Daytrading NQ vs. YM!!!

Orpheus

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Dear Traders,

I would like to start trading Futures. I am not new to trading (8 years stocks, forex and cfds). Now I have enough money to start with futures. And here is my question:

What would you recommend for a daytrader who starts trading: NQ or YM?

Greetings

Orpheus

PS: Sorry for my bad english but I am not a native speaker.
 
Hello,

I would suggest to start with the NQ, low margin and a low delta. This is pretty easy, starting after the morning rushes where the market is not so fast. but firstly read the market and do some papertrades.

I personally started with the TF, low margin but a nice higher delta, but a bit hard to handle the stops...

If you with I can share my trading.

See you later, very busy at the moment.
 
Hello,

I would suggest to start with the NQ, low margin and a low delta. This is pretty easy, starting after the morning rushes where the market is not so fast. but firstly read the market and do some papertrades.

I personally started with the TF, low margin but a nice higher delta, but a bit hard to handle the stops...

If you with I can share my trading.

See you later, very busy at the moment.

Hi TF Trader,

it would be nice if you could share your trading with me.

In some books and papers about futures I found the hint that it is the best for a newbie to start with oats or wheat futures. I do not understand this. I checked the contracts on CME but especially oats have not a big volume and it looks very difficult to trade it intraday.

I choosed NQ because the tick size fits to my account and the volume is high. Someone have an other recommondation for me which contracts are good for newbies? Or is NQ the best choice?

TX

Orpheus
 
Hi,

I only read 2 or 3 Books about trading and I also know this with oats or wheat but I think this must be the past century, because there is so low volume and I think too much noise. Very hard to trade.

NQ is a good one to begin with. But make sure, everybody has another feeling for his money, to have enough in account. for example my person: When I have 5000$ to trade and buy 1 TF Future, I have 1000 back in cash but if the position is going hard against me I feel to set a stop loss to prevent a bigger loss, usually the stop loss is between 10$ and 400$ it all depends on the pattern.
2 400$ Stops and you have 4200$ in account. you know, now you have only fear money in account.
I got very confident with 6000$-7000$ per 4000$ TF Future-contract.

For now start small.
1. I would prefer having a 10000$ account and only trade 1 NQ-Future at the time and never 2.
2. learn that you have time... wait for the best moment to jump on the markets. this could be only 1-4 times a day.
3. Trade with a stop loss, but hear me this is hard. Don´t have it to near on your entry, volatility could shake you out of the trade with a loss.
4. learn learn learn and feel the market. Learn your own strategy out of all the strategy´s out there. Find what suits you best(Timeframe and Strategy).

And again no time for more, I only could trade today because of a course of studies.

Next time I hope to bring up some charts with the rest
 
Hello TF Trader,

thank you for your help. Take your if you are busi in the moment. I am trading stocks and forex since eight years.

My Future Account will be bigger than 20.000 $. I am looking forward to see some of your charts. May be we can exchange some strategies here.

At the same time I am still lokking for a good broker.

Best Regards

Orpheus
 
One suggestion is that if you are trading during the US hours and want to learn in real time, you can use stocks as a proxy for the future while you are working the kinks out.
I am also learning to trade futures (ES, TF, CL), but the point sizes can be daunting. However, you have to go live some time and if I can learn at a discount, that's great. Yes, I pay a higher percentage in commission costs, but I can trade this method even in an IRA that doesn't allow futures (one of mine does, one doesn't).
For example...to mimic the SP500, I use the SDS/SSO combination and buy the appropriate one to go short/long. If you look at the price charts, they pretty much follow each other exactly. I watch the future chart and use that for entries and exits.The benefit is that you can trade 3 shares if you like so you don't get burned badly while learning. If you are using an unbundled commission scheme with a broker like IB and use limit orders, you can keep your commissions pretty cheap as well.

Combos that I can think of off the top of my head:
SSO/SDS (SP500)
DIG/DUG (CL)

There are ultra funds which would work for both the DOW (YM) and the russell as well (IWM and UWM?)...The leveraged ones have good volume (10 million+).

Once you get the bugs worked out, you can switch over and start with one contract on the future of your choice and really do some learning!

Thoughts?
 
Hello goonior1,

thank you for your good advice. I will try this.

May be one thing I forgot to mention. I am trading since 8 years succsessfull stocks and Forex. Now I want to start with the next feature. This is the future market for me. My account size for this trail will be approx. 30k.

For the beginning I would like to concentrate on one market and I need to learn if I have to use a special trading set up for this market. A lot of things are new for me. I can choose not only candle charts, I also have range, tick and volume charts. In the moment I have really no idea which information I can gain from this charts.

It would be also interesting for me to know which trading set ups are used from the pros here to daytrade the NQ.

The idea with the stocks from you is also a good one (y)

Someone can give me a hint for a trading setup here?

Orpheus
 
I prefer tick charts myself, since I like to show after hours data as well and if you use time bars, it stretches things out too much. I also use either candlesticks and sometimes Heiken-Ashi as well since they help me identify a trend.

As far as setups and systems, if you've been trading stocks for years, I don't see why you couldn't apply setups you've already learned...The concepts of support/resistance, trend trading or fading, etc apply as much to intraday as they do to non-day trading.
 
So hello I´m back.

I have bought some new Hardware and had to work on the new PC for a while to get everything working. Now I´m happy with a pretty nice and really fast new Trading PC.
Only 2 more Monitors coming next year.


I have attached my personal window configuration with TOS. I have to say that If I had more Time and another 2 Monitors there would be more charts... .
I know not everything about the market because I´m trading since 2007 and Futures since the beginning of 2009.

Something you really should know(If you didn´t knew it already):

There are stocks who lead the market (The most of the Time) : GS is my first indicator after that APPL, and sometimes others that you find over the day.
Some indicators on my Chart are also important:

The Treasury´s when they fall the market should move up
The Treasury´s when they move up the market should fall
If not ... this could be a bubble and sometimes it bursts (Caution)

CL trading roughly in harmony with the EUR/USD forex charts. and if the EUR/USD falls the market could fall.
If the Dollar is getting weak the Market could improve as investors moving from Cash into stock, ...

Okay now to a Trading Strategy:

I do not follow a exact Strategy I would say I have my own feeling for some Strategys and when I should use they.
A good Strategy to start is follow the trend:
As you can see I have a RED SMA 5. This is for me the Trend.
If the 5SMA is pointing up ------- go long
if the 5SMA is pointing down --- go short

next thing is elloit wave ... Take a look it works sometimes very good ... otherthing comes into play, Big Volume on the bottom or Top. There you could see some good waves.

I´m going to show it on the TF Future
A good thing is( I also have read it in the NEVER LOSE AGAIN Treath(But this is too long to read in my lifetime)) to have a look at some important timeframes.

133Tick
1minute
5minute
15minute
1hour
1Day

This is a great opportunity:
All 3 SMA5 on the 5 minute chart on the NQ,ES and YM are going to point up in 30seconds( this is when we have a low on good Volume and the next 4th candle is higher than the low, so it prints a 5th candle after the 30seconds are left.)
Here are coming some Big players into game and Buying it up.
Sometimes very fast, sometimes a bit slower and sometimes not.
When not then you could easily get out or short it(dangerous).

I have only 1 chart to show it, because it cost really time to do all the charts and edit it and sample it...
this shows some good indication on only 1 future, If the overall market also feels week it is getting easier. Time also is important(Euozone is my Timeframe): at 17-18 clock noon is on and volume "should" get lower most of the time in the noontime traders going to push the markets adverse to morning direction.

I hope you understood it. If you can get into the move of the market and feel the moves weak or strong ... This is Trading (y)

Next lessons later.

Have a nice Weekend
 

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