<i>"Austin,
If you don't mind me asking - in general:
1) Are your stops always a fixed distance away from your entry or is it variable based on chart and your own methods?
2) How many round-trip do you do per day?
I'm just struggling to trade more than 1 lot per $25,000 of my account value. I remember reading somewhere that you mentioned you trade 1 lot per $5,000."</i>
It's a refreshing break to answer a constructive post rather than toy with perennial trolls who for all anyone knows don't even trade in reality.
1) My initial stops are fixed. For the ES it is -2pts from fill. I worked with variable stops long enough to realize you cannot hide from erratic price action. This afternoon for example I had repeated buy signals near 1419 ~ 1420ish. Before price action went from there to 1432, it first dipped to 1414.50.
What kind of initial stop could we use to avoid getting whacked in the noise? None that are wide enough for that move. We knew upside had the high-odds probability, but getting from A to B before they detoured thru V made it impossible to hold a stop.
These days I trail stops more aggressively on trades that sit still in congestion or refuse to go anywhere. Once a trade begins to work, I try to give it space to run. Much of that is a learned "feel".
2) Trips depend on market action. Today was seven rounds. Some days are fifteen-plus, trend days maybe four or five.
3) I will trade one contract per $5,000 during trend moves in afternoons, and/or when net profitable for the day and clear setups emerge. In today's case, it was just blowing all around both ways. So I backed off the leverage and traded more like one contract per $20k instead.
It's my option to trade less leverage at any time, unless I see directional potential and am net profitable for the day. A series of small holes are easier to dig out of than one big cavern in the equity curve.
The more contracts traded, the less leverage one should use. Blowing out a $5,000 account is a different reality than blowing out $200,000 or more if something catastrophic happens and stops are overrun.
Hope this helps a tad
If you don't mind me asking - in general:
1) Are your stops always a fixed distance away from your entry or is it variable based on chart and your own methods?
2) How many round-trip do you do per day?
I'm just struggling to trade more than 1 lot per $25,000 of my account value. I remember reading somewhere that you mentioned you trade 1 lot per $5,000."</i>
It's a refreshing break to answer a constructive post rather than toy with perennial trolls who for all anyone knows don't even trade in reality.
1) My initial stops are fixed. For the ES it is -2pts from fill. I worked with variable stops long enough to realize you cannot hide from erratic price action. This afternoon for example I had repeated buy signals near 1419 ~ 1420ish. Before price action went from there to 1432, it first dipped to 1414.50.
What kind of initial stop could we use to avoid getting whacked in the noise? None that are wide enough for that move. We knew upside had the high-odds probability, but getting from A to B before they detoured thru V made it impossible to hold a stop.
These days I trail stops more aggressively on trades that sit still in congestion or refuse to go anywhere. Once a trade begins to work, I try to give it space to run. Much of that is a learned "feel".
2) Trips depend on market action. Today was seven rounds. Some days are fifteen-plus, trend days maybe four or five.
3) I will trade one contract per $5,000 during trend moves in afternoons, and/or when net profitable for the day and clear setups emerge. In today's case, it was just blowing all around both ways. So I backed off the leverage and traded more like one contract per $20k instead.
It's my option to trade less leverage at any time, unless I see directional potential and am net profitable for the day. A series of small holes are easier to dig out of than one big cavern in the equity curve.
The more contracts traded, the less leverage one should use. Blowing out a $5,000 account is a different reality than blowing out $200,000 or more if something catastrophic happens and stops are overrun.
Hope this helps a tad
