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Hello everyone,
I have a newbie question for the more of you experienced traders out there. Hope this doesnt sound too dumb. Im trying to find a very simple strategy to trade the MES from about 7:00 PM to 9:30PM eastern because its the only available time i have to trade. Choosing MES for now to begin with a smaller lower risk contract to test, then I can step up to the ES if I think im ready.
I purchased the lifetime Ninja Trader membership and currently pay $2.04 commissions per side for the ES. I have placed a few live trades to test the order fill speed and it seems to be fine to me, especially compared to Thinkorswim.
My question: Lets say my only goal for now was to just focus on obtaining 1 Tick net gain/per contract/per day, how feasible would this seem to you?
I understand my commisions would be about a 1/3 of the profits on the ES. I was thinking that if I can develop a somewhat consistent win rate and the discipline to follow the same strategy, then I would trade more contracts. Considering the lower intraday margins that Ninja Trader has I will not need to put up the full Exchange Margin per every contract.
I am just not too sure how to go about managing risk to do something like this because sometimes its very simple to make 1 Tick but other times the price just moves away far enough to where I would be loosing 3-4 times as what I would gain. Unless I put in a fixed 1:1 ratio and just check the probabilities over many many trades. I try to put in a Limit order to open the position 1 tick below bid or above ask. Then another limit order to close out at 1 tick.
I would like to trade this way without having to load up my screen with a bunch of charts, indicators, etc and over analyzing things. Just looking at the DOM and Time and Sales. I believe that over the very very short term the market is just completely random, so why look at so many charts and indicators for such a small move. I guess what I also want to say is I want to take advantage of that randomness and small up and down waves in the price to make that 1 Tick. Although at night it is much slower. I would like to get better at understanding order flow to be able to see the order imbalance on the very short term and get a better sense as to what direction to place my trade though.
Im not sure if any of this makes any sense to you but I would very glady appreciate your input and suggestions. Thanks.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Getting an edge is not something that just happens. It takes work, screen time and a system that actually gives a positive return percentage. Systems others have created will seldom be profitible because it is not what YOU can trade sucessfully. So design your own using your style.
The best option is to trade live. Sim trading is much different because of the lack of risk. But you probably should use sim to find an edge unless you are able to lose money for a long time.
Because your time is so limited you may need to download data and replay data to get an idea for an edge that works for you. If you find an edge, you can try it on data during the hours you are able to trade. I don't think this will be a few minutes, few days or a few week procedure.
The plan to take one point is very difficult to make profit at that rate especially on MES.
You will spend a lot on commissions taking away profit. And when the move goes against you, you will probably loose a lot of the other profits, if any. But you seem to have already experienced that.
Good Luck
Edit:
p.s. you may want to review my previous post to the other thread you created.
That advice is still valid.
I'm concerned you have not found an edge or at least know how to seek/create one.
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
My personal opinion. If you're really considering scalping a tick, you honestly dont need any edge or strategy. Like you said, such short term is 99% random so you might as well spam buy and sell button and see the overall avg outcome after few hundred trades.
I used to partially believe in this concept too many yrs ago as it seemed appealing in a conceptual/abstract way.
however as the two previous posters have said it isnt practical.
one in fact needs greater price length to help determine a more reliable edge...however that said there are 1 tick "noise" that isnt noise to some.
You are better to think how can i take 2 ES points out of the market daily and then if you can do this then why not 10 Pts ? etc
what i learnt is the internals of the trader to a large extent determines how/what/why in the method one seeks the edge and ultimately how one plays it out.
Look for axoims in the market structure that will lead to edge. These are not easy to find (visually and numerically) but they hold under nearly all Time frames, tick frames etc and conditions...if you find these or even one then the outcome tends to fall into place eg how much profit one can make. In other words you are focussing on an outcome eg making 1 tick rather than focussing on process of extracting/finding price behavour/patterns and then finally to turn these to a workable method...the latter takes more work than finding any repeating pattern etc
I didn't really know how I could respond to the original idea, so I waited. Then @JBWTrader said what I had wanted to say.
I think that a person can spend way too much time in the ideal abstract/conceptual world and less than is needed in the world of changing prices, where what happens when you click the buy or sell button makes a difference to the amount of money you can spend that week. To make sure I am clear in what I mean, I too have spent way too much time in that abstract world of supposition over the years. But that's not where money is found.
The best advice I can possibly give to @yperez953 is this: actually take some money and put it into a live broker account. Don't put too much in, but enough that it won't all disappear with one trade, because the idea is to go through several. Some trades may work, some may not. See how things look after doing a few day's worth, if the money holds out that long.
I do not mean to be discouraging. The money will in fact not last very long, but this is a good thing, actually. How can I know it won't last? Because if getting the one tick per trade were all it took to be profitable in the markets, how hard would it be, and how hard would it be to become independently wealthy from trading? Why is it a good thing that the money won't actually last? Because realism in dealing with the risks of the market is only found from actually being in them, and that's how you find out what works or not.
Now, obviously, I do not think that trying for a one-tick profit (and noting that this is with commissions) is a winning strategy. Why? Because I've been in the markets long enough and lost enough. That's the best I can tell you. This gets back to the original thing I said, which is that you can spend too much time in abstraction-land, and not do the essential thing of trading with actual funds in the real market. (Are there high-frequency traders who can scalp a tick per trade and succeed? Yes. However, they are the most experienced and technically proficient traders in the world. And that is a cut-throat level of competition that you do not really want to try to enter. Sorry.)
Also, if I tried to tell you all the dumb things that I have tried, and that didn't work, it would take page after page and would never get read anyway. I never tried this, but after making a lot of mistakes, you get to know what they look like . This would definitely be one.
I realize that you have asked for something more concrete than this. So,
1. Don't theorize about the markets. Trade the real markets, as they are. Use small amounts in things like the micro minis to minimize the losses that will bring you knowledge.
2. Take some initial idea/method/approach that makes sense to you and that you believe you can apply correctly and consistently. (You could even use the "one tick profit" idea you first wrote of. Take anything that makes sense to you and that you can put to test consistently.)
3. Trade it.
4. Modify or discard or replace your ideas, as needed, based on performance.
5. Do it some more. Learn things that work and keep them. Refine, retest, etc.
This may not be what you wanted, but if you don't try it, it may be what you missed.
I hope you succeed, and good luck with it. Nobody said it was easy.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
I can't not to agree with what is already posted.
Do not go for 1 tick it is pointless. If you didn't have much experience with DOM. Please allocate some time to it.
Do not even think trade live until you spend some time polishing the consistency.
If I may: Let me give you some recommendations.
Set up your recording as first thing.
Given you are thinking of DOM. I assume you are going to use Jigsaw tool. They have drills. Spend some time on it.
Once you start to have a good feel about it. Try to get 4-5 ticks every time to enter the market. (all this time you are doing recording and reviewing it).
You also mentioned that you would like to trade after the market is closed. May be it is worth to compare the market after close with a morning market.
May be early morning is going to be better for you.
Thanks everyone. I am really appreciating your constructive feedback. Im jumping back and forth between a few live trades on the MES, then SIM, then live, etc. I have been interested in learning more about what Jigsaw’s Tools are all about and how to make use of them.
In that case, all you need to do is just visit Jigsaw Youtube channel. If you go long way back you can find set up examples that were putted together by Peter.
AXIA futures is also a good channel. The latest videos do not have much value in it but the earlier once are very good.
They are breaking it out in details.
Something to worth mentioning if you watch DOM long enough you will start noticing things. I don't know how to explain it but brain is an interesting tool.
Once it start see something that was before you will have some sort of notification or aha moment that you've seen it before. It can be picked in your replay of your recording.
All you need to do is be mindful and paying attention.
Nothing in trading is as easy as it might seem on first thought.
1000's of traders would be trying to "only" make a tick or two day.
To realize how unlikely it is to accomplish this (regularly and consistently) think of your favorite sport and fantasize about being a substitute player for a short period of time in each game with top athletes who do it every day all their adult lives - the best of the best.
The real world always get in the way of our fantasies.
Trading 101: protect trading capital first and foremost. Then find an edge to add to trading capital. Risk is defined by you always in advance, profit is defined by the market, ergo price action.
Thinking in terms of how much to make (a tick or whatever) is "putting the cart before the horse".