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What you're asking is how do you know if the system is broken or it's just a drawdown. Not sure there's a clear answer to that and probably a ton of different opinions. For me, if a system starts to have more than a typical bad spell, I'll cut the size down and continue to trade it. If it...

Think of it like a retail operation. You can have a low margin, high volume business or you can target a niche that might not move much inventory, but has a higher mark-up on what you do. Both can be equally profitable. In trading, your capital is your inventory. You want to put it to work...

It sounds like you are trading on a much tighter time frame than me. My rtm based trades often last hours and I'm not so concerned about spread and liquidity. For some strategies I will apply a hedge like SPY to reduce exposure to market direction if I'm getting too lopsided. I don't know...

Your numbers in the poll are way too low for even a part time day trader. $5,000 a month in commissions for a full time trader is not that much.

You're probably looking at indecies and not individual stocks. In a strong market sell off and rising vix, stocks overshoot and bounce all the time. You don't need much time to catch a bounce and exit before a fall resumes. There were plenty of these scenarios yesterday. You keep asking...

What the hell kind of reply is that? Oldschool, I look forward to your journal and hearing your experiences of now vs. then. GL

I use custom written software that works with both Sterling and IB's api. As I've mentioned previously in the thread, my all in commission rate works out to about .25 cents per share.

Don't frown, double down When you're in pain, say "hit me again" Stop out if you've puked on your keyboard

Week 16 of the 2010 campaign was a good one. +22k on 602,000 shares traded. Daily pl was -2, +4, +3, +7, +10 Traded something approaching normal volume as there was more opportunity from an uptick in volatility and earnings. There are some fierce trends in stocks during the day though...

Having a small edge on entry is not enough to be profitable. You have to know how to trade. That includes reading the market, learning how your stocks act and developing a feel for things.

A little different weekly update to report this time. Monday was uneventful, +4k. As I mentioned earlier I got clocked pretty good on Tuesday, -18k. A couple really bad trades, those outliers that just happen. They are part of the system and how I trade. They happen and I am ok with...

Mid-week update. Worst day since August of last year, -19,000. Almost all attributable to DV and ESI short. In them early in the day and they never gave a chance to get out with anything less than a bludgeoning. I didn't add to these, they looked like trouble pretty early and I was actually...

Good thread, but I'm surprised no one has made note of the huge assumption the OP made. Many traders are pulling money out of unique situations that are very liquidity sensitive. Divulging what they are doing is literally inviting people to take money right out of their pocket.

Depends on the system. Sometimes I go in with my full size to begin with and the stock makes a quick spike against me. If it looks like it's going to reverse right back I will sometimes add, but not much, maybe 10% more. This is totally discretionary. Other systems are designed to add...

Thank you, and I agree with everything you said.

+2700 for the week, 218,000 shrs traded. Daily p/l +400, -200, -3200, +1700, +4000 Feels like opportunity gets less and less every day this market keeps grinding up, at least for what I do. Except for a couple hours today because the weather here sucked, I was done for the day less than an...

I'm pennying the above poster. Whatever commission you offer him below 0, I will take .0001 less. :)

I never implied that was the only trading I do. The strategy I'm talking about averages less than $5,000 per month. A lot of my trading has rtm elements to it, but that doesn't mean I would call them strictly rtm strategys.

So now you are starting to understand what scaling means and why it matters? Glad to see you learned something from our discussion. Re-read my post and don't misquote me. I never said that was all my trading capital.

Put up $50k and still have $450k to put into something else. Allows you to diversify but still trade without bp limitations. Or if you can meaningfully put more capital to work than retail margin will allow.