Crazy paper trading day

farmerjohn1324 said:
I've been waiting for this day ever since I moved over to NinjaTrader. This was the first major news release day since moving there and having the increased leverage of $500/ES contract during day trading hours. (As opposed to the $14,300 I had at Schwab).

I basically bought 100 contracts ($50,000) and made about $60,000 profit real quick. Then I lost it all and then some on the pullbacks and started panicking and chasing it up and down. I learned that lesson a while ago but apparently forgot it. I should have let it go for a few minutes to let the noise settle down.

Anyway, I made it back with an eventual profit of about $18,000 except that on one trade I would have margin called if it were real money.

I agree that this was just chaotic and not a good strategy, but it was exciting! I think I could tone down the leverage and be more realistic about it.

Also, I missed the last half of the day where I would have had opportunity to gain from more large gains in the S&P.

To clarify, this was all fake paper trading. But fun nonetheless.
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Today was an easy day. Went only short after 10 am and still made a killing. Much easier to trade on paper though. For some reason, when I trade in a real account either things don't go my way or I mess up.

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I only trade 10 ES contracts. 100 contracts is crazy and if you were trading in a prop firm you will hit your Trailing DD in a blink of an eye.
 
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spy said:
;) Oh, I feel like you're a little upset with me now... I'm just playing with you. Trade any size you want. If you lose it you can go back to your day job that made you a millionaire in the first place.
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I tried my best to ignore you. You obviously have nothing to contribute and I would guess have never had any real success in anything, except maybe video games.
 
GotherL said:
Today was an easy day. Went only short after 10 am and still made a killing. Much easier to trade on paper though. For some reason, when I trade in a real account either things don't go my way or I mess up.

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I only trade 10 ES contracts. 100 contracts is crazy and if you were trading in a prop firm you will hit your Trailing DD in a blink of an eye.
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What's DD?
 
farmerjohn1324 said:
What's DD?
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A drawdown is a peak-to-trough decline during a specific period for an investment, trading account, or fund. A drawdown is usually quoted as the percentage between the peak and the subsequent trough. If a trading account has $10,000 in it, and the funds drop to $9,000 before moving back above $10,000, then the trading account witnessed a 10% drawdown.

Drawdowns are important for measuring the historical risk of different investments, comparing fund performance, or monitoring personal trading performance.

-Investopedia

It is used for risk management and a hard rule when your trading in any prop firm.
 
farmerjohn1324 said:
I tried my best to ignore you. You obviously have nothing to contribute and I would guess have never had any real success in anything, except maybe video games.
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Ok, I'll contribute something dead serious... be very careful drawing conclusions from a paper trading account to a real money account.

Paper trading accounts are not backtesting. They're mostly meant to acclimate you with the interface provided by the broker. That way you don't fat finger trades for 100 contracts when you meant 1.

And, yes... I've had some success with video games. When I was much younger I used to get paid to make them. :sneaky:
 
GotherL said:
A drawdown is a peak-to-trough decline during a specific period for an investment, trading account, or fund. A drawdown is usually quoted as the percentage between the peak and the subsequent trough. If a trading account has $10,000 in it, and the funds drop to $9,000 before moving back above $10,000, then the trading account witnessed a 10% drawdown.

Drawdowns are important for measuring the historical risk of different investments, comparing fund performance, or monitoring personal trading performance.

-Investopedia

It is used for risk management and a hard rule when your trading in any prop firm.
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Ok, yes I knew what drawdown was. Just didn't know the "DD" acronym.
 
farmerjohn1324 said:
I've been waiting for this day ever since I moved over to NinjaTrader. This was the first major news release day since moving there and having the increased leverage of $500/ES contract during day trading hours. (As opposed to the $14,300 I had at Schwab).

I basically bought 100 contracts ($50,000) and made about $60,000 profit real quick. Then I lost it all and then some on the pullbacks and started panicking and chasing it up and down. I learned that lesson a while ago but apparently forgot it. I should have let it go for a few minutes to let the noise settle down.

Anyway, I made it back with an eventual profit of about $18,000 except that on one trade I would have margin called if it were real money.

I agree that this was just chaotic and not a good strategy, but it was exciting! I think I could tone down the leverage and be more realistic about it.

Also, I missed the last half of the day where I would have had opportunity to gain from more large gains in the S&P.

To clarify, this was all fake paper trading. But fun nonetheless.
More...

So wish this is real-life trading. You could've made $18K profit. All you have to do is not overtrade so you won't get margin called and you would've still made money even with the panicking and the chasing.
 
TheDawn said:
So wish this is real-life trading. You could've made $18K profit. All you have to do is not overtrade so you won't get margin called and you would've still made money even with the panicking and the chasing.
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Yea but I probably would have quit after all the panic chasing. Funny that I actually already learned that lesson (not to chase up and down) on Schwab back when I did only 3 contracts. But I forgot it and got rusty.
 
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