Blown out

Originally posted by major cahones
65% winners 20% breakeven 15% losers

ave win .22 - .28 ave loss .12 -.16 some months are better then others.

hey buddy- you spelled COJONES wrong....:D
 
Originally posted by hybridmachine
I have, for your viewing pleasure/amusement, my trade log from the past 3 months. I have gone from 2000 to about $383.00. Aside from the humor/sadness aspect of this, I wanted to share this with you as a learning experience. Please note that charting is up to you. I did not save my charts, just my trade log.

The number one thing I have learned from this ride has been my failure to control my profit/loss ratio. We all talk about using technical indicators and other sorts of things to gain an edge, and drive our win/loss ratio. In my experience though (granted it is limited), it has been my profit/loss ratio that made all the difference. Not that win/loss is not important. Certainly, a good win loss ratio, coupled with a good profit loss ratio will lead to improved profits. If your profit/loss ratio is out of wack though, you will find certain failure, irregardless of your win/loss success rate. That lesson has cost me about $1662.00

The other lesson is that too little capital will prevent you from being able to sustain the inevitable group of losses that you will incur.

So, my take away is this:

1) A win/loss of 60% to 40% is about what a good intermediate trader can hope to achieve, 70/30 is a master trader.

2) Profit/Loss control is where the biggest impact is had. Don't take your profits early, and don't let your losses run. Set a goal of about 2:1 Profit/loss. The specific ratio will vary on your time horizon and volatility of the underlying security

3) You need a fair amount of capital to survive the early stages. I'm going to say about 25K or so. Anything less will drive you to take wins too early, and hold onto losses in hope they turn. Both moves are fatal.

Well, there you have it. For now, I'm out of the game. I'll be back, but for now I'm going to focus on building a trading system on the ES/NQ, and focus on finding the optimal intraday (3/5 minute time horizon) profit/loss ratio. I will also seek to find what the best starting capital base is. Then, in time, once I've tested my system, and built up more trading capital, I'll jump back into the game.

-Good luck and happy trading

I hope you can learn something from tracking the blowout process.

For me, to go back and rehash my losing streaks is akin to sorting through the bowl after a bout of the runs to see what didn't digest.
 
I have blown out 5 times in the last 10 years, but only once in the last 5. None the last 3, in fact, starting to be a consistent winner. I disagree with the original poster about beginners being undercapitalized. Whether they have a $5K account or a $50K account, they will blow out both ways, but the latter will take longer. It's best that the first time trader start with a smaller account so once he blows out, he will take the time to analyze all his mistakes before trying again.
 
In the beginning, I made a lot (friendly market conditions combined with poor discipline on my part meant that stops weren't taken and positions obtained big profits when trends got back on track).... THEN I blew my account... its terrible to blow out once you have made a lot... much better to blow out a small account and learn from it cheaply...
 
Originally posted by candletrader
In the beginning, I made a lot (friendly market conditions combined with poor discipline on my part meant that stops weren't taken and positions obtained big profits when trends got back on track).... THEN I blew my account... its terrible to blow out once you have made a lot... much better to blow out a small account and learn from it cheaply...

couldnt agree with you more..

-qwik
 
Looking through the log, it would appear that you had quite a long run for your money<g>.

That long string of consecutive losses must have hurt (8).

I agree with the conclusions that you have come to, inasmuch as your performance shows the profit\loss ratio was out with losses frequently exceeding gains, often by a huge margin.

I started full time futures trading, on my own account, over 10 years ago and the first major realisation was that if the maths do not work, nothing works. I created a win\loss ratio to risk\reward grid and used the variables to see the parameters that had to be met. My optimum was 80\20 (win\loss) with 1\2+ (risk\reward). I have never got anywhere near the 80%, having to settle for just below 70% and the 1\2+ has been missed by scratching out for just over entry on about 20% of the 70%.

The reality is that only about 50% of all trades provide the profits to cover the losses and scratches to make trading worthwhile. In my case it has completely proved the point that losses must be controlled and profits run. I get an overall risk\reward of 1:1.3 (after all comms).

The theoretical numbers:

3 X -1 units

2X +0.5 units

5X +3 units.

The actual results are all over the place but the 5x 3 is made up of legging up through timeframes with many 5 minute trades becoming half day trades with R\R ratios of 1\7+ with the best ever at 1\14.

It took me a long time to reach the conclusions that you have reached and many years to create a methodoogy that could satisfy the parameters and stay within money management rules. There were accounts that vanished en route :mad: but that was part of my learning the difference between what I wanted against what could be done. It is a supreme irony that when trading is subjected to a math grid (W\L, R\R) test there is so little that can actually work.

I see that one post in this thread has stated that W\L doesn't matter as big wins compensate for wash trades?. If you create a grid you will see that massive wins "have" to appear regularly and that brings about the investigation of what is available within the timeframe traded.

I trade intraday with swings that can facilitate my R\R parameters for an average of 5 trades per day. Shooting for the moon on big ones only crops up once in a blue moon :) , so wash trades with hopes of big ones is just not on. For a daytrader, if the range is not there neither will the big trades.

The amount you have lost may be a lot of money to you but if it serves to put you on the right track it may prove to be the best money you have ever spent:cool: .

Good luck, Traduk
 
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