What is your ES day-trading experience?

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sunkith

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I am a new comer in ES day-trading. Is it hard? I want to know your answer to the following questions:

1. The average daily return
2. The win/loss ratio.
3. The average number of trades each day.
4. The average holding period of one position
5. The average fraction of your equity which is used for the margin of each trade.

Discuss.
 
Hi Sunkith,

Welcome to the forum. Im newbie too. In my experience, it is indeed very hard to trade. To give you an idea, after 3 years I am still using a simulation account to test strategies. Recently I found one which fits me pretty good, so maybe this year I might be switching to a live account.

Of course there are many traders who learn to be a profitable trader much quicker, but what I want to say is, be prepared to learn. read, study and practice a long time. I have done so 1000's of hours, night after night. Becoming a successful trader is not an overnight sensation.

Also, what I found, having a profitable trading system that works for you is just 50%. The other 50% goes into controlling your emotions, like fear and greed. Just visit the book section on this website to read up on this. Very important stuff.

As to your questions,

1. no fixed numbers yet, I thinks also depends how many contracts you trade.
2. 2:1 would be good but im not there yet
3. 1-2 trades a day, depends on your style and system
4. seconds to minutes max, depends on your targets too
5. 1-1,5 %. very important too, it makes or breaks your account. read a lot about money management, it comes together with greed, fear and emotions somewhere.

Happy trading!

BT
 
HI ,BT
Thanks for the info. Though I am a newbie in US market, I have 10 years expereince, on and off, trading stocks in an emerging market. I hope the experience can be transferred to the ES trading.

I have a question on your reply. You said
3. 1-2 trades a day, depends on your style and system
4. seconds to minutes max, depends on your targets too
5. 1-1,5 %. very important too, it makes or breaks your account. read a lot about money management, it comes together with greed, fear and emotions somewhere.
It seems to me those answers are contradictory. If you hold a postion for such a short time, in the worst case you won't lose much. I guess you could put more of your capital into the game, say 25%-50%. How do you think of it? Of course, If you do scalping trading, then there should be plenty of chances during the day, why do you only trade 1-2 trades? If this means you are really selective, then you could risk more as you must have a very high probablity of winning.
 
sunkith said:
HI ,BT
Thanks for the info. Though I am a newbie in US market, I have 10 years expereince, on and off, trading stocks in an emerging market. I hope the experience can be transferred to the ES trading.

I have a question on your reply. You said
3. 1-2 trades a day, depends on your style and system
4. seconds to minutes max, depends on your targets too
5. 1-1,5 %. very important too, it makes or breaks your account. read a lot about money management, it comes together with greed, fear and emotions somewhere.
It seems to me those answers are contradictory. If you hold a postion for such a short time, in the worst case you won't lose much. I guess you could put more of your capital into the game, say 25%-50%. How do you think of it? Of course, If you do scalping trading, then there should be plenty of chances during the day, why do you only trade 1-2 trades? If this means you are really selective, then you could risk more as you must have a very high probablity of winning.
Click to expand...


I just noticed your profits in another post, very impressive. I am convinced though, that a successful trader needs a trading plan, i am not sure if you have one. but your 10y experience definitely helped some or more to obtain these results.

To me, 1-2 trades a day keeps the doctor away. Do I miss out a lot of money that way by getting out in seconds? Yes, I do. But for me, reaching my targets includes being able to call it the day and stop trading, otherwise i might become aggressive and greedy and take more risks (wider stops). It needs to be part of my style. I don't like being in the market for ages. Just pick a few bucks and leave. Think 1,5 points for a trade in a strong trend.

This way, I can hopefully build some equity and margin to trade more futures later on. But with the same targets. I want to be satisfied with what becomes my share.

Hope this makes sense.

BT
 
Is there some confusion between margin and the amount of money you will lose before hitting the stop loss?
If not then with IB day margin you need 50k pre a contract for the 5% rule.
 
Been trading ES for close to three years now, one trade per day mostly, 2-3 points per contract overall. My win/lose ration to date is about 81%. Nearly all trades at the open. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

P.S.
A snapshot of entry page on my trading journal spreadsheet. Trades are from January 2010. Since then, I do not capture nearly as much info, rather let my trading platform do it for me.
Twitter
 
Last edited:
BataviaTrader, I am impressed by your website design. Do you use a blogger template? Can you share which one, if it is public? How did you get your domain name? I am ignorant on matters of the internet, unfortunately. If you fancy sharing, feel free to PM.
 
amanseo said:
Day trading is the process of selling and buying financial shares or stocks of
some kind within the course of ... This will ensure you do not lose your shirt, car,
home, or any other items valuable to you. ... Video productions as well as e-
books and tutorials can help any investor make the most out of their day trading
experience.
Click to expand...

hey amanseo, how about posting something original, you know something that isn't copy/pasted from the interwebs. how about using your own thoughts for post 4.

btw your post 3 here was the most awful copy/paste job in t2w history! at least post 1 and 2 made some kind of sense, albeit verbatim from the net (n)
 
amanseo said:
Day trading is the process of selling and buying financial shares or stocks of
some kind within the course of ... This will ensure you do not lose your shirt, car,
home, or any other items valuable to you. ... Video productions as well as e-
books and tutorials can help any investor make the most out of their day trading
experience.
Click to expand...

Forum Troll: In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[4] The noun troll may refer to the provocative message itself, as in: "That was an excellent troll you posted".

I done a Amanseo
 
Intraday trading is hard, very hard. I realized this and now I'm swing trading.
 
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