What are the best markets for day trading?

[JohnnyForex]

Hello everyone,

It seems like the ES contract is the number one choice for most day traders and I initially planned to trade this myself, but I want to consider other options as well.

What about the NQ and the YM?

Or currency futures?

Is there more noise in the ES compared to these contracts?

I will know more in time as I get more market experience, but some advice on the way is always welcomed

Regards,

Johnny

 

[Mr Flibble]

US Penny stocks AMEX using L2. Must be high liquidity. Not that hard to find use Pinksheets.com. Not very orthodox probably best to ask other sheeple

 

[Pat494]

I like the S&P500 because
1. with 500 top stocks its more stable than most eg Dow has only 30 which are also weighted
2. Its cheaper to play
3. single stocks can be hugely affected by events like death of CEO, govt announcements etc.

 

[nine]

If you are in Norway you might consider

ESTX50
Bund
Dax when you get more adventurous.

 

[PadderFX]

Forex seems quite popular?

 

[The Expert]

Hello everyone,

It seems like the ES contract is the number one choice for most day traders and I initially planned to trade this myself, but I want to consider other options as well.

What about the NQ and the YM?

Or currency futures?

Is there more noise in the ES compared to these contracts?

I will know more in time as I get more market experience, but some advice on the way is always welcomed

Regards,

Johnny

You can successfully Daytrade any market, providing, you know what you are doing!

Be very careful taking advice from others, as, you are the one who will lose YOUR money if you decide to mess around with the big players, so, maybe it is best to try various markets at first, with very small risk, until you at least get a feel for how, why, and when, they move the way they do

You are welcome.

TE

 

[GladiatorX]

3. single stocks can be hugely affected by events like death of CEO

You just gave me an idea....

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My faviourite market is the ES, however i would not recommend it!

Go with a non-stock indice related futures contract for instance corn, that way, it'll all be fresh, and you won't have a lot of pre-conceptions or get a lot of crap put into you from all the media sources and from all these opinions etc, there are fewer sources of information (Therefore less to track...everything in one clear place), ... Less news items to montior with something like corn too, more linear, less variables affecting it, more easily trackable variables, more clearly direct variables such as the weather, real underlying supply/demand for an actually commodity (Not a share in a company) and with that it is easier to see real world supply/demand...

and if your not interested in doing that; trade the stock indices that has the biggest tick range on an average day (Easiest to day trade).

So maybe corn, crude oil, gold ...
And if your going with a stock indice, then ICE TF contract or CME YM contract.

 

[kimo'sabby]

Hello everyone,

It seems like the ES contract is the number one choice for most day traders and I initially planned to trade this myself, but I want to consider other options as well.

What about the NQ and the YM?

Or currency futures?

Is there more noise in the ES compared to these contracts?

I will know more in time as I get more market experience, but some advice on the way is always welcomed

Regards,

Johnny

You do not choose a market, your market will choose you.

The question is:

Why?

If you can't answer this question, then you do not stand any chance.

 

[The Expert]

You do not choose a market, your market will choose you.

The question is:

Why?

If you can't answer this question, then you do not stand any chance.

Why :?: indeed KS

You might be a little off with the "not stand a chance" bit, as, any person can change if they so desire, in fact, many will have to change if they want to make money trading, but, most will never change, for, they are too lazy to do the work themselves and want IT handed to them on a plate

There is an old saying that goes something like this,

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

TE

 

[wackypete2]

You just gave me an idea....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My faviourite market is the ES, however i would not recommend it!

Go with a non-stock indice related futures contract for instance corn, that way, it'll all be fresh, and you won't have a lot of pre-conceptions or get a lot of crap put into you from all the media sources and from all these opinions etc, there are fewer sources of information (Therefore less to track...everything in one clear place), ... Less news items to montior with something like corn too, more linear, less variables affecting it, more easily trackable variables, more clearly direct variables such as the weather, real underlying supply/demand for an actually commodity (Not a share in a company) and with that it is easier to see real world supply/demand...

and if your not interested in doing that; trade the stock indices that has the biggest tick range on an average day (Easiest to day trade).

So maybe corn, crude oil, gold ...
And if your going with a stock indice, then ICE TF contract or CME YM contract.

Very interesting observation. I never thought about corn futures that way. Although, it kinda takes all the fun out of trading

Peter

 

[EmotionIsTheBigEvel]

What market depends first and only on you!

First make sure you have found an edge on the market!

If you have found an edge on ONE market you can go and watch if that edge also works on an other market! You will find out that no market is the same!

 

[rpuk]

I would agree with some of the other posts here.....I primarily trade the spx500 but every now and then get a little bored and start trading too many markets and thats when I normally start to lose and have to reign myself in slightly so that I am not focusing on to much fundamental information.

You definately need to look at your risk profile and also the times when you are likely to be trading...I like the US markets as they fit better with my daily life timewise and like someone else mentioned then spx500 can be easier on your margin requirements especially when new to this game.

 

[JohnnyForex]

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your replies and observations.

I am currently making an excel sheet to compare the various markets: futures on equities, treasuries, currencies and commodities.

I am no longer convinced that I will be trading the ES contract, even though I have demotraded it successfully for the last two days

It seems like the ATR of the ES is rather small compared to other contracts that I`m considering and that is not necessarily sexy for a daytrader.

The only thing that I am pretty much decided on is that I will trade futures exclusively and I will choose one market to master.

I`ll post my findings if any one is interested. In the meanwhile, keep them suggestions coming

All the best,

Johnny

 

[>Apocalypto<]

Very interesting observation. I never thought about corn futures that way. Although, it kinda takes all the fun out of trading

Peter

This is one of the main reasons I decided to move all very short term trading over to CME/NYMEX Crude. not much attention compared to FX. Still trade FX on the 60 min charts but all 5 min and 10 min on Crude.

I would also like to go back to Feeder cattle and softs like corn but aussie time zone anit the best for it!

 

[JohnnyForex]

Hello all,

Does anyone know if it is possible to obtain ATR values for the various futures contracts on CME for free anywhere?

I found a great resource for stocks (stockcharts.com), but I have yet to find something similar for futures.

I am also looking for average daily volume, but I think I saw this somewhere on CME.

Thanks in advance,

Johnny

 

[JohnnyForex]

Never mind, guys.

ADV is posted monthly on CME so I found that statistic there.

I must have messed up something earlier, because suddenly Ninjatrader was very co-operative and I could obtain the ATR for all the contracts I needed, except the e-mini euro and yen, which in truth are not important to me anyway (way too low volume).

I attached the sheet if anyone is interested. I could perhaps have presented it better visually, but it does the job

 

[gedward3]

Never mind, guys.

ADV is posted monthly on CME so I found that statistic there.

I must have messed up something earlier, because suddenly Ninjatrader was very co-operative and I could obtain the ATR for all the contracts I needed, except the e-mini euro and yen, which in truth are not important to me anyway (way too low volume).

I attached the sheet if anyone is interested. I could perhaps have presented it better visually, but it does the job

Johnny that file doesnt come out properly. All the data is messed up.

 

[JohnnyForex]

Johnny that file doesnt come out properly. All the data is messed up.

That`s odd. It works just fine here. Do you use an older version of Excel?

Did anyone else get it to work?

I`ll attach it one more time, but this time with the older file-format.

 

[wackypete2]

That`s odd. It works just fine here. Do you use an older version of Excel?

Did anyone else get it to work?

I`ll attach it one more time, but this time with the older file-format.

The original file you posted gave me problems too but I eventually got it to open. The 2nd one opened fine on both Excel and OpenOffice from Sun Microsystems.

Peter

 

[gedward3]

That`s odd. It works just fine here. Do you use an older version of Excel?

Did anyone else get it to work?

I`ll attach it one more time, but this time with the older file-format.

Works fine now Johnny.

Thanks