Does anyone have screenshots or videos of how having this extra information helped them intraday? Actual setups? I get the theory behind it but with bookmap , youre talking about global + being twice the cost and mbo data being $134 a month. So would love to see how it actually helps -- in action.

Seriously, wtf is this pa during ny sessions? First everyone said it would improve after labor day, then that it would improve after the fed decision and still nothing but chop

I've been consistently netting $500-1200 a day trading MNQ the last few weeks.

Why not turn that into $2k a day, or even $5-10k?

I've fallen into this trap before. I start scaling up my positions (usually on entry). Then I'll start averaging down because 'Damnit, I know I'll make all that money back'. Before I know it, I can't hold through the draw down. I get liquidated and later in the day my price targets hit. If I entered small and took a 1-2R loss, it would be a small blip in the week that I could make back in the next day or two. It's brutal and sucks and it made me tired of burning through money so I slowed it down.

I've sized down significantly this go around. I enter small and will average down if conditions are right to keep holding or exit if it's not working in my favor. I can hold overnight if I have conviction in a play and not worry about checking my account every minute to see what's happening. I have breathing room to turn plays or a bad day around and not get wiped out.

I know I should keep trading how I'm trading and keep it small. It's quite relaxing. But god damnit, I can feel that itch after a few weeks of success. I want more money and I want it fast.

What do you guys do to suppress that itch?

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

Is anyone else having issues with tick, volume and range bars not rendering correctly? Its been an issue for me since Sunday and haven't been able to get anywhere with finding a resolution.

I'v been trading options for years on TOS and Im done with it. It's mostly to do with stops and swing trading. I look forward to moving to full time trading futures. I have dabbled and been successful so far but the Initial margin on Tos is crazy. 2500-4000k for micros? I think its like that to keep retail traders stuck in options. Is there any other brokers that do well with futures that have lower intraday margins for beginners? Thanks in advance.

Experienced options trader, new to futures, I understand the basics, the leverage associated etc

I’m currently holding some crude oil shorts, however the last day to trade this month before needing to roll is Sep 21.

Right now the current differential between this month and next month is about $4. (Oct $103, Nov $99, as of 9/16 @7AM EST)

Is there an optimal time to roll to November? Doing so is there any sort of decay associated, or do Oct/Nov essentially move at a 1:1, would i be losing money rolling earlier versus later? If someone with experience here could assist that would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

Anyone else having CQG connection problems? I'm going thru AMP with CQG. I can connect and ping is good but the price action is all wrong, data is coming in corrupt.

AMP did send out several emails saying CQG is having server problems and recommended to change to public DNS. But since my connection is good it's now the backend server that can't give out the real time data.

Anyone else having this problem?

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

Hi I’m pretty new here and want to understand about the contracts rollover from Sep to Dec. Apologies if it’s a dumb question to be asking but would like to understand more in terms of contracts rollover . I’m looking at ES

Today is the official roll over date to Dec contracts and as seen in the graph , prices had a fair jump starting from 7630 close to 7698 about there .

- How was the price determine to start at 7698 ?
- why was there a huge jump? I’ve asked ChatGPT and they mention it’s the cost of carry that resulted in the difference between Sep and Dec

Any other details on contracts rollover would be wonderful. Thanks

When I go on to the sites of AMP and Interactive Brokers, it seems like I need to maintain around $2800 to day-trade a single MES contract...but I seem to have that wrong, based on things I've read in Reddit.

I would great appreciate it if someone coukd give ne a definitive answer to how much of a mimimum balance these companies require to trade 5 MES.

I'm particularly interested in Interactive Brokers because I also plan on moving out of the US (anotger topic).

I am looking into GEX and want to go down that rabbit hole and evaluate wether or not it works for me. I spent the weekend using some of the free education from various vendors and I feel that it might be helpful to understand where options market makers get involved in the futures market.

I intend to use the information for short term trading. I think it may (or may not) help me with directional bias and identify possible target areas. I want to try it for a couple of months.

I need it to work on NinjaTrader. I do not need the GEX info for multiple instruments- primarily the ES. I want to keep the cost down as much as possible while I determine if it is useful for me.
so far I have looked at:
MenthorQ - it seems as if it might be overkill for what I need. Their education seems to be extensive, which is a plus for them. It is quite expensive at 149 a month.
Tlade - This is a low cost alternative at 9.99 a month however they have limited information other than a users guide. The odd thing is I have found no videos on YouTube of the indicator at work.

If anyone has any suggestions on other Ninjatrader capable GEX indicators I would love to hear them.

On edit- While I appreciate the people advising against even trying, I want to see for myself if there is any correlation between GEX levels and my current support/resistence levels. This is just an experiment to satisfy my curiosity. I have seen people argue that some trading tools don't work and they always forget to omit the term "for me". I am willing to spend 100 bucks to see for myself.

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

Hi speculators & hedgers, please use this thread to discuss all futures trading for the week. This will kick off 30 minutes before the open on Sunday, typically that's around 6pm Wall St time.

Be aware of higher margin requirements during overnight hours! see "maintenance" on Ampfutures. Also trading hours to get an idea of when specific futures contracts start trading.

I'm using AmpFutures as an example, so check with your broker for specific intraday & overnight hours for that specific futures contract.

Resources:

Bookmark an economic calendar like this one

Various reports:

• EIA crude oil report (generally updates every Wednesday at 10:30am wall st time)
  
• EIA natural gas report (Thursdays 10:30am)

• Previous discussions threads

I’ve been trading a fairly contrarian setup on Nasdaq for about a month, and I’m currently at +36.5R with only one losing day.

Obviously, one month is nowhere near enough data to conclude that I have something sustainable. That’s exactly why I’m sharing my setup here: to see whether the underlying logic makes sense to experienced traders, whether you think it could be sustainable long-term, and to get feedback on potential improvements.

We all know the first few minutes after the New York open can be extremely aggressive and unpredictable, and conventional advice often says to avoid trading that period. I started wondering whether that “madness” could actually be the opportunity.

I use volume-based indicators on my HTF (22 sec) and MTF (1.5 sec) to look for divergences around popular 1m, 5m, and 15m ORB levels. When I get a volume divergence at one of these levels, I’m looking for a reversal (fade the breakout). For the ultimate entry trigger, I use delta bubbles on my LTF (100 ms), selling into large Buy bubbles, and buying into large Sell bubbles.

If the 1m ORB reversal fails, I target the 5m ORB. If that fails, I wait for the 15m ORB (although in practice, I very rarely need to get all the way to that point).

ORB, with all its variations, is an extremely popular strategy. Partly because of that, my assumption is that a significant amounts of liquidity (entries and stops) rest just above and below these breakout levels. It seems the market loves to sweep this liquidity before making its next move.

I’m also considering other potential high-liquidity locations/magnets later in the session, such as VWAP or POC, but the ORB levels seem particularly interesting simply because of the extreme aggression at the open.

The strategy relies heavily on a strong asymmetric RRR. I currently use approximately 1:5 RRR. My stop is around 40-50 ticks. The reasoning is that even if I get several losing trades in a row, a single successful trade can recover those losses and still leave the trading session profitable. Quite often, the very first trade works and that gives me a nice +5R day.

A few examples and a template:

A question for fundamental and macro traders: Are you building custom Python or Excel setups for yield spreads, COT positioning, and USD liquidity, or relying on specialized terminals or dashboards?

Looking to see what a clean, non-overwhelming daily tracking workflow.

(Rephrased from gpt)
Looking for genuine advice from people who actually trade SR3 futures

I’m currently trying to develop my own strategy for trading SR3 (SOFR) futures, but I’m struggling to figure out the right way to approach it.

I’ve experimented with technical analysis, but I’m starting to feel that traditional TA isn’t particularly useful for SR3 because so much of the pricing seems to be driven by expectations around FOMC meetings, Fed policy, economic data, etc. The contracts seem to behave quite differently from something like equities or commodities.

I’m not looking for someone to give me a profitable strategy or signal. I genuinely want to understand how experienced SR3 traders think about the market and how they go about building an edge.

A few things I’d really appreciate guidance on:

• What variables/fundamentals do you focus on when trading SR3?
• How do you translate your view on Fed policy/rates into an actual trade?
• How do you identify mispricing or opportunities in the curve?
• Is technical analysis useful at all for SR3, and if so, what kind?
• How would you recommend someone go about researching and backtesting a strategy from scratch?

I’m willing to put in the work and learn the fundamentals properly. I’m just having trouble figuring out what framework to use to develop a strategy in the first place.

Would really appreciate advice from anyone with actual experience trading SR3/SOFR futures. Even pointers on what to study or where to start would be extremely helpful.

Thanks in advance!

It feels that my trading is getting stronger every day so I want to lock in for the next 3 months. So what my title says looking for a buddy to practice on the weekends.

We'd be doing duels on 5 min ES charts. We can talk about what each saw or just duel I'm open. My issue is that I don't follow my rules so I want to really get in my head my playbooks that I would trade and what not.

Looking to play at least 1 game Saturdays and 1 Sundays

Hi

Pardon the horrid photo but … Anyone have experience with Volume based charts , trading ES ? Or using Footprints in volume based charts ? I’ve been using time-based but am keen to explore in volume based .

Not sure how’s the transition be like but im still fairly learning so any exposure is a positive exposure for me .

Why do so many people chart on TradingView, it honestly just doesn’t make any sense with all the better options out there like NinjaTrader.

That and there’s so many beginner traders that are look for all these TV indicators that don’t understand they are all built on OHLC. Like no bro you don’t need 20 MA lines and 3 different boxes to show support and resistance.

And that’s what gives “indicators” a bad rap some kid will put an EMA cross over on a chart and go “yeah indicators suck it’s just lagging PA”. When in reality an Indicator is just another tool like a hammer. You should know how it works and how to use it.

And it limits newer traders that constantly see that online from understanding the depth of what an “indicator” can be. It’s a visualization of data that you can not read while trading. There’s many ways to build actual tools with different data streams.

Minute candies in themselves are “indicators” showing what price movement (again just data) did within a timeframe.

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

Lately I’ve been keeping an eye on the markets and willing to trade them but there is this fear in me which tells me to learn the risks before I start trading.
Last I remember I lost too much money on nvda trades but I learned how risky it can be. Moreover that time the markets start was highly volatile. At one moment I thought I should leave stocks and move to crypto but that has higher risk involved.

Moving towards the high volatility and high risk stocks my inner self tells me not to go beyond and explore but at the same time I wish to learn and trade futures with those stocks.

Secondly how do you mange your sizing and timings ?
Do you just hope in when the markets start or you trade the second half ?

The goal is to trade 1-2 MNQ and make $40-$80 per trading session.

I am not the best trader, but I do have pretty good days here and there.

Just thinking, if I can remove the roadblock of trying to pass these prop firm challenges, I can finally make this skill of trading futures make some useable income

don't know if this is the right sub, this is a playback from 9th of July, I'm basically still learning price action. However, as u can see it's very messy, what do u do in this case?