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I am a die-hard automated trader. For years and years. But nadex caught my eye, and I haven't been able to let go of it. Here are the things that I really found interesting:
(1) Reduced risk of drawdown
In my job, I am constantly searching for ways to reduce risk. With nadex, not having a "stop loss" means that there is no "I am wrong" exit point. This immediately reduces the risk of accumulated losers. In traditional directional trading, with stop losses of any sort, there are always the strings of accumulated losers with stops being hit. This contributes to the larger drawdowns of equity curves. So with no stops, you will still have drawdowns, just less of those huge hitting drawdowns.
(2) Reduced Risk/Reward ratio
You can't scalp Nadex. If you think more like an options trader and trade volatility instead of direction, then nadex becomes a goldmine. Here's why. Traditional options expire monthly. So that's one trade per month. And 1 contract is hundreds of dollars. So unless you are trading a very very large account, you can't distribute your risk with a good Risk/Reward distribution. ie. you have to place large bets, and most of your bets are correlated, which equates to one HUGE bet.
On Nadex, I can place a single contract trade for $3. Margin is $3. Maximum loss is $3. Stop Loss = None. Plus these expire daily (or every 2 hours for spreads). This means in a single week, I can put on 10-20 volatility plays that are absolutely not correlated (because they are volatility trades based on the localized price movement). So for about $50 per week I can have a well distributed set of trades in play, looking for a reward:risk of 2:1 and often way better.
I think the mistake is to look at Nadex as a traditional instrument like a futures or forex contract. They can be played that way, but that's not their design. They are volatility hedge instruments. So if you think like an options trader, you can move your normal directional futures/forex trades from a futures contract to Nadex and dramatically reduce your risk and overall exposure. It does take a different kind of thinking.
Quick Story: My middle son wanted a new pair of gaming headphones. Expensive gaming headphones. The deal in our family, is that you have to buy stuff you want with trading earnings (all three kids trade). But he wanted them THIS WEEK. So he looked up the news announcements for the week (and he wanted to order them by Wednesday). So he found all the news announcements for Monday and Tuesday. Then he put on trades out of the money, and some way out of the money straddling the news on gold and oil. News hit tuesday, his orders triggered. That afternoon he closed one of his way-out-of-the-money positions in profit, the out-of-the-money trades (which are now in the money) he held onto. By Wednesday night, he had enough money for his headphones (2nd day air delivery) and a few dollars to spare. Of course he won't trade again until he wants something new, but the point was that his total exposure for those trades was $20. He had 4 trades at $5 each (plus commission).
It's a prime example of non-directional volatility trading with low risk.
I found them via ads on futuresmags website,basically it's for trading options and from my understanding you don't need to have a broker to trade with them.
Having traded on Intrade during the election last year the risk/reward of binaries on NADEX was pretty easy for me to grasp.
I've been demo-ing NADEX for a couple of days now, still trying to get the hang of their system and practicing my execution. Still don't understand the how the spreads work, I guess they're like vertical call/put spreads but the pricing is weird, need to go through the videos more.
I have been focusing on binaries though, particularly pre-high volatility moments like cjforex mentioned, I'm interested to see how the CL binaries trade/price in front of inventory reports (I'll be watching this Weds) and how the market spreads out or if the further OTM strikes get more expensive in front of the news. Also, look at low-vol Bollinger squeezes in the underlying and buy cheap straddles.
Everybody has only talked about buying binaries, does anybody sell? For example, if ES is at 1450 and the 1440 is bid/ask 92/95 I can sell that for 92, or be a little greedy and try to sell it for 93.50, risking $6.50 that the ES won't close above 1440, I may not win that often but the times I do the payout is $93.50 on a $6.50 risk. With these kind of trades the usual "risk 2% of your account" probably needs to be dialed down to < 1% to endure large strings of consecutive losses. The other nice thing is that you don't have to wait until settlement, if ES starts to drop near the strike you might be able to buy it back at $70-60 for a nice 5-6x return on risk and capture that profit.
P.S. Bought the VIX 14/20 call spread today, we're hovering near recent lows again, which were 7-year lows, and we're due for a pullback...7 days of straight-up price action needs a pause at some point. If the VIX continues lower I'll buy back my short 20 call for less and buy more 14 or 13 strikes.
I'm really amazed at the minute quantity of info related to NADEX, both here, and on other communities. Is it because they offer binaries and that has become a dirty word in trading due to all the shady operators of Euro-style binary options?
A lot of price movement is caused by speculation. Certainly on the ES, probably 80-90% is short term speculation.
A binary market exists for the ES and will move with it, arbitrage stops markets going out of synch.
These markets are really just another way to place a bet IMO. I don't know how to calculate the value of a futures contract and to be honest, I don't think it would be of benefit if I could.
If you have any questions about the products or services provided, please send me a Private Message or use the futures.io " Ask Me Anything" thread
NADEX is like any other Binary Options Platform.
They will take your money.
The good: They allow you get out of TRADE if you think it's going bad. (provide you have training as to how to do that) and they take your trading fees) Unlike the offshore/European Binary Options: Choose Wrong, Lose, it's over.
The Bad: It's Betting. Not really Investing. This is cuz you walk away with nothing if your wrong about the bet and all this in the given/limited time span. At least in the Stock Market: Today the investment is 10$. Drops to 5$ value in say the same time frame, But you still hold the Stock or Investment and like a Broken Clock it will be right again 2x a day. So you still have a chance to get your money back and have something in hand unlike this game when it Expires in the given time frame: Game Over.
The Ugly: You not really getting 100% of your investment like a Stock Market. You only walk away with a partial with Fees and returns from the investment put in. where as if you invest into a stock market: 10$ investment and you earn 20$ per share You make far more than you would here.
I've traded for a long time and NADEX is terrible!!!
1. There's no volume data.
2. All contracts are based on "NADEX Indices" that you can't find real data on anywhere else.
3. Virtually NO liquidity (dominated by so-called market makers, and hard to get fills)
4. Huge Spreads (the most active contracts have minimum 7 to 8 point spread)
5. Slow and latent data (somehow the market makers spreads adjust 1 to 3 seconds ahead of market movements reflected on charts and last-sale data)
Do NOT be seduced by this market. They make it almost too easy to set up an account and start trading within minutes by advancing funds against your electronic checks.
You might get lucky with an occasional winning trade, but if you spend any time trading here you'll realize you're at their mercy----too little info and market makers who use huge spreads to squeeze the #%^! out of you.
I've traded for a long time and NADEX is terrible!!!
1. There's no volume data.
2. All contracts are based on "NADEX Indices" that you can't find real data on anywhere else.
3. Virtually NO liquidity (dominated by so-called market makers, and hard to get fills)
4. Huge Spreads (the most active contracts have minimum 7 to 8 point spread)
5. Slow and latent data (somehow the market makers spreads adjust 1 to 3 seconds ahead of market movements reflected on charts and last-sale data)
Do NOT be seduced by this market. They make it almost too easy to set up an account and start trading within minutes by advancing funds against your electronic checks.
You might get lucky with an occasional winning trade, but if you spend any time trading here you'll realize you're at their mercy----too little info and market makers who use huge spreads to squeeze the #%^! out of you.
There are plenty of better places to trade.
January 19th, 2014 03:42 PM
Orange~ I can feel the frustration buddy. I've been there with NADEX myself. When I first started with NADEX I was losing $$ most of the time. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. It took me a while to get use of the platform, entering trades, setting profit targets, and setting up stop losses, how to pick the right strike prices, and picking the right bull spreads.
But after watching countless videos on youtube and using NADEX demo account for a couple of months. I can honestly say I have been consistenly profitable. I agree the spreads could be better, but you shouldn't worry about that. When you understand "Price movements" you'll be able to pick the right strike prices and spreads. BTW the BEST link on here for trading is "Price Action Trading System" by Mack.
If you like you can send me a personal email and maybe we can Skype and I'll share my screen on how to place trades etc. I hated the charts on NADEX a year ago, but they have made some great changes and you can use them as well. Remember they are the indicative charts and Not the underlying, but the prices are very close. BTW You can get a lot of education on Big Mike's site I wished I would have started here when I first began my trading career.