Index futures

[mullet_fish]

Is holding overnight a good idea? Do "seasoned" traders ever do this? How often do I stand to get wiped out? Has this happened to any of you guys holding positions overnight?

[Rams]

I never have, never will.....I trade the ALSI futures daily, always close out position end of day.....there was talk of reducing the margin for intraday....will be a good idea and possibly will get more traders trading ALSI,,,,,,if you were short overnight, well, your stop would not have been much help......

[SimonPB]

I hold over night all the time, some of my lazy ALSI trades run for months on end ..

[#4]

its all a question of risk vs reward. If you are geared to make profit on 200pts, then holding overnight is suicide. If you are geared, like Simon, to make profit on a 2000pt move, then your system most definitely requires you to hold overnight. Some people use futures to hedge their portfolio - they will also hold for several weeks even.

[SimonPB]

I also tweak risk per trade to manage stop slippage .. in other words rather than risk 2% per trade i risk 1% per trade and sometimes get hit harder as stop slips ..

[Cherry]

If you held overnight - last night - like I did, ouch!!!! The system wouldn't allow me to trade around 5ish last night so I couldn't exit my short position.

[Cherry]

If you held overnight - last night - like I did, ouch!!!! The system wouldn't allow me to trade around 5ish last night so I couldn't exit my short position.