A Retail's Day Trading Experiment

[padutrader]

Thanks sir.

Paper trade has its value, especially when I am still tweaking.

1. $50K is not a lot.

2. I will go live when I stop tweaking.

i agree if you cant make money in paper trading........then you cant do it live

there is another option you can look at and that is one road i liked for me personally......it gives you some incentive without risking much money.......it allows you to learn.....i am talking about prop firms like Topstep Trader and a few others......this is a compromise and tests you emotionally because get a big reward

 

[ironchef]

Max DD at $200 is 0.4% per trade.
How are you position sizing?
Are you using a hard stop; set when you enter the trade?
Exit with profit at a target or do you have a method for letting winners run?
Will trading with a live account trigger emotions that don't show up in Sim?
Do you have a set of rules and how many times during your test did you break or bend your rules?

1. I use a notional $50K per trade. Every day I review half a dozen stocks, pick two when market opens and trade one with that $50K.
3. Mental hard stop when enter.
4. Exit: No target except something similar to trailing stop.
6. Going live: See my general reply.
7. Yes and no, no need to break rule, after all it is paper trade.

 

[padutrader]

Thanks sir.

Paper trade has its value, especially when I am still tweaking.

1. $50K is not a lot.

2. I will go live when I stop tweaking.

tweaking is like optimization.......it will never end.....apologise for the bluntness of that comment

i know the agony of such an activity......i tweaked for 2 decades

 

[ironchef]

Let me backup by asking another question. 1500 trades over 48 trading days??

IMO it is highly unlikely you could trade similarly in real time ... and as well profitably to the tune of 85.4% or anywhere close to that.

IMO I agree with you sir.

However, win rate is < 50%. The reason of 84.5% daily win rate came from catching one or two good run almost every day.

 

[ironchef]

Third is the drawdown. Trading is pretty easy when you are green from the get-go. But consider trying to start down 10% of your initial capital. How does your "method" change? Not at all? Sure OK. but how long until you are green enough to make worth your while.

Best of luck on your Sisyphus endeavor.

Agree and appreciate your other comments and will make adjustment if I continue to paper trade. Here I will comment on the above.

I trade options for almost a decade and had drawdown of more than 30% on many occasions. so am use to it. The thing I am not used to is the rapid fire instant decision making in day trading.

Sisyphus endeavor.

 

[deaddog]

You didn't mention position size.
I day traded a similar sized account a few (Many) years back. (Time flies when you're having fun)
I'd risk around 1% of the account per trade but I was waiting on set-ups and only made 2 or 3 trades per day.

I curious as to why you are day trading? You said you are retired, gotta be better things to do with your time than sit in front of a monitor. That's a job.

 

[ironchef]

Because it’s retail crack.

You have to be more right than wrong and it’s most likely due to exiting trades early with 1:1 or at most 1:2.

But you haven’t even quantified how much you risk for your reward. The method won’t scale. Each trade comes with more emotional baggage than necessary for folks that gravitate first to high WR form bad habits.

It’s harder to focus on high R:R for it builds what every aspiring trader lacks and that is patience & discipline. Having a system with higher R:R allows you to be wrong more than right and still be profitable. It’s also easier to get your WR up having that as a foundation.

1. Retail crack? No I am a retail day trade crackpot.

2. Read my general comments: win rate < 50% but rescued by one or two good run most days. So, out of 1500, maybe about 50-60 good runs?

3. I absolutely agree with you on focus on high R:R. The R:R of my directional option trades are >10, win rate < 30%.

 

[deaddog]

1. I use a notional $50K per trade. Every day I review half a dozen stocks, pick two when market opens and trade one with that $50K.
3. Mental hard stop when enter.
4. Exit: No target except something similar to trailing stop.
6. Going live: See my general reply.
7. Yes and no, no need to break rule, after all it is paper trade.

Missed you answer about position size as I was replying.
200 risk on 50k must have awful hard stops.
What is a mental hard stop?

 

[deaddog]

Missed you answer about position size as I was replying.
200 risk on 50k must have awful hard stops.
What is a mental hard stop?

Must have awful tight stops

 

[ironchef]

You didn't mention position size.
I day traded a similar sized account a few (Many) years back. (Time flies when you're having fun)
I'd risk around 1% of the account per trade but I was waiting on set-ups and only made 2 or 3 trades per day.

I curious as to why you are day trading? You said you are retired, gotta be better things to do with your time than sit in front of a monitor. That's a job.

@taowave said the same thing about why I wanted to day trade when I had a system for options and don't need the money.

I failed at day trading a decade ago, trying to prove to myself that I am not a failure.