Wednesday, July 07, 2010 7:38:07 PM
Hey all...been a while since I posted on the Den but I'm still around and holding my C and E shares. The C board seems to be degenerating into Yahoo-like posts recently. Wow.
Anyway, my question is this...my trading cash is currently all locked up (pun intended) in C and E, so I have no cash to trade the F's for real right now (which is killing me, by the way). However, I will have about $8-10K in another month, but it's money that I'll need to use to live off of starting a couple months after that. I was thinking, however, that I could trade the F's with it and make enough to pull some out as needed while still trying to build up the core amount. I'd also only be able to trade the first 60-80 minutes of the day before dropping the kids off at school and heading into work.
I've been trying this scenario on paper (using the 1 min charts), but the problem is that the commissions are killing me with such a small principle amount as in that first 60-80 minutes I may make 6-12 round trip trades on the 1 min charts which is ~$200 in commissions (at $9.99 a trade). Since it's a percentage game, that $200 dollars translates to 2% a day (or 10% a week). On paper, I've been managing around 8%-14% a week only trading that first 60-80 minutes depending on what the market is doing. That would be great if I didn't have to give up 10% of it each week in commissions.
Has anybody else tried anything similar (e.g. smaller principle amounts or only trading a small part of the day)? Any suggestions? I've tried going with the 5 min trades to reduce the number, but that first hour often isn't enough time to get in and out of a 5 min trade.
I also found a broker (MB Trading) that was rated very highly by Barrons for day trading. They only charge $4.95 a trade and seems to have very good execution times and tools. Does anybody use them? Obviously, slashing the commission in half makes a huge difference with the smaller principle.
Any ideas are welcome. Thanks.
Of course, if someone could just induce the CDIV squeeze in the next month, that would also solve my problem by dramatically increasing the principle amount I could use to trade the F's.
lol
Anyway, my question is this...my trading cash is currently all locked up (pun intended) in C and E, so I have no cash to trade the F's for real right now (which is killing me, by the way). However, I will have about $8-10K in another month, but it's money that I'll need to use to live off of starting a couple months after that. I was thinking, however, that I could trade the F's with it and make enough to pull some out as needed while still trying to build up the core amount. I'd also only be able to trade the first 60-80 minutes of the day before dropping the kids off at school and heading into work.
I've been trying this scenario on paper (using the 1 min charts), but the problem is that the commissions are killing me with such a small principle amount as in that first 60-80 minutes I may make 6-12 round trip trades on the 1 min charts which is ~$200 in commissions (at $9.99 a trade). Since it's a percentage game, that $200 dollars translates to 2% a day (or 10% a week). On paper, I've been managing around 8%-14% a week only trading that first 60-80 minutes depending on what the market is doing. That would be great if I didn't have to give up 10% of it each week in commissions.
Has anybody else tried anything similar (e.g. smaller principle amounts or only trading a small part of the day)? Any suggestions? I've tried going with the 5 min trades to reduce the number, but that first hour often isn't enough time to get in and out of a 5 min trade.
I also found a broker (MB Trading) that was rated very highly by Barrons for day trading. They only charge $4.95 a trade and seems to have very good execution times and tools. Does anybody use them? Obviously, slashing the commission in half makes a huge difference with the smaller principle.
Any ideas are welcome. Thanks.
Of course, if someone could just induce the CDIV squeeze in the next month, that would also solve my problem by dramatically increasing the principle amount I could use to trade the F's.
lol
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