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I'm new to futuresIO so apologies for another newbie thread and apologies if it's in the wrong place.
I have ~4-5 years experience trading stocks and CFDs and I've recently switched to futures as I like the idea of a centralised exchange and order flow etc.
I originally got into the financial markets when I bought my first stock and have literally studied every single day (no joke) trying to learn how to trade. The goal was never to get rich overnight but rather build my account exponentially and eventually trade full-time.
Previous trading strategies Stocks - primarily fundamental with technical for entry. I've got a great success rate but it's more "value investing" so is incredibly boring. And, unlike Warren Buffett, I don't have millions in the bank so started trading CFDs as the market is open 24/5.. CFDs - mainly technical - patterns, trend lines, support and resistance, candlestick patterns. Haven't been overly successful as I found currencies are a lot harder to swing trade.
Current 6E strategy
I've become so lost trying to find a futures strategy that works for me. I'm currently using range bars (6) HLC, time and sales, 10&30 EMAs and (attempting) to learn order flow. My broker (sim account) is Ninjatrader.
I tend to steer away from indicators as I prefer to 'read' the price action rather than wait for lagging indicators for confirmation.
Why 6E
I live in New Zealand so that means the USA opens at 2am my time, but the good news is that London opens at 8-9pm my time so I can trade at night without affecting my day job. This is what drew me towards 6E as there's literally zero volatility during my day-time.
My goal
As stated earlier, to grow an account exponentially. As I get better and more profitable, I'll add more money to the account and increase position size etc etc.
Performance so far
Shocking. I'll wait for a pullback, look at the T&S and it's as though 6E waits for my position then literally soars the opposite direction. It will crawl when I'm right and I'll get a tiny profit, but when I'm wrong it absolutely takes off. Thank goodness for demo accounts.
Questions to profitable and preferably full-time 6E traders
Do you have any advice for trading 6E? I would prefer to work out my own strategy rather than copy someone elses but perhaps you could help with these questions:
What works?
What doesn't work?
Any tricks or tips - i.e, "tends to respect S/R", "use level 2", "is good range-bound", "look at long-term" etc.
What sort of charts are best? – Volume? Tick? Range? Standard candle? (With CFDs I used standard MT4 timed-charts but NinjaTrader offers a range off different types but I still haven't been able to find one that 'feels right').
Any indicators that are great for 6e?
Conclusion
I'm 100% dedicated to learn to trade futures. I don't like watching videos of these 'teachers' as I figure "those who know how to trade, trade. Those who can't, teach".
It's a dream to have a mentor but perhaps I could build a relationship with someone already profitable who can answer questions along my journey - not every day, but perhaps every few weeks / once or twice a month.
Thanks in advance,
Dave from down-under
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Hi Dave from down-under--
I can discuss some of your points/questions. Of course everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. All I offer is some experience trading futures and trading 6E. I have been trading it some months and am starting to get some consistency.
i know you would love to hear that it is easy...
So my experience, and my bias. First of all i have traded for a number of years in a variety of instruments, because I try to fit trading around my regular job i have had to change what and how I traded. (My regular job has changed substantially in the past 7 years so i had to changed what how i traded several times.) I switched to futures for the same reason as you, figuring i would trade crude oil because although it seemed to be the most difficult, if i could get a grip on it, i could make money a few hours a day, before i went to work. I didn't need it for income on a daily basis.
That didn't work, it was too volatile. I guess it is a little less so now.
I trade 6E now using a combination of chart/indicators and order flow. I still want to make a few dollars before i go to work. By picking a volatile (thin) instrument i figure there are multiple opportunities to scalp a few ticks in a couple hours.
I would say that is a decent instrument for that.
I apologize for the basic nature of the following statements. They might help you or someone else. My observation is that 6E closely mirrors the spot forex market. At least when i am trading it which is around the hour before New York opens to the hour after. There is frequently ranging right around that time, with some trending before and after. it seems to be highest volume when the European and North American sessions overlap. Which is what one would expect. I really cannot scalp during the Asian session, its too slow. I would love to do longer term trading than scalping, but i find it very difficult to trade futures for more than a few minutes, they are so leveraged that it is possible to get way offside on a relatively short term pullback. so i watch the activity like a hawk. The good news is that if you are on the right side, you can make a good living off a few quick moves of 5-6 ticks at a time. I use very short periods, like 1-2 range bars.
Spot forex is more financially scalable. But I still have trouble "predicting" movements more than a few minutes in the future. So i stick with futures for the order flow data and sometimes enter short term forex trades based on where the futures are going. I cant determine which comes first, the chicken or the egg, but i basically trade off signals from the NT futures platform.
More to follow in a few minutes.
Tom
I've been trading the Euro for some time. You maybe scalping or longer term. One gold nugget I can give you is retail sentiment. When the 6E starts to compress and you see everyone picking a direction. Look at retail sentiment and trade against them.
Currencies are also very news event driven markets as well. Keep an eye on high importance ones. Sites like forex factory will post them on the front page.
Some other ideas i have is, if you choose to do very short term trading/scalping, I think learning order flow can be useful.
I am still learning to read order flow on the 6E, but i am able to determine short term reversals now. (getting over my bias and taking advantage of the reversal is a different subject--LOL) It is hard for me to determine if the reversal is going to be the start of a new "trend" or just a small break in action. But as I mentioned in the previous post, if a move of 4-5 ticks can be captured regularly, that can be a "bread and butter" income. Just don't ignore the reversal.If i expect that the move will continue after a short pullback, it is tempting to stay in the trade. but it is really hard to determine if the move is going to surpass the recent high. and with NT brokerage, commissions are only about 1/2 a tick, so if it moves more than 1 tick back from your high, it is better to exit and re-enter than "hope" that it will not go back to far and erase your gains.
I think most of us think more clearly out of a position than in it. So if i exit soon i can more freely decide if i want to re-enter.
i am not advocating that you learn to be an orderflow trader, but trading a volatile instrument like 6E it might be good to learn how the price moves on the most basic level by becoming familiar with order flow. Learning the somewhat related volume profile might also be instructive. You can learn a lot about both through resources here on Futures.io, from Peter Davies (Jigsaw), John Grady (No BS Trading) and FT71. One of the things you will learn is the characteristics of different instruments on order flow, thin (6E/CL) thick (ES) and very thick (some US treasuries). You might decide that trading thicker instruments is more to your taste. Of course there are other tools for order flow than those mentioned above. Even if hate Order flow trading or it is too short term then it still might be useful for learning futures trading.
In response to your comment that the price action slows down when you enter, then speeds rapidly in the opposite direction: likely many other traders shared you direction, and had stops in a typical location, then when the opposing side pushes them back, the stops from the "weak hands" trigger, cascading price in those other traders favor. It may be useful to be aware of that and trying to pick where that will happen, so that you can be on the winners side, not the on the dinner plate. not done easily of course. the other thing is that if the higher time frame really support a move in your original direction, but it spikes against you, in this "stop hunt" it may be that the "big boys" agree with you. they are trying to shake the weak hands out of their positions and enter at a discount as the stops are triggered. So i try to use that as a way to enter in the direction of the trend. wait for a volume and price spike against the trend. Then take the "second entry" as volume fades in the counter trend. Easily described but hard to do as it is quite difficult to know that the trend is going to resume. As I mentioned earlier, this seems easier during those trending times. before and after the NY Open. Oh, I don't know if needs to be stated, but if "scalping" try to avoid major economic news, regarding the US or the EU. As Peter Davies points out on one of his videos, trading volume will dry up as the algos/HFT bots leave before the news. You can see a lot of very low volume price action for a few minutes after a major announcement. The market maker HFT bots are required to trade on really short term time frames like I do.
You cant do anything about unannounced news, like a terrorist attack or President Trump Twitter assault. Its just going to hurt occasionally.
I still use indicators. -- I use Elder's Force Index with a long period, and a 100 price EMA on price. I need to constantly know where the "trend" is to avoid small ranges and to set a bias. I try not to be a "perma-fader".
Absolutely agree. whether you want to trade the news or avoid it, you HAVE to know about pre-announced events. Forex Factory calendar is what i use as well, although the forums are not well moderated.
Tom
Thanks @trvlntrdr, lots of good info in those posts. I, too, am following the 6E (trading the Micro) and thus far have struggled more than I've succeeded. Even my few successes were a struggle LOL... but I think I'm getting a grasp on it. I just have a tendency to do stupid, counter-intuitive things while trading.
@pihadave, good to see another fellow 6E trader here on FIO, and thanks for the awesome post and introduction. Hope you and @trvlntrdr fire up your journals soon so we can follow along
Yes it is the obvious that i fail to follow occasionally , instead i make the simple complex and that is what bites more often than not.
Take the simple and obvious i think, and let the price show you when it is time to enter/exit/reverse.
I've been analyzing 6E carefully and found it tends to respect S/R levels during my day time (asia session), then trends better in the evening when Europe and UK start waking up then goes nuts during the USA and Europe crossover.
I've switched to using a 500 tick chart and 15min timed chart then trade on a 2 tick chart. I use the 500 tick chart for longer-term trend (it's cleaner than a timed chart), then the 15min chart for price action - pullbacks and strong advances etc, then the 2 tick chart is cleaner and easier to find entries.
@trvlntrdr I absolutely agree about order flow. It's great if you're scalping so I think I'm going to leave it for now as I tend to hold positions a little longer than scalping. Plus order flow is crazy fast.. I do, however use T&S to jump in at areas of interest if multiple large buyers start coming to the table.
@TradeTheLevel I've been using ForexFactory for years now. Never trade any instrument before a news release - including stocks.
Yesterday started off great in the asia session but when trading the UK open it got a little volatile and my trades didn't play out so good so I ended up giving everything back.
I thinking I might try to limit my trading to x amount of minutes / hours per day to avoid over-trading.