1% a week

Are 1% gains per week realistic?

  • Very much so

    Votes: 90 64.7%

  • Not at all

    Votes: 6 4.3%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 28 20.1%

  • Unlikely

    Votes: 15 10.8%
  • Total voters
    139
"I would personally shoot for 3% a week. Why not make more???"

It's a risk management thing. You take on more risk to go from 1% to 3%.

The thread starter stated that it would be a mechinical approach. That implies discipline or a fully automated system. If discipline is used - I'm hoping for a commentary on how that aspect goes.

Discipline is what I work on and I'm getting good at it - except when I lose my mind.:eek:
 
I can make 60% with ONE TRADE and still have a 40 hour week REAL JOB.




Quote from tradestrong:

I've decided to start my own journal. I will be shooting for very modest 1% gains per week.

I will be using small positions initially and I will be using a swing trading strategy of which I will not hold a stock for more than 2 weeks. It will also be a very mechanical approach.

Let's see how it goes!

I'm currently long MATX at 26.82.
More...
 
Quote from cassidpp:

"I can make 60% with ONE TRADE and still have a 40 hour week REAL JOB."



what instruments do you trade?
More...

mostly valium to enter the trade and prozac after closing it.
:D
 
I think 1% a week is very possible, given the management and concerns listed previously.

I personally shoot for 3-7% a month, trading options and the underlying. With enough BP and low enough fees, it can be done.

NYCDT
 
60% total return - wow - not bad.

I sometimes make large percentage gains say 100% or greater on investment - but then I'm risking only a small portion of my account.

To make 1% a week average total return on your account is a lofty goal IMHO.

BTW, I also trade YM and ES. I wouldn't hazard a percentage return on those kinds of trades since the leverage is so great

Total return - how much did my account go up this week?
 
Quote from PersistentTradr:

I think 1% is very doable if you have the patience, discipline, and good money management practices.

One potential problem I see is that your risk amount looks to be greater than your target rate. ie You lost 3% on your first trade. So it looks like you are risking at a minimum 3% to earn 1% thus to achieve your goal you would have to have a very high winning pct (which is possible).

To improve your odds of success I'd suggest trying to improve your risk/reward ratio so you don't need such a high winning % to achieve your goal (see attached .xls).

I think your goal is very doable and I'm pulling for you!

Best of luck!
More...

Thanks persistentTradr and thanks for your spreadsheet!

Each trade actually has two different risk/reward ratios.

One has a higher winning percentage with smaller gains and larger losses, while the other has a lower winning percentage with at least a 2-1 reward to risk ratio.

So the 3% stop you see is on my lower percentage winner where is the smaller gain is on my higher percentage winner. So my trades will be scaled for each position.

I actually plan on statistically defining my trades much better too, so right now, I have a very simple mechanical approach which I will fine-tune as I collect more data. So initially, my goal even will probably not be met, but hopefully in time, I will approach it.

Thanks for your support!
 
My Trades for the week:

9/4
Shorted BBY at 44.25
Sold rest of Matk at 27.49 for 2.6% gain

9/5
Covered half of BSC at 112.50 for 3% loss
Covered half of BBY at 43.14 for 2.57% gain

9/6
Covered rest of BSC at 106.55 for 2.49% gain

9/7
Long IHS at 50.99


Percent gain on the week for positions held is 4.66%

I've almost finished automating my system, so hopefully I will have that up and running next week.

Goals for next week:
Optimize statistical analysis of trades for better risk/reward ratios.
 
hi tradestrong,


Just wondering what brokerage your going to go with and what platform you're using. I was going to develop an ATS using JSystemTrader though now I am looking at OpenQuant.

P.
 
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