CL Redux

[BCE]

Going to call it a day. I was doing some other things and just did a few very quick scalps the last hour.

Just wanted to post this one last post, an educational post. This is my account performance page for the day. A few revealing things are:

1. Notice how small the losses are.
2. Notice the percentage of winning trades. Yes that's just 53.33%.
3. And the total trades are 15 with 8 profitable and 7 losers.
4. Largest winning trade .30%. Largest losing trade .01%.

I could have made quite a bit more in the time I was here today. But as I mentioned I'm really tired today and was doing some other things and wasn't really tracking CL the whole time. The most important lesson from this account performance page is really obvious and it's just what any experienced trader will tell you over and over. Keep your losses small and let your winners run. And I would add, don't get greedy and expect every winner to run forever. When the market is choppy and there is no huge, obvious trend, just take what's there. It all adds up. There's a balance between letting a trade develop and not taking profits and letting your trade retrace back to zero or a loss. Just some thoughts.

Have a great weekend guys.

 

[ammo]

Quote from BCE:

Going to call it a day. I was doing some other things and just did a few very quick scalps the last hour.

Just wanted to post this one last post, an educational post. This is my account performance page for the day. A few revealing things are:

1. Notice how small the losses are.
2. Notice the percentage of winning trades. Yes that's just 53.33%.
3. And the total trades are 15 with 8 profitable and 7 losers.
4. Largest winning trade .30%. Largest losing trade .01%.

I could have made quite a bit more in the time I was here today. But as I mentioned I'm really tired today and was doing some other things and wasn't really tracking CL the whole time. The most important lesson from this account performance page is really obvious and it's just what any experienced trader will tell you over and over. Keep your losses small and let your winners run. And I would add, don't get greedy and expect every winner to run forever. When the market is choppy and there is no huge, obvious trend, just take what's there. It all adds up. There's a balance between letting a trade develop and not taking profits and letting your trade retrace back to zero or a loss. Just some thoughts.

Have a great weekend guys.

whats your profit target and stop size

 

[Visaria]

Nice performance there, BCE.

I had one of my best weeks, +600 ticks, less than 10 trades!!!

I'm going to take a break for a while, back (hopefully) in August.

Good trading all.

 

[JoshDance]

Here are two trades I would love to re-manage... Check out the fantastic first entry, and the pretty good second one. Then check out the fear-based early profit taking on the first (bottom channel line was my target, it was already drawn at the time of the trade), and the poor stop placement on the second resulting in buying the high tick. "Let your winners run" certainly applies for #1 here. And #2, "don't put a newbie stop there" might apply. In an effort to keep losers small, I often wind up preventing the winners from running (as in case #2)...

 

[jack411]

Hey BCE,

just sent you a PM before I read this. Thanks for posting though and nice job!

Quote from BCE:

Going to call it a day. I was doing some other things and just did a few very quick scalps the last hour.

Just wanted to post this one last post, an educational post. This is my account performance page for the day. A few revealing things are:

1. Notice how small the losses are.
2. Notice the percentage of winning trades. Yes that's just 53.33%.
3. And the total trades are 15 with 8 profitable and 7 losers.
4. Largest winning trade .30%. Largest losing trade .01%.

I could have made quite a bit more in the time I was here today. But as I mentioned I'm really tired today and was doing some other things and wasn't really tracking CL the whole time. The most important lesson from this account performance page is really obvious and it's just what any experienced trader will tell you over and over. Keep your losses small and let your winners run. And I would add, don't get greedy and expect every winner to run forever. When the market is choppy and there is no huge, obvious trend, just take what's there. It all adds up. There's a balance between letting a trade develop and not taking profits and letting your trade retrace back to zero or a loss. Just some thoughts.

Have a great weekend guys.

 

[JoshDance]

Quote from BCE:

1. Notice how small the losses are.
2. Notice the percentage of winning trades. Yes that's just 53.33%.
3. And the total trades are 15 with 8 profitable and 7 losers.
4. Largest winning trade .30%. Largest losing trade .01%.

Keeping the losers small without cutting off a good trade when the market retraces to the entry point is my biggest problem right now (see my last post). Thanks for setting a good example and good job today!

 

[jack411]

Quote from JoshDance:

Here are two trades I would love to re-manage... Check out the fantastic first entry, and the pretty good second one. Then check out the fear-based early profit taking on the first (bottom channel line was my target, it was already drawn at the time of the trade), and the poor stop placement on the second resulting in buying the high tick. "Let your winners run" certainly applies for #1 here. And #2, "don't put a newbie stop there" might apply. In an effort to keep losers small, I often wind up preventing the winners from running (as in case #2)...

Preserving capital is also important though. Small losses are no big deal. You can always reenter if you still think the trade is valid. How fast of a chart is that btw? Is that your entry chart? I ask because I'm curious about what made you take the second short.

 

[JoshDance]

Quote from jack411:

Preserving capital is also important though. Small losses are no big deal. You can always reenter if you still think the trade is valid. How fast of a chart is that btw? Is that your entry chart? I ask because I'm curious about what made you take the second short.

It's a 25 tick. I don't really use it for entries per se, but it helps me see inside the bars, particularly during fast times. The 1 minute was showing a nice bear flag, on progressively lower volume. It had touched the 1m EMA as well. Classic low volume bear flag pullback, I was just a liiiiiitle too early, or, my stop was just a liiiiitle too close.

 

[wolfpacker]

Quote from JoshDance:

Keeping the losers small without cutting off a good trade when the market retraces to the entry point is my biggest problem right now (see my last post).

Josh,

I am having the same problem with not letting trades go and moving stops to BE or moving targets early. I am trying to define better rules on when I can move stops to BE or cut targets short. I want the rules to make sense based on history of the setup and not based on my gut or something arbitrary.

I am coming up with just a few situations where it does make sense. I finally came to the conclusion that if I was moving a stop to BE or cutting a target short on a setup on a consistent basis, I must not have a solid setup if that what it takes to keep that setup profitable.

Then it gets down to the whole process of maintaining discipline not to move stops or targets except in a few situations.

Easy to say and hard to do (for me at least). If I can not maintain this discipline, I have no business trading real money. Hope to make strides on it next week.


Wolf

 

[JoshDance]

Quote from wolfpacker:

Then it gets down to the whole process of maintaining discipline not to move stops or targets except in a few situations.

This is tricky, because good traders often seem to know from experience that they're wrong before the full stop gets hit.

I think with my current performance, that if I place my stop loss 4 ticks away from where I think it should be if I decide to move it early, then I will be much much more profitable.

We are all in the learning process, especially those of us like me who are relatively new and still learning the ropes... all we can do is learn, improve, and repeat.