How To Trade The MES Directly From the ES Chart Using NinjaTrader Software
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UPDATED 05-08-2020: Another trader sent me this video that walks you through this setup. I have not tried this yet, so I can not comment on it, but thanks to Bart for sharing it. Hopefully it will be helpful and solve some of the issues that others are having. When I can find some free time, I may try and open a chart and set this up myself and if so, I will make a video and walk through it slowly step by step. For now, I am posting this video in hopes it will help some of you.
As promised, I am posting the instructions on how to trade the MES Directly from the ES chart using NinjaTrader. It appears that this works for both versions 7 and 8. I have not personally done this, but several other traders have tested it and say it works well. Feel free to post your results for others to see in the comments below if you try it.
Basically you are watching and trading the ES chart, but your trades will actually be triggered and executed in the MES. I like the idea of this, as you get to watch and trade the ES, but with much less leverage and risk while dipping your toes into live trading.
The instructions are in a Microsoft Word file that you can download by clicking on the “download” button below. Enjoy and please post your feedback in the comments after using it. Thanks to Dan, who is one of our members, for providing these instructions.
Comments
kittegory May 5, 2020 at
For those that are experiencing chart distortion due to the nature of the Daily bar only being transparent and not completely removed from the chart:
1) set the ‘Days to load’ in the ‘Time Frame’ Properties to 0
2) disable/un-check ‘Auto scale’ in the ‘Visual’ Properties
Also an easier way to make the MES chart transparent is to select the ‘Line on Close’ Chart style and make the color Transparent instead of having to go through all the Candle color options to make them all transparent.
Additionally, an alternative way to put both ES and MES on the same chart is in the ‘Visual’ Properties, select Panel 1 for both Instruments.
JMLtrades May 5, 2020 at
Thank You Dan for this, i’m going to download the file and try it out! super cool!
jayb3430 May 5, 2020 at
When I try to zoom in using the y axis my EMA changes
efrishman May 5, 2020 at
Thanks Dan!
Mark B May 6, 2020 at
Thanks for this! My EMA is flat, any idea where I went wrong?
Curtisg May 6, 2020 at
Im not sure what I am doing wrong but the candles seem to be overlapping each other and not charting correctly. I followed the directions exactly. Kinda bummed was hoping it was gonna work.
JMLtrades May 8, 2020 at
wow I love a video! this helps a ton more than the written instructions.
(im a visual learner) going to try it. will update on how it goes.
JMLtrades May 9, 2020 at
ok, first, THANK YOU BART for the great video!
I tried this yesterday and it worked flawlessly.
I use NT8. It did do a kinda weird thing at the bottom of the chart/screen where the times are- but it doesn’t affect anything.
Happy trading everyone!
Jen
DaveJ May 13, 2020 at
Have any of the multichart.net users tried to do this? I would love to see if it will work for us as well.
paul May 15, 2020 at
I can’t get it to work properly in Ninjatrader 7 – The candlesticks looks off and I cant get the chart trader to switch to the MES so that it takes trades using the MES instrument?
Has anyone else been successful in doing this on Ninjatrader 7?
Mack May 15, 2020 at
I tried it in NT7 as well, and it messes up the candles. Maybe downolad NT8 and try that and see how it looks. I might download it and test it just to see when I get time.
Willy Cardoso June 3, 2020 at
Has any one tried on multicharts yet??
EC June 27, 2020 at
Can someone explain why you would do this? I understand you’re looking at ES and trading MES but because the volune and movement is different, why would you do this when ES isn’t an exact representation of MES? What advantage do you have in doing this?
Mack June 28, 2020 at
Because it is so expensive to trade the ES and most new traders trying to learn can’t afford to trade the ES without losing large sums of money. This strategy actually seems to work well according to those that are using it.
EC June 29, 2020 at
Thanks Mack but what i’m saying is then, just trade the MES then? I don’t understand why you would look at the ES and then trade the MES when you can look at the MES and trade the MES. What’s the difference in doing one or the other?
Mack June 30, 2020 at
The MES is just a mirror of the ES, but it doesn’t have as much volume and it doesn’t move as orderly. You don’t have to do it that way, but many prefer to do trade it off of the ES chart, so the option is there. Trade the MES if that’s what you feel more comfortable doing, but there are some benefits to trading the MES from the ES chart as I described.
erobertsonag August 16, 2020 at
If someone is interesting on trading the MES from the ES chart on SierraChart here is how:
Open your ES (F.US.EPU20) chart.
– Select Chart
– Chart Settings
– under the Main Settings tab
– Set the field Trade and Current Quote Symbol to MES (F.US.MESU20)
– under the Advanced Settings 2 tab
– Set the Currency Value Per Tick to 1.25
Test by taking a trade and validate with the Trade Order Window and/or the Trade Position Window
(both from the Trade menu) to make sure that your order are really on the MES.
shaunabs76 September 9, 2020 at
Thank You Bart and Mack. Ive loaded this up and it seems to work fine so far.
Thanks again.
Gary Alan Ceniza October 7, 2020 at
Hi! Is there any advantage to trading the MES off the ES chart than just trading directly from the MES?
Gary Alan Ceniza October 8, 2020 at
Well I got my answer already from Mack! Thank you Mack!
rhea22man December 30, 2020 at
Thank You Mac! This video is so helpful 🙂
BRANDON COKER March 23, 2022 at
This has to be the dumbest thing I’ve read. Why is it so important to trade off the /es chart? Why not just trade of the /mES chart? News flash…… they are like Dr.Evil & Mini Me off Austin powers….. their the same exact thing but one is a bigger version and one is a smaller version.
Please tell me you guys didn’t waste to much time figuring this out.
Mack March 23, 2022 at
Where did anyone say it was important? I don’t disagree that they are derivatives of the same market, but there are some people that like following the ES but trading the actual MES. I did an extensive test of the MES trading it live with a 950-tick chart and found it traded very well, so I agree that you can trade them separately and probably should trade them separately.
However, what you think is silly might seem totally different to someone else, and to each his own. There were a group of traders that traded the MES via the ES chart, and many more were asking me about it constantly when that market originally came about. I didn’t actually come up with the idea, I just shared it with our users.
Rather than have to explain how to do it over and over, it was easier for me to post their directions to the site. If you find no value in it, just skip over it. I don’t get many questions on this any longer, and after posting my live test results, I think most came to realize you could trade the MES with no issues. I am not sure how popular the idea is today to be honest, which is about a year after this post was originally made. At one time though, there were a group that were trading the MES via the ES charts.
William Lee May 19, 2022 at
Does this method for trading the micros still hold up? Anyone experience any glitches in fills, targets or stops?
Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks PAT community. YOU’RE ALL AWESOME!
Mack May 20, 2022 at
I recommend just trading a 2000 tick MES and trading directly from that chart alone. This works, but I see no need for it now that the MES has almost equal volume to the ES.