Believe it or not, as you can see from my July trade history, I seldom take losses. If I had to guess, I'm thinking I give up on 1 in 20 trades for an average loss of about $500-800. My one negative week (# 5) I decided to take all the unrealized losses and start fresh. Right now, I have about 1.5K unrealized losses on 3 positions I've been accumulating since last month. I might close those out next week and start over.
Critique my strategy
- Thread starter CX9
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Believe it or not, as you can see from my July trade history, I seldom take losses. If I had to guess, I'm thinking I give up on 1 in 20 trades for an average loss of about $500-800. My one negative week (# 5) I decided to take all the unrealized losses and start fresh. Right now, I have about 1.5K unrealized losses on 3 positions I've been accumulating since last month. I might close those out next week and start over.
I get your point. Totally. However, my conspiracy theory is that the market is “conscious” of stop losses and will try to gobble up as many as possible.
Just out of curiosity, what would you recommend as a stop loss on a $10-20k position with a $500k account?
you asked for it. you are asking us to critique numbers not a startegy. if your startegy is simple risk 10k and keep buying then in this btfd environment you will do well. but why risk so little when the mkt is in full on rally more. its time to vacuum up as much as u can and then scale down. but there is no strategy here to critique. you should focus on increasing your way or swing trading with some options.to limit risk but máx out. also you should start buying and always holding 1 vix future for every 100k in spy in case of a flash crash or if your system go down or uf your hard stops somehow dont fill properly. you need risk management and hedging in order to trade larger. you can pick the tops and bottom long term just Apply your superior day trading skill to long term chart and play accordingly. people say..who is buying up here..well..everyone because smart money and traders have vix futures to lock in vaina should muy fall...if i pay 5% of my portafolio a year in vix insurance and i make 20% thats great...having that hedge if you drop the H is your edge!! why not keep buying more stock and hedging in a bull mkt!!!! last month vix was 15k máx risk if it went to zero. this month its what 13k ..and maybe it goes to 7..so risking 6k or 30k since u have 500k..is not a bit deal. would u drive your car without insurance? and if you Drive fast a lot wouldnt u want to buy more insurance so if u crash u get paid more? common sense regular everyday behavior should be Applied to your investments. no one trades bigger without some protection in the vix.
Some interesting points here. Just for clarification my form of hedging is diversification since I hold about 10-15 positions at $10k each and turn those over at 5-10 per day.
Also, keeping the day trading as a small percentage of portfolio I guess would be another hedge. I really don’t have the skill or mental/emotional fortitude to go bigger yet.
Have you considered whether or not it's wise to use leverage for your active trading? The S&P 500 averages just under 10% a year. So if you're paying 5.5% per year in interest, you aren't really gaining that much by using leverage. You are however exposing yourself to amplified losses in the event of a significant downturn.
Congratulations on your success. I hope it continues as market conditions change.
Congratulations on your success. I hope it continues as market conditions change.
Thanks. The way I think about it — the main portion in the SP500 is my own money. The interest I pay on the leverage is about $500 per month (on $100-150k margin), but allows me to make about $7-10k per month trading.