basically, the profitable stock traders will tell you that futures are harder. the profitable futures traders will say not so.
as a profitable futures trader (see pnl thread for my blotters from the past 3-4 months...except i did not trade today or yesterday due to rollover games) i will tell you that i was profitable trading stocks, but i make a lot more $ daytrading ES. Of course, that did not happen overnight, it took me a while to get the hang of the futures market.
i would agree with many of the comments in this thread re leverage as a significant difference. but i think what is more important is finding the right match between ones personality and trading vehicle.
For me, I much prefer daytrading ES over stocks. People who know me say it is because I have focused so much on one instrument that I have been able to understand it more then tracking a handful of stocks.
That may or may not be true, but I do know I have figured out ways that help me determine if ES is in chop mode, or if it is the beg. of a directional move.....with stocks that was always harder for me.
While in ES you are up against some of the very best traders out there so the competition is fierce, but it is also a fact that ES is a reflection of the broader market much more then a stock and does not trade on the whims of a MM, etc., which means for me it is easier to assess the broader market via internals (i believe part of my edge is in how i look at various internals) and therefore have more confidence in my entries. i am often able to capture a large part of the intraday move in a single trade by going all in and scaling out through out the day as price hits certain levels and watching for any change in relationship to the internals. I also understand that my style of ES daytrading is not typical.....most ES daytraders go for smaller wins and trade much more frequently then what I do. Someone once desrcibed me as position trader in a daytrading timeframe.
