Quote from Xspurt:
Correct and as you saw I chewed his balls off for that risk. But it was more than just holding overnight, it was incorrect position sizing in that statement too. No it wasn't an emotional gamble because the method requires mapping out the future moves and when you are in a position and it is going in the right direction then you can monitor that movement using bigger time frames. His larger time frames were all spot on. Regardless, I don't hold overnight and that's my style and not an absolute for others. I have a friend who is a great trader and most of his trading is overnight holds.
When an account has reached the level to conservatively fund your maximum position size and you have built up a reserve I don't see any problem with over night holding but, when you are growing the account it may not be a good idea unless that is your strategy. I just find at the end of a trading day I want to close out and put my focus elsewhere for a recharge rather than think about holding.
Yes the framework is very strict with small stops and strong set ups and his next trading day was 140 pips $120/pip. This is all day trading usually off the 1 min chart but looking to roll that into a bigger time frame swing which at times will roll on into the 4 hour time frame.
He's been trading every day till now from the dates shown apart from 3 days sick and the holidays. He has not had a losing day but he does make mistakes and had to recover from a -30 and -40 on two or three occasions to get into positive territory. The lowest score was 11 pips and I think I am correct that every other day has been over 20 pips. Several days have been over 100 with the 140 being tops so far but his skill is improving.
Next month he will be on $200+/pip and he's averaging around 40 pips a day at the moment disregarding the spikes like 140 pips in that average. Averaging 40 pips a day is not groundbreaking and it beats me why turning $10K into $1,000,000 is so unbelievable to guys that think they are ET hotshots.
The method is one I developed over almost 30 yrs and is a multiple time frame based predictive model where the day is mapped out in advance then then inside that I work on a 60m GamePlan inside the daily MAP. Finally we take that context into the 1 min time frame zone but not limited to time based charts so we can go below the 1 min. This allows stops of around 5 pips and a very high hit rate. The rookie has a lot of growing yet to do because every day he misses some great set ups but I factored that into the challenge and without any improvement he has the $1,000,000 goal in the bag.
I'd be disappointed if he doesn't hit $1,500,000 which on a percentage basis is 15,000% but that growth curve will have leveled out by month 6 when liquidity becomes more of an issue. So next year he will make more $'s but on a greatly reduced % growth. That's why I'm not looking for investors or selling books or whatever else and need to go into ATS to expand horizontally rather than vertically.
As an aside, I guy I know is one of the biggest ES traders in the world and at times he hits 20,000 contracts in a single trade which is the exchange limit. He trades from home and 6 yrs back had a small account. He uses TA and if you ask him for a statement to prove it he'll tell you where to take your statement.
Cornix, CVD and I trade with a senior ex HF manager who just trades his own account and he only uses TA. I'd rate him as one of the best traders there is and it is such a simple method to look at. Mine is a very complex method by comparison but that just how it worked out.