Emini Risk Management

[eminifuturestrader]

I dabbled in futures last year when I started "trading" for the first time. I have since done most of my learing in the Forex market. I'm thinking about applying some of what I've learned in technical analysis back to the futures market.

One thing I'm struggling with is that it seems hard to manage risk, even with the emini's, due to the large dollar fluctuation per point change, i.e. $50 on the S&P, $100 on the Russell, $20 on the Nasdaq. The Dow is only $5 per point so when I do go back to futures I may be limited to the Dow.

One thing I've learned from my Forex education is that withhout impeccable risk management, you won't make it in the trading business. I have a small account size and with Forex it is easy to keep risk to 1% to 2% per trade by trading fractional lots in either a mini or micro account. I'd like to do the same with futures, but as an example if I wanted to limit my loss to $200 on a single emini S&P contract, my stop loss would need to be just 4 points away. It seems like this is hardly enough room to let the market breathe.

I was just curious if some of you other traders had any additional comments or insight into risk management trading the emini index futures.

Thanks.

 

[ZEPPO]

I dabbled in futures last year when I started "trading" for the first time. I have since done most of my learing in the Forex market. I'm thinking about applying some of what I've learned in technical analysis back to the futures market.

One thing I'm struggling with is that it seems hard to manage risk, even with the emini's, due to the large dollar fluctuation per point change, i.e. $50 on the S&P, $100 on the Russell, $20 on the Nasdaq. The Dow is only $5 per point so when I do go back to futures I may be limited to the Dow.

One thing I've learned from my Forex education is that withhout impeccable risk management, you won't make it in the trading business. I have a small account size and with Forex it is easy to keep risk to 1% to 2% per trade by trading fractional lots in either a mini or micro account. I'd like to do the same with futures, but as an example if I wanted to limit my loss to $200 on a single emini S&P contract, my stop loss would need to be just 4 points away. It seems like this is hardly enough room to let the market breathe.

I was just curious if some of you other traders had any additional comments or insight into risk management trading the emini index futures.


Thanks.

Have you considered trading ETFs?
Just a thought.

Eduardo.