want the market to do.
The fact that you churned your account on a trend day that had no real pullbacks shows everyone here that you don't know what you're doing.
Some advice, don't trade the first 30 min of the day. Watch the volume, volatility, and price action to determine if it is going to be a trend day, or a range bound/inside day. Then trade off support and resistance zones, or breakouts accordingly. Don't try to scalp for 1 ES tick all day long. That's a losing situation because you have no room to let your good trades run.
But the whole problem with your trading "system" is that you are horribly undercapitalized and trading an instrument with huge leverage. Eventually you will have to take a serious look at why you are doing this. Gambling mentality can come from the hope of get rich quick schemes.
You mentioned that you would have been up 500 if you skipped ER2 today. But you didn't. What if's in the trading world are pointless. It's so easy to look back and say, if I would have bought here and sold there I would be rich. But to do it in real time is what makes trading a true skill to be aquired.
Indexscalper,
I am probably trading similar like you.
I have 2 different strategy systems.
One works in choppy and rangebound days, second in trending days.
If I determine the day correctly I am positive /nearly 100% probability if I look back/.
The distaster happens when I do not determine the day type correctly. Than I am wiping several days profit.
Looking at what is written above I am not trading if it does not looks to me clear what type of day we have. Like result I am not trading 1-2 days in week. It is always better than force you and end deep in red.
With another words - if you are in doubts be carefull.
Think about it - and use your system if conditions for it are favourable.
Even if I am convinced distasters happens but way rarer than in days when I "do not feel" the market.
I am probably trading similar like you.
I have 2 different strategy systems.
One works in choppy and rangebound days, second in trending days.
If I determine the day correctly I am positive /nearly 100% probability if I look back/.
The distaster happens when I do not determine the day type correctly. Than I am wiping several days profit.
Looking at what is written above I am not trading if it does not looks to me clear what type of day we have. Like result I am not trading 1-2 days in week. It is always better than force you and end deep in red.
With another words - if you are in doubts be carefull.
Think about it - and use your system if conditions for it are favourable.
Even if I am convinced distasters happens but way rarer than in days when I "do not feel" the market.
Everything that could go wrong went wrong today. My data feed was very slow and jumpy the first half hour. I got stopped on several trades in a row, then made a few impulse trades and turned a small loss into a bigger one.
Product traded: ES
Contracts: 24
Opening balance: 1417
Closing balance: 1139
Net P/L: -278
Discipline: 2
Product traded: ES
Contracts: 24
Opening balance: 1417
Closing balance: 1139
Net P/L: -278
Discipline: 2
Quote from IndexScalper:
Everything that could go wrong went wrong today. My data feed was very slow and jumpy the first half hour. I got stopped on several trades in a row, then made a few impulse trades and turned a small loss into a bigger one.
Product traded: ES
Contracts: 24
Opening balance: 1417
Closing balance: 1139
Net P/L: -278
Discipline: 2
That's OK
Your Journal is turning into a "Piker's Guide to the Universe" type of reading experience.
Everything that happens is pretty much following the script.
No need to be hard on the OP. He's giving it the best he's got.
Quote from RiceRocket:
Some advice, don't trade the first 30 min of the day. Watch the volume, volatility, and price action to determine if it is going to be a trend day, or a range bound/inside day. Then trade off support and resistance zones, or breakouts accordingly. Don't try to scalp for 1 ES tick all day long. That's a losing situation because you have no room to let your good trades run.
Interesting advice here. Are you able to expand on this more?
Wrong, don't give irresponsible advice. He's over leveraging to a suicidal degree.Quote from allenhobbs:
No need to be hard on the OP. He's giving it the best he's got.
He was advised to go with the tamer contracts but insists on continuing to tackle the ER and ES contracts where random noise could blow him out and put him in debt to his brokerage account.
As if that isn't bad enough, Rice Rocket is giving him a treatise on the do's and don'ts (just re-read back through ALL of his posts on this thread) ... and the OP is probably ignoring it.
Typical ET stuff. Hope someone is learning something, as he isn't.
Quote from MandelbrotSet:
Wrong, don't give irresponsible advice. He's over leveraging to a suicidal degree.
He was advised to go with the tamer contracts but insists on continuing to tackle the ER and ES contracts where random noise could blow him out and put him in debt to his brokerage account.
As if that isn't bad enough, Rice Rocket is giving him a treatise on the do's and don'ts (just re-read back through ALL of his posts on this thread) ... and the OP is probably ignoring it.
Typical ET stuff. Hope someone is learning something, as he isn't.
But wasn't it established that the tamer instruments are impractible for this experiment due the ratio of commission costs to tick value per contract?
ETU