ES Journal - 2023/2024

GM All: I Introduced a bug yesterday. Funny as hell. I did a newbie move where I changed ">=" to "=", thinking that it did not matter*. Well it did not as long as I traded 1 contract. But since I am scaling, I had 2 contracts, so the code did not think it had a position on.

Bottom line: 1 trades +40 ticks. Code fixed. Fixed version would-could-should of been +120 ticks, done in 11 at 73% win rate


*"MarketPosition" returns +1 or -1 for long-short, regardless of number of contracts
"MarketPosition_at_Broker" returns NUMBER OF CONTRACT positive-negative.
 
NoahA said:
What I'm seeing, based on when you do post, is that its incredibly difficult to get a 50 point winner, never mind another 100 point winner. And this of course isn't a surprise because this is just how it is. And then by the time the winner comes, a trader is likely too scared to put on full size.

So in a way, you're proving my point, which was the only point that I was trying to make, but for some reason, everyone here got the pitchforks out. If every trade is shown, there will likely be at least 10, 15, or even 20 entries for every 50 or 100 point winner. Now clearly losing 3-5 points is nothing in light of a 50 point winner. And some of those will even be small wins or BE exits. But what a trader does between those 50 or 100 points wins is what really determines success. Having 100 point wins is only 20% of the game.
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I scale into trades. I very rarely go all in at once. So, if I take a few losses in a row they're usually on small size. It's insignificant. This morning I was down $400 bucks or so. Scale into 2 ES/20 MES and take home 10 points and you're $600 in profit on a 10 point win.

That trade last Monday was a bit of an outlier trade, but I've had plenty of 30-50 point winners lately in this volatility. The ranges are there. Since I keep my R/R in check, I don't need a 20 point winner to make at least some money.

Of course, I'm still subject to do dumb things like taking on too much size or trading when I don't have a good edge/read on the market.

Small and consistent works, too. I just think it's harder to do consistently as it's hard to have the required consistency long-term as you're often trading noise and random price oscillations.

It's a matter of personal choice. Whatever works, works.

What I'm doing currently is working. It could work better if I learned which day sessions to avoid and even take the entire day off. Also, I'm not half bad at scalping, so if I could better learn when to hold and when to scalp that could be an improvement, too. But combining the two styles is challenging. If you want to hold for big wins you do need to accept giving back some unrealized profits as the market oscillates.
 
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