My take from watching Forex trader's forums for many years is that, since most of the retailers are trading small, more easily replenishable expendable income (through a real job), that they take very large stops, looking for high win rates to give them a eense that they're making headway. The inevitable big loss comes yet the "wipe out" is recoverable since such small relative sums are at risk.
In futures trading, the money stakes are higher on a per trade basis. The loss levels attainable in a shorter amount of time will either keep you from trading due to margin reqs or teach you how to manage your reward to risk ratio as it relates to the avg winning pcts you can most reasonably attain.
The "truth" in trading, imo, is that the avg person's psyche entering this biz REALLY wants to win 70-80% of the time "to feel good". Now 70% is about the peak level at which your avg risk doesn't go upside down relative to your avg gain, so even here, the human psyche is still not (initially) emotionally equipped to handle 1 to 1 trades when, "oh my, did you see that 200 pip winner I just missed?", is inviting the wrong mentality.
I have Bob Volman's first Forex scalping book. I don't trade Forex or use his methods (70% winners at 1:1 RR is too razor thin for me!) on futures but I like it for the way he introduces beginners to a winning trader's state of mind and money management.
The human mind is a funny thing. It can accept the 50/50 probability of coin flipping but it has a super hard time accepting trading at a long-term winning pct in the 50/50 area, give or take 10%, and even though the reward to risk ratios are more heavily stacked in one's favor (in a winning system, of course).
I guess this is why I have been hyper-ventilating about the HSI / HHI futures lately. My hope is that some newbies can at least afford to watch it in real-time, sim-trade it and GET the connection between winning pct and RR ratios. Because when you have trading instruments such as these, you will be inundated with great setups every single day, the rush of all kinds of emotions will hit you non-stop, but more importantly, the higher volatility teaches you when to hold on and when to let go...you WILL become a great trader if you can trade these two beasts of high speed trending.
Why? The recoverability factor on an intraday basis is very high. A few bad trades won't hurt you. There are far too many good ones to more than compensate. When you can take 20-25 tick losses for the opportunity of 4 or more 100+ tick runs occurring intraday on the HSI, well, what more could anyone ask for? [You don't need to win as often to make those stats for a long-term winning strategy]
