FAQ - ES Trading

How to setup ES trading system

Please talk briefly on future trading such as a chart, and basic trading tips. Is the future option similar to option?
Future trading involve great risks if one couldn't be able to enforce highest discipline and flexibility. Mostly it requires restricted TA with no-emotion. It will take a lot time to discuss and learn to trade futures. I will have to do Face-to-Face evaluation before teach trading technicals. That is what Trading Camp is about.
Here is a book for your questions: http://www.amazon.com/Trading-Commodities-Financial-Future-Mastering/dp/0131476548/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product

Future is easy to learn, easier than options, but do require highest discipline. A good future trader can easily deal with stocks later on after be successful trading future. You need open an acct that enable trade future, IB is good because you can use Quotetracker to chart. TradeStation is easy and good for very fast trade if you fingers are slow typing. if you have 20K/25K acct, you will make >$500 a day/night, for the most dummy follower, unless you against me on purpose.

What are futures' symbols?
ES is SPX
CL is OIL future
YM is DOW
NQ is NDX
TF is RuT futures.
DX is $USD future
EUR, 6E, E7, EC are EUR:USD future
AUD:USD, (6A or AD)
GBP:USD (BP)

About FX trade
There are interesting time windows that ate best for FX trade.
all in Eastern time below:
3am London, and Paris mkt open
4am Germen and eastern european
8am U.S pre-mkt manipulation
12:00PM european mkt close,
2;30PM CME commodity closing, after that. mkt will be easy to manipulate. also after 12PM, euro mkt closed. that makes FX easy be manipulate as well.

On IB, type EUR and pick June contract, then pick 6E June contract it will show symbol 6EM09 same for GBP, type GBP, see 6BM09.
if you use QT, type GLOBEX:@6EM9; NYBOT:@DXM9 that is the USD future, you might need sunscribe NYBOT data
EUR trade is at TradeStation sybmol is ECM09

I have been testing and trade with my friend's tsunami trading system on EUR:USD and GBP:USD, it is actually pretty good!
http://tsunami-trade.com/
The cost is little high though, $4995 fix cost plus $1500 per year.

Where to check real-time quotes for futures?
http://www.quote.com/us/futures/indices.action
http://www.livecharts.co.uk/MarketCharts/crude.php
http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/e-mini-sandp500.html
http://www.nymex.com/lsco_fut_cso.aspx
http://oil-price.net/

When will ES expire？If it expire but I still hold it, what will happen?
QJ said...
The S&P 500 E-mini contracts expire the third Friday of the contract month. So The June contract expires the third Friday of June. ES is spx index, when it expires, it exits, that means if you short, it will be covered at closing price. If you hold long, it will be sold at closing price.
OIL, Wheat, Soybean, Copper, etc, will be physical deliver to the address that you specified, include shipping and handling fee, just like you buy books from AMZN.

If I have 25K in my account, how many ES contracts I can trade?
QJ said...
It depends your broker, some DT margin is low, normally initial margin is around $6000 for ES, so to be safe, you can max trade 4 contract and carry over night.
say if you trade 4 contracts, each point of ES move will cost $200, 10 points wrong side more will eat up $2000 easily. if you are not careful, cuts here and there, very soon you will see your 25K acct becomes 20K easily, so start with paper trading first, and start only 1 contract, no matter how big your acct is.

Is there any 25k limit for ES daytrading?
Daytrading ES has no 25k limit, you can put 10k then start from only 1 contract, but please paper trading it before you put real money, it is high risk involved!!

How to do paper trading?
TA_Jetblue said...
IB has its paper trading account (you need to have a real account). I didn't use it and I don't remember whether it is delayed or not. I think it is not. The other way is to use IB as datafeed to NinjaTrader (NJ is free as long as you don't use it to enter real trade) and NJ's paper trading is pretty good. It even tries to simulate the fill of order you can feel the pressure when you see the price just moves away from your desired entry point. LOL. On the other hand, TradeStation has paper trade. But TS costs 99$ platform fee plus datafeed fee (maybe around $50). And it paper trading is fishy. As long as the price touches your price, you get filled and this will not happen in reality.

How to calculate the pivot point for ES?
QJ said...
I just use QT to give me ES pivots. other pivots I use:
http://www.livecharts.co.uk/pivot_points/pivot_points.php?symbol=%5Eusd
H and L piviots are called camarilla pivots in QT, here is a link explains
http://www.mataf.net/en/tools/pivot-points-camarilla
http://www.camarillaequation.com/
http://www.camarillaequation.com/trading-camarilla-equation.html
90ufo said...
QJ's pivot is on ES (including overnight). SPY or SPX pivot is during USA market hour only. (SPX and SPY are diffrent in QT, b/c SPX has no gaps, SPY has gaps). QT's default is have pre/after-mkt ON, to turn it off, right-mouse-botton, "view" => "show pre/after mkt" => turn off pre/after-mkt.
aFei said...
Why pivot point sometimes show on ES chart, sometime it is not?
If use QT and selected both Pivot and PivotExtra, my guess is : go to PivotExtra "Edit", make sure Pivot is visible, check "Show line labels" "show line price".
sometimes the value is far away from pivot/r1/s1. You need to do is to check the adjust check box. But I don't always check them all. The reason is that they all sqeeze together and the chart doesn't look good. I always check the points which is close to the current value.
Benmao said...
from QT, you can try the following to add pre/after mtk price
1) right click a chart;
2) choose "view...";
3) from "show pre/after market..default(..)",
choose the one you like;
from "select indicators..", you can check box to show the price label for some indicator, such as 20sma, pivot point, etc...

How to set up trailing stop?
QJ said...
Trailing stop can be preset at certain amount, I usually have preset 2-3 points, and I put trailing in as soon as order fill.

How to set stop for ES trading?
Badger said...
QJ said "shorted ES at the 50ema passed down", I always worry about fake broken. Any idea how set the short point (how much point below the 50ema: 0.5 or 1 point)?
same question for long: if I have long position, when 50ema broken, I need to exit, how much point below the 50ema I need to exit? Thanks.
Jingyi said...
BADGER,俺试着说, 这set stop 有很多经验在里面, 若可能的话,当然越紧越好, 尤其做FUTURE时, 要自己体会,0.5点若work, will be good
Badger said...
thanks jingyi, 0.5 point many time does not work, it is too tight. I found QJ normally trigger order almost at the point (for example, today the 50ema 855.4, I believe she short just around this point). I think she know if it is fake one.
TA_Jetblue said...
I think QJ mentioned that she pays attention to whether price cross EMA50 with volume or not. Well, trading is all about experience and details. EMA50 is a good support or resistance but using it blindly, you will be chopped to death sometime. It is my frustration too. I like to trade against S/R. Sometime I can get exact top and bottom but other times, I am just screwed up by chops. I tried to use so many different indicators when price apporoaches S/R but none of them really help me. I am wondering whether QJ has any suggestions
laogua said...
QJ, please answer this question