Sizing up was a very good idea.
Developing "Spartan"
- Thread starter nooby_mcnoob
- Start date
Thank you. You're very well funded then. I imagine it helps.
Nice.
How much did you size up from your prior typical size of around 4-6 contracts if I remember correctly?
I think it comes down to knowing your drawdown. You can trade how I trade with a discount broker as well.
2-3x, depending on the trade. I feel very comfortable with it for now(!)
I think I've got a handle on the sizing.
I sized up too much.
Chart is too embarrassing but I lost most of yesterday's gains. Still up from the day before though, so maybe not too bad.
Could it have been avoided? Absolutely. What was the issue? Trying to trade 100 ES contracts after having a max of 30. The single trade PnL numbers were too big for me to even fathom them being real on an intraday basis. HTF am I up $50K on a single trade?!!! Oh now I'm down $30K??? I was not ready. I was up about $30K going into today's open, just to tell you the level of total bullshit trading I did today. And that was with my normal sizing. So from +30K at open to down most of yesterday's gains.
Losses were all mental, not system related.
I am tempted to remove all those trades from my log.
Will this have me be more careful? I hope not.
Most important lesson: holy shit you can make a lot of money doing this....
Second most important lesson: holy shit you can lose a lot of money doing this...
Third most important lesson: Don't be stupid.
Sizing was always mechanical, I just didn't use it today. Because I am dum dum.
Yes I have already made a few trades in today's session and I'm up. Appropriate size(!)
Chart is too embarrassing but I lost most of yesterday's gains. Still up from the day before though, so maybe not too bad.
Could it have been avoided? Absolutely. What was the issue? Trying to trade 100 ES contracts after having a max of 30. The single trade PnL numbers were too big for me to even fathom them being real on an intraday basis. HTF am I up $50K on a single trade?!!! Oh now I'm down $30K??? I was not ready. I was up about $30K going into today's open, just to tell you the level of total bullshit trading I did today. And that was with my normal sizing. So from +30K at open to down most of yesterday's gains.
Losses were all mental, not system related.
I am tempted to remove all those trades from my log.
Will this have me be more careful? I hope not.
Most important lesson: holy shit you can make a lot of money doing this....
Second most important lesson: holy shit you can lose a lot of money doing this...
Third most important lesson: Don't be stupid.
Sizing was always mechanical, I just didn't use it today. Because I am dum dum.
Yes I have already made a few trades in today's session and I'm up. Appropriate size(!)
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This was actually my first losing day in a long long long long time. Perhaps going back to March.
I am glad it wasn't because my system sucked, it was because I sucked today.
I like that I'm not supposed to suck, and the market tells me when I suck.
There is no way I should have lost that amount of money.
But, what's done is done.
I am glad it wasn't because my system sucked, it was because I sucked today.
I like that I'm not supposed to suck, and the market tells me when I suck.
There is no way I should have lost that amount of money.
But, what's done is done.
That’s a big increase in size, @nooby_mcnoob. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Personally, I find that a day or two off can be necessary to get a loss out of the ordinary out of the system in order to avoid the irrational behavior of making back your losses quickly.
Curious. How was your fills/slippage on this larger size?
Curious. How was your fills/slippage on this larger size?
Don't. Leave them in and remind yourself to look at this trade log once per week for the coming x weeks. Until you don't need to be reminded any longer.
I'm not really feeling the loss too much because I think it was just a one day gain. If I had lost weeks of work that would have been worse.
Slippage is not too bad because I had an order template that put a few contracts a tick apart as limit orders. Fills obviously weren't complete all the time but no slippage since no market orders.
Maybe... maybe...
The main reason is to avoid second guessing the trades. I haven't done that for a long time. But I think I've trained the trade muscle to avoid second guessing the system. If only I could automate this thing.