Dow day trading help required...

[senyorqueso]

Hi,

Can any experienced traders here tell me what sort of gains you could expect to see by intra day trading the Dow (ie how many points per week or month might you expect to be able to make)? I'm interested in trading with moving averages and breakouts of daily ranges with fairly tight stops.

I'm really just observing price behavior and paper trading at the moment, but would like to get a feel for what sort of targets anyone round here who's been successful trading might expect.

And what about risk-reward? Would you always target a gain that's greater than your stop, or can steady money be made by taking 10-20 pt gains with 40-50 pt stops? You'd obviously need more winners than losers, but if you can get in and out fairly quickly while the price is moving in the right direction maybe this could work and not leave your money at risk for so long? So many of my paper trades have begun to go my way but then turned from being 10-50 points up to closing at breakeven that it's just making me wonder whether I should target smaller gains, but there's no way to do this with say a risk-reward of 3:1 when you've got a 4pt spread to cover.

I'd be grateful for any guidance...

Thanks,

SQ.

 

[Old_Bob]

How many you can make will depend on many factors...the system you use,the risk/profit ratio..the money management.

You risk/profit ration should be always less than 1

 

[commanderco]

70%+ accuracy and better than 3:1 win / loss ratio.
That is all it takes to make serious money

 

[flyingeagle]

i'm currently doing about 15 - 30 ticks per day on the dow, ie ym the dow futures. using the elliot wave principle i look for the previous high/low as a stop loss. sometimes i get more ticks, ( other times less as well) . with a 1 tick spread and a target of 3-6 ticks per trade over many trades my target for the day is around 15+ ticks. this is per lot so multiply this by your size.

happy trading

 

[Jyde]

i'm currently doing about 15 - 30 ticks per day on the dow, ie ym the dow futures. using the elliot wave principle i look for the previous high/low as a stop loss. sometimes i get more ticks, ( other times less as well) . with a 1 tick spread and a target of 3-6 ticks per trade over many trades my target for the day is around 15+ ticks. this is per lot so multiply this by your size.

happy trading

Flyingeagle, I would be interested to know a little more of how you do it, like what time frame you use, is the 15-30 a per trade expectation, etc.. Reason I ask is that I find the noice on the short term chart too big for any serious EW count.

All the best...
CJ

 

[Directional]

but there's no way to do this with say a risk-reward of 3:1 when you've got a 4pt spread to cover.

Are you trying to do this through a spread betting company?

 

[trendie]

senorqueso,

Chartman posted a fully-defined strategy about day-trading the Dow.
He also posted live commentary, using his rules.
These threads continued over a long period of time.
( a new fresh thread was started each week )

It may help to review those threads as a basis for your ideas.

 

[Stockjunkie]

For short term trading , I find setting expectations on a dialy / weekly basis naive and a true newbie mistake .

One cannot guarantee how much the market will give you on any day / week , how do you know you will even win on any day let alone expect X pts ? It just doesn't work like that .

If you have a winning method you will soon know how much you can expect on a yearly basis .

the elites will take back super returns like 5-10 x capital over a year or 2 . No need to say which group I fall into , but I can prove it .

And in my view MA's are useless for short term trading , but hey if anyone thnk they can make it work , have deep pockets !

 

[LongandWrong]

I'm interested in trading with moving averages and breakouts of daily ranges with fairly tight stops.

Would you always target a gain that's greater than your stop, or can steady money be made by taking 10-20 pt gains with 40-50 pt stops? You'd obviously need more winners than losers,

Senyor, to my mind you've got this the wrong way round. Break-out strategies often exhibit a low win ratio, so you'd need to have tight stops and a greater profit target. I believe the maxim "cutting your losses and letting your winners run" is particularly relevant to this trading style. Obviously this requires a very disciplined approach which can be difficult for those new to the markets as it seems to run counter to human intuition.

Hope it works out for ya...

 

[Stockjunkie]

breakouts in my experience work only in limited and irregular ways .

 

[flyingeagle]

Jyde

i use 1 min candlesticks,ym.
i do a lot of small trades looking for only a couple of ticks each eg 3-6 each trade.
don't forget that the spread on futures is 1 tick and your commision is only about $5.
15+ is the sum of all at the end of the day (usually).
to get around the noise, i look at the dow cash market $indu also on 1 min chart.

happy trading

 

[Stockjunkie]

2 tics BE , 3 tics in the money assuming you can win more than you lose - still a bad deal .

small time players should use SBs on YM , you get a better deal , more leverage , much more.

 

[Directional]

2 tics BE , 3 tics in the money assuming you can win more than you lose - still a bad deal .

small time players should use SBs on YM , you get a better deal , more leverage , much more.

but most SB's quote three/four ticks plus on the spread on YM? surely that is a much worse deal.

besides, some US brokerages like, i think, Global are offering $300 margins and no minimum account size for emini traders, thats pretty amazing leverage for $5 a tick

 

[Stockjunkie]

If you know what you are doing you can get over 10 : 1 bet size with SBs if you know what you are doing.

YM on DA is not for serious traders , you can't big sizes , but with SBs at least you can : let the SB firm worry about the hedge and get super margining .

Easy if ........ you know the SECRET .

 

[JonnyT]

I don't understand why anyone would daytrade YM out of choice given the size issues / bang per buck.

JonnyT

 

[blackcab]

What size issues?