“The moment I put on a trade, it is already beyond my control. It is useless to worry over the outcome. All I can do is to put in a protective stop, and limit the risk I take.”
The recent string of losses had left me in a dejected state, but trader Michael Martin’s words sank right into my heart and I was able to find the strength to move on.
Over the weekend, I had withdrawn my money from Moomoo and posted my margin in Interactive Brokers (IBKR).
Simultaneously, I had reviewed my recent trades and thought about how I can do better. The losing trades are still too small a sample set to invalidate my system. I shall continue to execute in accordance to my rules and review again when I have a larger pool of trades.
Besides a problem on trading permission for some futures (which I am checking with IBKR support), I am good to go.
Over the Lunar New Year festive period, I did a transaction cost analysis of my futures trades executed via the Moomoo trading platform.
I realized Moomoo was charging a platform fee of 1 USD per contract in a trade. For example, here is the breakdown of fees for buying 9 contracts of Micro AUD/USD Mar25 (M6AH5):
Commission = 8.91
Platform Fee = 9.00
Exchange Fee = 2.16
Regulatory Fee = 0.18
GST = 1.82
Total = 22.07 USD
This is actually quite expensive for a single leg. Hence, I have decided to switch to Interactive Brokers (IBKR).
The benefits of using IBKR are multi-fold. One advantage is that unlike Moomoo, there is no limitation on the futures contracts available for trading on the platform. This means I can trade the various CME Micro FX futures, which gives me a more refined exposure per trade.
IBKR is also lauded for its strengths by various authoritative websites. For example, Investopedia rated IBKR as one of the best platforms for trading futures. [article]
The third advantage is that IBKR offers a desktop trading platform, while Moomoo only offers a mobile app interface. The tiny font size in the app is challenging for me. I prefer to see things more clearly on a PC/laptop screen.
I am withdrawing my funds from Moomoo over the next few days. Meanwhile, I will complete the registration for an IBKR account and post my margin. This transition also gives me a needed pause in my trading, especially after experiencing the 13 percent drawdown.
The Mechanical Trader 