Does anyone really make money trading futures?

Does anyone really make money trading futures?

I am just wondering.

I know I don't. I have tried all the indicators and the chat room gurus, and none of them make money.

I have a suspicion that a lot of the chat rooms for emini trading are just for hobbyists and market enthusiasts and not for serious traders trying to make a business out of trading.

For any new traders out there please be very cautious of paying anyone to mentor you or signing up for training or a chat room. From what I have seen the only people making money in these deals is the mentor, the chat room owner or the author of the training manual.

I would love to hear from you if you are a successful trader making 20% off your account or better over the past year. I know only 5 to 10 percent of traders are supposed to be successful, but I am beginning to think that zero percent of traders are successful over the long haul. Certainly anyone can have a streak of luck and rack up a few good months where they dramatically increase their account size, but these people are normally big risk takers and eventually they blow out their accounts by taking the exact same risks that help double their accounts in the first place.

Thanks in advance for any response.

Ahh, that's the key question...good point Hunter..are you doing your trading demo today?

Bruce

quote:

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Originally posted by hunterone

You were trading as though it was a line in the sand. How do you know when momentum is changing? How do you confirm what you are seeing in a trading area?

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Hello Bruce, I did my trade calling today for a bit but had a computer issue so I am going to do it again in Paltalk on Friday. I think the problem had to do with Skype being a memory hog. After I closed Skype things improved.

I have been told that I can start a Paltalk room that can have up to 10 members. Based on that I have room for 4 more people so if anyone else wants to join up for a fun filled day of trading hijinxs let me know before Friday. I dont intend to do this again after Friday. I am happy to help and answer questions but it does cut down on my income.

Hello Hunterone,

Yes, I would really like to sit in on Friday. I have a Skype and Paltalk name. I am not sure how to contact you. But if you can let me know where to go I will certainly be there.

Also, I can see your point about my trade yesterday having been a position trade in a day trade time frame. It was a mistake. I am trying to just focus on day trading so I shouldn't even be looking at setups like that requiring more risk.

I think I am pretty good at determing market direction. But I am weak at knowing when to pull the trigger, what price to target, and where to place my stop loss. Probably all the major reasons why I am struggling. Also, I am weak in determing when that direction changes.

Daytrading, as far as single print TPO's, I am going to look into back testing this. I have not ever traded like that, but I have heard of people doing so. Overall, Market Profile is something that I really like to use, but I use it to give me a possible trend (above or below the POC), and haven't tried to use it for fading, but it certainly is worth looking into.

Thank you to you both for your comment.

And Hunterone, please let me know about Friday and I'll be there.

quote:

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Originally posted by Greg

Thanks for the reply, DayTrading.

It does all come down to percentages and numbers.

...

It seems like a 2pt target with a 2pt stop will work about
50% of the time. Again you break even to the market and
loss to the broker. Or if I use a 4pt target and a 2pt stop
I will only win 1/3 times, but still break even with the market
and pay the broker.

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What you have outlined is possibly the most common psychological trap traders fall into.

So now that you have identified this fundamental impediment to your profitability, what is the solution ?

pt emini,

Don't have any solutions.

I hear a lot of traders talk about psychology.
I am not for sure I understand why.
I can see that if poor disicpline forces a trader to stray from their
plan then psychology is having an adverse effect on their trading.
Or if a trader has no plan and is just trying to constantly trade on
thier feelings of the market.

However, in the trade I described the other day I had a plan. I executed
the plan. And it just simply did not work. So I don't blame poor psychology
for my loss, I just blame the plan. My plan did not take into account the
fact that the market would get choppy at that area, and as a result I lost.

Simple as that.

But I don't have any solutions.

Greg,

I'm not advertising here, and everyone knows me well enough by now to know I'm not trying to sell anyone anything, but you might check out my website. I have over 250 free commentary in the archive, and many free articles on various aspects of trading. My approach is not for everyone, in fact, it is only for those that really want a detailed approach that takes a lot of time to master (and, like any profession, many won't ever master the craft they are pursuing).

Nonetheless, there is a lot of free material there from a resource basis, from someone who looks for complex, multifaceted, synergistic setups, and shies away from 'simple'. You might get some value out of some of it, and it's all free, you don't have to buy anything, sign up for anything, or give anyone any information. I hope this helps.

Greg and anyone else. I have set up a paltalk room for friday. the name is "es trading today" hope to see you there on friday. I should have the room open at 9 est if not earlier.

Greg - the "trap" i referred to is that of thinking only in terms of small wins and small losses...add the occasional random big win into your equations and see how everything changes...

If your limiting your trading strategy to an equal R:R with no big wins, then you will need to consistently exceed 70% win rate to make any real money at this...

Leading to the problem we see in newer traders that try this equal R:R approach. They end up with a series of small wins and small losses along with the occasional random big loss mixed in, which of course is the traditional recipe for failure in this business.

Did my last day of trade calling on Friday. The good news is based on the e-mails I have received everyone that followd my trades made money. The base contracts netted 7 points and the trailers netted 10.25 points. I don't think anyone got this much since their entries and exits would have come a bit after mine but I haven't asked for exact numbers nor will I .
The purpose was to show you can trade on a consistent profitable basis. I have done this 3 times now and all 3 days were profitable for those following my trades.
The bad news is I don't forsee doing this again in this fashion. I found calling trades more stressful than I anticipated.

I have received some requests to teach my methods. If there is real interest I would be willing to do this but I would have to charge. To teach would take at least a week and perhaps more then I would have to trade call again for another week at least untill everyone was able to see what I am seeing. I would provide all my charts,settings etc. How much I would charge would be based on how many people were interested. I would want to come close in total to what I would be giving up by not trading. I would want to do this the week between x-mas and new years. That is a slow week so good for teaching and I would not have to lose much money if I taught then.

If there is no interest that is ok. There is no one magic method. I demonstrated you can make money on a regular basis trading and therefore can feed your family and lead a good life from trading alone.

Good trading to everyone.

I base this on the fact that I have been trading 21 contracts on the e-mini for several years usually only trade 3 hours a day and avg $267 per contract per day. I was also on the floor at the cbot and the cme in the late 80s.

I am not offering to teach because that would be a waste of my time and your money.

Jim is correct. I am not selling anything.

After reading this whole thread it seems to me that Hunterone has done the old bait and switch. Above I have posted some quotes that he has mentioned previously in this thread. He starts out saying how he not selling anything and now the last post is well hes had several inquires in teaching his method. I am sure it will cost a pretty penny, if his daily rate of return is correct, some of you guys may have to fork over $5000, for what may I ask. A guy on the internet that did some calls and might of made some money? well he's been trading 21 contracts in the emini for several years, get some broker stmts from lets say 5 yrs ago, and see if he really has been trading 21 lots for several years? also nice flavor about working on the cme and cbot well in what capacity,how can you verify this info, or is just another piece of bait?

Guys, just do your own Due Diligence on Hunterone and his claims before you purchase his system? How do you know that what he teaches will fit your trading style? what if it is to subjective for you to trade?how long will it take to learn, by his own accord he states that learning to trading takes thousands of screen hours, so he has a built in excuse for your failure?

Hunterone, I mean no disrespect to you, but the thread just read really Fishy and if you are the real deal, I commend you for reaching out and trying to help your fellow trader and not just pulling a scam!

Seems like a lot of:
Voodoo

I consistently profit from futures/futures options, but it took me a long time to figure out the best way for me to do so.

While a set of trading rules is very important, I have found that it is just as, maybe even MORE important, to develop "trading callouses" from getting your butt handed to you repeatedly along the way.

Here's the thing: Any set of rules will only work until they don't. It is normal human psychology that there will come a time (again and again) where you deviate from the rules because A) you have had a string of losses, B) you have had a string of wins and now you have a loss and can't believe you're really supposed to "lose this one," C) you get greedy, D) you get scared for whatever reason, or E) any one of a thousand other things that will cause you to screw up.

I had ups and downs for many years until I thought I had it figured out and had a couple of years of really solid profits. I had my own private island picked out :) (not really, but I did have a condo in mind O/N an island). Then came the financial crisis of 2008 and I learned that while I had a generally good strategy, because times were good I had not developed an appropriate risk control system.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars later... (and that didn't take long at all!) I learned the hard way that my strategy was woefully inadequate when the unexpected happened. It took me a while to brush myself off, but eventually I did.

Since sometime in 2009 my cumulative returns are somewhere around 450%. Over the past 9 years I've found that proper risk control continues to be where I tend to fall short, so I've had some choppiness during this time. About two years ago I tightened things up some more to try to make for a smoother equity curve... this mean that, theoretically, my losing months should NOT be as large as in the past, but my winning months will also not be as large as they were in the past.

That's okay though -- even my cumulative success over the past 9-10 years, when averaged out by month, comes to < 2% a month. I suspect that 2% a month, long term, is about where I'll stay, but the ride should just be smoother along the way.

A return like that may or may not be enough for a particular person--it is for me--but keep in mind if you want to shoot for the stars there's a really good chance you're going to eventually crash land back on earth. It really does come down to being adequately capitalized and having a reasonable return be "enough" for you. By all means, trade even with a small account, because you need that experience to get to the point where you'll know what you're doing when you have the larger account. Just don't expect to turn a tiny account into a massive one along the way or you will probably be disappointed.

-PDG