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Which instrument is more comfortable for you to trade?
What is easier or not is the wrong approach. I think what is natural and comfortable for your trading is a more appropriate question.
For example, I like fast, volatile price action on a regular basis. NQ provides me this. I like to scalp NQ and CL, and sometimes swing trade CL. I love the volatility on NQ that it actually fits my personality more than something like ES or ZN.
Personally, I find NQ a lot more volatile than ES, but this does not mean than NQ is any more risky or easier/harder than ES. They are completely different instruments.
ES is hard for me. I hate the price action and movements. I can't seem to read it well with my gut and experience. So, I don't trade it.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
It's all about the trader's interaction with the character of the futures instrument. This should be the factor that brings someone to trade something. Not whether one is "easier" than the other because this is besides the point.
The question that every trader should ask and reflect on is "What instrument do I trade best on? What instrument do I make the best judgements on? What instrument feels the best for me?"
Hi,
easier or better does not exist in this case... they are all potentially difficult depending on the moment. Consider that they are now completely driven by algorithms and the traps are always lurking right where you think it is ideal to open a position or place a stop. For sure if we talk about speed NQ will tend to be the fastest. I advise you to stay on the micro markets and leave the minis for a reasonably long time.
In the beginning, when looking at the equity index futures, I viewed YM and RTY as better for me because the tick value gradations are finer than NQ and ES. I thought of a slow day, or where some situation might arise where the ES or NQ might not let me get out of a trade with a bit of a win (or be adverse to a larger degree) due to their .25 tick minimums.
This is an interesting discussion which always seems to bring out different answers. At least when it relates to which instrument is better of ES / NQ.
My answer is that the easiest market is the one you've studied the most and learned to understand as each instrument have their particular behavior. NQ is a thinner instrument than ES and as such can move faster and further. This can be an advantage, but it can also be a disadvantage.
There are periods/days where ES barely moves and NQ puts in some very nice swing meanwhile.
Personally, I focus on ES, but I'm learning NQ as well these days.
I have tried and failed on each index contract, NQ,ES, and RTY.... I have found YM dow futures have been best suited for my personality I don't know if it's because tick and point are the same or that the index has a less heavy tech weighting. But its fast enough to Scalp and slow enough that I am able to make my decisions on the 5 min chart using closes. And it respects range and atr which are two indicators I like. But I agree that none of them are easy but I noticed things "clicked" for me trading dow futures. But yea none are easy.
futures trading is difficult, if you are just starting, forget about futures and trade stocks!!
Stocks are much easier because you can select between thousands of stocks and select the ones that have the best potential.
In futures you cannot do that because there are only a bunch of futures instruments with decent volume, so we end up all trading the same stuff and stealing each other's money.
Actually no market is easy be it stocks, futures, currencies, whatever...
If you want to trade futures I would suggest Eurostoxx 50.
When I started day trading many years ago I hated to watch markets which seemed to be moving too slow (for my taste).
Therefore I started with the NQ.
But it's a beast - even with the Micros it can get an expensive endeavour pretty fast.
It took me years to squeeze some profit out of it.
On and off and especially last year I experimented with the ES. Because everybody seems to be day-trading this market.
However, in my opinion the ES/S&P500 is the most complex instrument out there - 500 stocks, futures, ETFs, warrants, options, stat-arb tens of thousands accounts trading it and on and on. For sure it is not only one of the most complex instruments but also the most efficient. But as a trader you want to profit from inefficiencies - that's your business.
No wonder, my results have always been quite mixed with this market...
Last year I digged into Eurostoxx50 futures.
EUREX commissions/ round turn costs are much cheaper than CME's, with a good FCM.
EUREX introduced Micros and reduced the tick size. The Micro is only € 0.5 a tick.
The order-flow is better to read than with ES not to say the NQ.
If the Eurostoxx 50 decides to put in a move this is often enough happening without sharp pull-backs.
I have traded it in sim-mode since several month now and from the beginning on I was profitable. This never happened to me before neither with Forex nor Crude nor Gold etc.
Now I start to test the Micro with real-money.