2014: The Battle for Survival

[Millionaire]

He has tweaked his strategy a lot over the years.

He must still have confidence in it. People cant really trade a system after they lose confidence in it.

If you make enough mistakes its easy to lose money even if your system/method was profitable for a given year.

Strong discipline is required when trading, most of the time, except years like 2008 when it was easy to print money.

But most of the time you have to do almost everything right and the market doesn't forgive mistakes like missed signals so easily.

 

[masterm1ne]

All this talk about system this system that. Humans naturally wanna overcomplicate things & its clear you don't need a hyper curve fit computer system to make long term $. With the type of trading he does he is lucky to be flat for the year considering since March market is nearly all up and he does a lot of RTM I believe. I'm just surprised as he ages he didn't see the wisdom of a longer term approach. Dividends, less trades, less commission, less stress, and possibly less tax. Less trading also means you have more time for other things, like a job. As I get older, I could care less about what type of trading I do. All I want is make money and stress less. If you pay attention to the yearly charts, it's quite obvious where good accumulation points are.

 

[freeman311122]

Traders tweak a strategy when it works but it doesn’t work as good as expected, they don’t tweak a failing strategy. For all the years when a trader keeps losing, he could have already lost confidence but wouldn’t have admitted the failure, it is time to move on to a new strategy. everything regarding trading has changed in the last several years, so should the strategy! It doesn’t make any sense for an experienced trader to break even after having worked so hard for a whole year!

 

[trickshot]

All this talk about system this system that. Humans naturally wanna overcomplicate things & its clear you don't need a hyper curve fit computer system to make long term $. With the type of trading he does he is lucky to be flat for the year considering since March market is nearly all up and he does a lot of RTM I believe. I'm just surprised as he ages he didn't see the wisdom of a longer term approach. Dividends, less trades, less commission, less stress, and possibly less tax. Less trading also means you have more time for other things, like a job. As I get older, I could care less about what type of trading I do. All I want is make money and stress less. If you pay attention to the yearly charts, it's quite obvious where good accumulation points are.

Longer term approach doesn't work for everyone, some traders have trouble holding on to a position even if its only for a couple of days.

 

[trickshot]

Traders tweak a strategy when it works but it doesn’t work as good as expected, they don’t tweak a failing strategy. For all the years when a trader keeps losing, he could have already lost confidence but wouldn’t have admitted the failure, it is time to move on to a new strategy. everything regarding trading has changed in the last several years, so should the strategy! It doesn’t make any sense for an experienced trader to break even after having worked so hard for a whole year!

A whole year? Try 10 years. I think he would have done far better if he had just stuck his money in the SPY since 2011.

Trading (any sort) for consistently outsized gains over a long period of time is extremely difficult, most can't even beat the market.

 

[freeman311122]

A whole year? Try 10 years. I think he would have done far better if he had just stuck his money in the SPY since 2011.

Trading (any sort) for consistently outsized gains over a long period of time is extremely difficult, most can't even beat the market.

That is exactly my point, if you make money, you tweak your strategy, and you make more money. If your strategy doesn’t work any more, you dump it and find a new working strategy.

most of day traders lose money let alone making money, but the rare ones can make consistent money, even 5 figures a day, it is not difficult for them at all, you would be surprised!

 

[neke]

A whole year? Try 10 years. I think he would have done far better if he had just stuck his money in the SPY since 2011.

Trading (any sort) for consistently outsized gains over a long period of time is extremely difficult, most can't even beat the market.

Yes, it would have been better to put the money in SPY since Jan 2011 - with the benefit of hindsight. Actually, I could have loaded up on OTM SPY Leaps and made a gazillion

Having said that it is not all doom and gloom. Up 35% since then. The withdrawals (nearly 350K since then) have ensured I have other account/investment that is keeping up with the market. I don't day-trade those.

That was perhaps a wonderful idea to have decided to only take out, and not bring in a dime into the account, for the last 15 years.

And, since you chose 2011 for the start of performance, I dare to add the performance from Nov 2004 - Jan 2011 . Most of the gains obviously took place then.

Nov 2004 Bottom        5,300
P/L                 +936,300  (17500%)
Withdrawal          -605,600
-----------------------
Jan 2011 Start Bal   336,000

Jan 2011 Start Bal   336,000
P/L                 +118,000    (35%)
Withdrawal          -347,000
---------------------------
Jan 2021 Start Bal   107,000

 

[freeman311122]

Yes, it would have been better to put the money in SPY since Jan 2011 - with the benefit of hindsight. Actually, I could have loaded up on OTM SPY Leaps and made a gazillion

Having said that it is not all doom and gloom. Up 35% since then. The withdrawals (nearly 350K since then) have ensured I have other account/investment that is keeping up with the market. I don't day-trade those.

That was perhaps a wonderful idea to have decided to only take out, and not bring in a dime into the account, for the last 15 years.

And, since you chose 2011 for the start of performance, I dare to add the performance from Nov 2004 - Jan 2011 . Most of the gains obviously took place then.

Nov 2004 Bottom        5,300
P/L                 +936,300  (17500%)
Withdrawal          -605,600
-----------------------
Jan 2011 Start Bal   336,000

Jan 2011 Start Bal   336,000
P/L                 +118,000    (35%)
Withdrawal          -347,000
---------------------------
Jan 2021 Start Bal   107,000

It would have been okay with 35% profit for the last 10 years if it was investment, but you have been day trading and you have been spending so much time on trading for 10 years, the profit you made is not even close to the minimum wage for the hours you worked. It is time to find a new working strategy, for experienced traders like you, I don’t think it is that difficult.

 

[d08]

That is exactly my point, if you make money, you tweak your strategy, and you make more money. If your strategy doesn’t work any more, you dump it and find a new working strategy.

There is no clear line between working and not working. Things usually fade.

 

[freeman311122]

There is no clear line between working and not working. Things usually fade.

There surely is, fading does not mean it didn’t work before, and there is huge difference between the good one and bad one. A good strategy could bring you 5 figures on a single day.

And scalping strategy will never fade! It makes lots of money, I mean, lots of!