Intraday Trading the US Index Futures

LuckyMind, great to hear from you, my friend.

HB is the line in the sand: Longs above and Shorts below.

Additionally, price stayed above the BPL, above TBL, and Chart Modes I & II are Green.

I just finished my first month of trading futures on a live account and thought I would post my results. It's been an interesting month adjusting to futures from forex. For background info, I've been demo trading futures for 3 months and have demo + live traded forex for about 5 years.

Demo vs live in forex is difficult, but demo vs live in futures is something else altogether...

The huge loss is from a single trade. I was holding a position overnight (my first one) and forgot to check the maintenance margin requirements for MJNK. Lo and behold, AMP automatically closed the position as soon as my equity dropped below $700. Also, knowing the daytrade and maintenance margins for 5-6 different instruments is still something I'm getting used to.

Another thing that caught me off guard when I first started was all of the fees - if I have a busy day and make $50 across 6-7 trades, I'll owe about $15-$20 in fees for that day which is pretty steep (AMP is my broker). Their demo platform doesn't include fees and doesn't seem to enforce overnight margin requirements (not to mention 0 slippage), so just a heads up to anyone out there demoing futures and raking in the dough, lol. And that's not counting the data fees which come out to $25/month. I think micro futures are a stepping stone for the minis because of the more favorable fee schedule, so making that transition will be a priority for me in the upcoming months.

Fees and regulations aside, I'm pretty happy with my trading. I'm maintaining a solid ~85% win rate with a 1:1 R:R for now, and I hope to continue that into the next month. I'm still just watching PA and trading trendlines, nothing fancy. Just gotta keep grinding it out and be mindful of the issues above. I fully admit I'm a beginner at futures so we'll see what the next month holds.

Journal Entry:

The Dream



The Reality

2 [LIVE] Trades: 2 Wins
3 [SIM] Trades: 2Wins, 1 Loss.

Trade One: Win +20

I missed the EvR entry at Half Back (HB). And by miss, I do not mean I did not see it, I mean I failed to pull the trigger. I took the Test (Spring) entry at HVZ (H). The market was in an uptrend (see the Dream), so I felt comfortable looking for longs.



Trade Two: Win+14. Net +34

I took a Long from a Spring that "bounced" off the Balance Point Line (BPL).




Trades Three, Four, and Five: 1 Loss -21. 2 Wins +121. Net +100

It's official. I should give up on the idea of trading LIVE and only trade SIM. I could charge people to watch me trade in SIM for money.

Two trades today.
Trade1
The Median line showed an expansion of price so I was going for new highs. Though better of it when price reached the bearish engulf of the tail (highlighted by the arrow).



Trade2
Finally caught on to the fact the NQ was selling off. Didn't expect the big drop but heck I'll take it!


Looking back there were some good shorts but I kept thinking about reversal.

Friends, may I ask a question concerning the US30Index? There is a daily move at 15:00 GMT that looks suspiciously like a "fix", yet the London close is an hour later. Any idea what this activity is? Just curious...

Thanks!

Hey guys, anyone have experience going through services like TopStep or Earn2Trade?

Not sure why this thread died.

I took two trades today.

Chart dump, thread bump.

Sorry, I'm back. I've been working on adding a new system to trade alongside the ES, in the NQ. It's been through lots of iterations, but have gotten it to where I want it.

The goal now is no longer to find setups and increase trades/day, but rather increase size/trade using the setups I have. I have selected a reasonable daily profit target for the day, which is achievable either through ES or NQ, or a combination with a goal of rapidly compounding.

Notes on chart for today's trades.

So far for today. Took what would have been a reasonable trade had the signal bar been better, was feeling ancy from waiting so long which is never a good reason to do anything. But made up for it on the very clear nested wedges (several ways to draw it) at the overnight low and yesterday's end of trend down.

Initial plan was to hold that second position all day, but figure I may get a chance at better prices as I think this still might need to come back down a bit more to really create a lasting trend up. Alternatively, perhaps it stops going up. At the very least its lunch time so would imagine it stalls for awhile.

2 [SIM] Trades: 2 Wins.

Trade 1:

Trying something new. Not really, bringing concepts together to, hopefully, create a cohesive methodology. I felt good starting the day and was just excited to see the Market through this "new" prism. The truly new part is a commitment to scalping and not trying to position trade. A large percentage of my trades (both in SIM and LIVE ) have been in profit before turning against me. Therefore, I believe taking 12 ticks instead of trying to capture 120 ticks should produce fewer losers and less stress.

The first trade set- up during the pre-market.



Trade 2:

I can't really say for sure, but I got the impression Tom Williams scalped a lot, always felt like he was in trades for only a few bars.

Journal Entry:

I woke up feeling good and ready to face the Market. Ready to follow it. Ready to surrender to it. Ready to want what it wants.

I tried to log into Sierra Charts but could not. After many attempts, I had to email Infinity Futures Support. Despite this issue, I remained grounded. During the process of figure out the issue and finding a solution, I connected to the SC free feed to look at Forex and Oil.

Two Trades: 2 wins

Trade 1:

Trade one was in the Oil CFD. As this was the CFD and not the futures contract, I had to use the SIM in Sierra rather than the DOM. I haven't really bothered to learn how to set it up properly, so I just buy and sell with no real stop or target set at the outset. If this would have been Oil Futures, I would have been looking for a 12 tick profit and a pre-set (but usually changed smaller once in) stop of 8 ticks. I've decided to focus on the ES and Oil. I'm just starting to look at Oil so the numbers may well change.

Don't want to say much about this trade, but here it is:



Trade 2:

Once I was finally able to connect to Futures Data, I set my sights back on the ES.

Trade Debrief:

(1) A wide spread DOWN candle that closed near its lows on increasing volume. This candle closed in the Supply/Demand Delta Zone so my interest is peaked. The next interval closes UP which means there must have been some Buying in this candle. Note this is Volume Spread Analysis (VSA) talking, not necessarily the OrderFlow-yet.

(2) This interval closes higher but makes a lower low on volume less than the previous two intervals. Therefore, I saw it as No Supply (NS). I saw that the Sellers were backing away as evidenced by the Sequential Decline. What I did not see, however, was any evidence of a high level of Buying Aggression.

(3) This was the entry candle. I entered during the construction of this interval once I saw the BUY Imbalance at or near the low and a COT above the previous interval's COT. Delta was Positive at the time and remained as such at the close. The previous interval closed with a Negative Delta of only -4, but the Delta Diff went Positive.

I was filled at 76.50.

(4) Profit target hit and positon filled. While the initial stop was 8 ticks, I immediately raised the stop to just below the BUY Imbalance, making the stop 4 ticks. Always try to mitigate the risk.

Chart Dump/Thread Bump.

Internet issues this morning.

I have not been posting many ES charts because I have been mainly trading the NQ utilizing a different system/ideology. I am still watching both and will take ES trades when they are there, but typically I am hitting my daily goal with NQ prior to a reasonable setup in the ES (and after hitting the daily goal, I switch back to SIM for the remainder of the session - SIM does have a purpose, upon doubling the SIM account, I increase the live daily goal by 10% and restart the SIM account).

I posted something awhile back similar to this on the YM, but the range expansion and volume in the NQ is better so morphed it into NQ and the management and other rules have been fine tuned somewhat. I also morphed it into using tick charts to capture the greater volatility at open, and slow the chart down once volatility is reduced:

1. Track prior highs and lows, looking for HH/HL as uptrend, and LH/LL as downtrend.
2. In uptrend, when the last HL is broken, then look for the a pullback to short. Vice versa for long. This is the "First Pullback" trade.
3. Enter on a "signal bar" - could be anything really, but have some pre-defined setups programmed so I get an alert. These included engulfing, haramis, 3 bar reversals, tweezers, a few other things...
4. Once price reaches the prior high (or low) from where the pullback started, move to BE.
5. Trail by significant HH/HL and/or exit at significant S/R.
6. Subsequent pullbacks can be traded, but require additional confirmation (at broken S/R, two leg pullback, double bottom/top flags, etc.).

Today's trade was exited at Friday's high for +52 ticks, but obviously could have been held for much more. But I am particularly fond of 1 and done days achieving goal on the first trade.

Sell climax at y-low (fbo of y-low) + inside bar.



And two trades in NQ. Done for the day.

People trade in all sorts of ways. If moon-cycles were to provide you with consistency in profits, who would I be to say that that is an incorrect way to trade?

But to answer the question, yes, I'm sure pro-traders incorporate volume and range analysis into their trading.

I would agree with you and have found some consistency with what may be considered a "less complicated" approach. I studied VSA-style analysis for a long time and came to the conclusion that price action signals (i.e. the bars alone without volume) provided similar 'setups' to me and so I removed the volume from the chart.

However, everyone's brains work differently; so while more in-depth analysis may or may not result in an increased win rate, it may provide confirmations to help aid in 'pulling the trigger' and have more confidence in one's position.

I have not really studied intra-bar order-flow analysis and will not study at it as I don't see a need. However, professional traders most certainly do use intra-bar order-flow analysis: I believe that was previously (before internet) how the vast majority of intraday trading was conducted (in the pit). I would imagine these order-flow bars are essentially the modern equivalent of 'being in the pit'.