Emini Futures Day Trader

Since our inception, Emini Futures Day Trader has been totally focused on building a strategic, quality automated futures trading system.

The growth in the electronic trading of stocks, futures and options and the accompanying increase in volume, lower commissions and speed of order execution have created market data networks that support high frequency trading by the retail customer, provided the trader has adequate computing and network bandwidth. The latest generation of PCs and high-speed Internet broadband access complete the necessary technical infrastructure for high frequency retail trading. The individual trader is able to keep pace with the sophisticated institutional trading desks while maintaining the flexibility inherent to independent, small-scale trading decisions.

Desktop trading platforms now offer the individual trader an abundance of tools and historical data for developing, backtesting and executing automated strategies. Trade strategy algorithm development, backtest and execution are widespread. Discretionary trading is increasingly being replaced with trade strategies that can be backtested to determine efficacy and executed automatically or semi-automatically with a goal of reducing human emotion from the trade equation. Trade algorithms can be programmed, backtested and tuned by the individual trader and then executed against the market with little real-time oversight.

Simply put, a system can be devised with a set of rules a trader can use to make buy and sell decisions. It can be more complicated and have hundreds of conditions that must be met before a trade is made. A good system not only will include entry signals but also will account for exits and stops. In development of our trading system, the system was kept as simple as possible. The system is long only futures contracts. No complex futures strategies are utilized. Overdoing things doesn't make a system better; on the contrary, it can take away from a good system. There are hundreds of combinations of indicators and ideas a trader can look at and use.

This proprietary trading system's rules work in most markets and market environments with only a few variables, however, the current strategy "EminiES" is limited to trading only the Emini S&P 500 (ES) futures contract. In addition, the system contains a strict money management plan. If you do not know how to manage capital, there is little chance that you can make money as a trader. Knowing how to manage risk is more important to a trader's bottom line than are finding and exiting trades. We believe that money management is even more important than trade selection and employ a strict money management program composed of knowing how much to risk at any time, what total exposure should be, where to have a cutoff point, and position size. Money management is a part of the exit strategy as stops and position size will be determined by risk levels based on equity.

Emini Futures Day Trader is a financial publication of general circulation and therefore any information provided should not be construed as individual investment advice. We are not licensed financial planners, financial advisors, stockbrokers, investment brokers, or investment advisors. Before making any trades, check with a financial planner, investment advisor, tax advisor, or anyone else that controls your finances to make sure futures trading is right for you.