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Why folks lose money daytrading ES
- Thread starter gmst
- Start date
Quote from fred1:
sell es short when it shoots up 10 or 15 points and turns or stops and macd or such signals turn.
trailing stop limit, leave and win about 80% of trades anything from 4-40 points. sounds easy and obvious. all it requires is discipline.
it could also be automated.
not to start a fight on a sunday morning but here goes...
1. just b/c es (or any instrument for that matter) goes up a lot very fast and temporarily stalls doesn't mean it will reverse. there's nothing wrong w/ betting on a reversal just keep a tight stop.
2. i agree that the win rate is high but it's the small % that will blow you up.
3. 4-40 points? where is this range coming from? you could drive a rosie o donnell size truck through that.
4. i agree you need discipline - but you shouldn't have discipline in a strategy that doesn't have a edge.
5. re automation - that's good where possible but see caveat in point 4.
If you made so much money, you wouldn't keep asking to find a futures broker that gives you mediocre stuff for free. Advice isn't worth anything when it is extremely general. No one will profit from that advice. You basically said that markets won't go up forever so when it moves up really fast to sell it. That's some breakthrough trading right there.
Because your justification for why it works is because I make money so that's all that matters. People lose money on the ES because most traders just lose money in the first place. ES is also more choppy than other markets where most small traders imo love to play breakouts. I don't think there is anything magical about the ES. There are some people who prefer some markets over other, like I prefer bonds, but most people just lose because they lose. Nothing special to discover.
Trading the ES day in and day out is the reason why its so hard. In other words, trading 1 securrity (whatever it may be) is really what makes it hard. If you were trading IBM everyday, thats still just as hard.
IMO, most stock traders say they cant trade futures because they have a strategy that can only be executed by finding a particular setup or 2 or they need a certain volatility condition or whatever the case may be. And if they want to trade everyday they have to look to the thousands of stocks to find what they need to trade.
If you have a particular setup that you are confident in and are only trading ES, that may come around maybe once every couple of weeks or whatever, that makes it tough to trade.
So you either need to become really really patient and trade big size or a different kind of trader, a really good smart trader OR just trade stocks and find what you're looking for everyday.
IMO, most stock traders say they cant trade futures because they have a strategy that can only be executed by finding a particular setup or 2 or they need a certain volatility condition or whatever the case may be. And if they want to trade everyday they have to look to the thousands of stocks to find what they need to trade.
If you have a particular setup that you are confident in and are only trading ES, that may come around maybe once every couple of weeks or whatever, that makes it tough to trade.
So you either need to become really really patient and trade big size or a different kind of trader, a really good smart trader OR just trade stocks and find what you're looking for everyday.
Are you putting in 300-500 lots in the es? If not, the liquidity means nothing. All it means is you can grow. I've heard 80% of ES volume is hft. It's not easily manipulated? How would you know, and what is your definition of manipulation? People are drawn to the ES because of its size, yet they have no use for its liquidity. I honestly think most people would be better served trading the dow or nasdaq if they desire to trade indexes until they actually need the size of the ES. Just like I think it is silly to trade the 10yr over the 30yr because it has more liquidity. Who cares about liquidity if you aren't using it.
Quote from ExchangeBonds:
I honestly think most people would be better served trading the dow or nasdaq if they desire to trade indexes until they actually need the size of the ES.
agree 100%, if you're trading 1 or 2 contracts, dont trade ES, trade YM. You'll get filled where you want a lot more and your frustration level will come down just a smidge.