After a week of deliberation, I have decided to stop trading equities, at least for the time being, and switch to futures.
I am starting with the YM, as it is the least expensive to trade. My decision to switch was initially based on wanting to free up some money to pay off a mortgage. While that was not necessary, it makes me feel less pressured. In fact, I may NOT immediately pay off the mortgage, but just having the cash to do so will probably be enough. An additional reason, and perhaps a better one, is that it is going to simplify my trading and my day---following only one instrument.
I've made another big change, by switching from minute charts to tick charts. This is entirely for the purpose of measuring stop loss locations. Because futs don't trade in pennies, I would not feel comfortable with stop locations on my usual 2 & 5 min. charts. Using 100tick and 300 tick charts will make things more uniform for me.
My plans are to sim trade on NT for at least the rest of this month (April, '11), in order to get used to the action of the YM, and work out any kinks in my system. This is going to be a real challenge, but one that I need. I will probably be making 2-4 trades a day, which is less than I am used to. It will be a good exercise in patience.
I took one trade this afternoon---actually a paper trade, as my depth of market data had not started this morning--required to run the simulator in NT.
When I go live, I'll be using a level II and MBTrading as my broker. I've had accounts with them for years, though I don't know how they handle futs.
I'm posting my one trade here. Unless otherwise noted, assume 4 contracts are traded. Typically 2Cs exited at 1st target, and 1 ea. at 2nd and 3rd targets.
There isn't much explanation on this chart, but will try to work out a standard way of explaining what I've done.
I'm trading off the 100tick chart, and using the 300tick chart for confirmation. I also look at a 5min. chart.
There's nothing exotic about my strategy. Probably not too interesting.
strider
PS: note on chart for 3rd exit is wrong. Exit was at 08, not 98.