Grinding it out, day after day

Quote from lescor:

+8900 gross for the week, 519,000 shares traded. Daily p/l +13, +2, -2, 0, -4

Monday was great, had a lot of longs for the nice rally we had. The rest of the week pretty much sucked. Still trading the first hour or so then not much after that. Implemented a new strategy this week that lost money every day, figures. Not much going on today but I seemed to be on the wrong side in almost everything.



Lescor,


How long did it take you to allow for losses to be taken. I find letting the market take my money to be the most unsettling part of trading. Naturally, as a result of the above phobia of banking losses, I had been guilty of averaging down to erase the original mistaken entry. This particular "sin" is so tempting especially when one has a large account (150+) and hence a lot of room to play. is there a method, some kind of analogy, i don't know something to keep one's finger away from doubling down on a position already in red and not explaining it as "adding to a position"?
 
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

Hi Lescor, roughly what % of winning days do you have? Do a minority of your trading days make the bulk of the profits, and if so, is there anything you've identified about those days in particular that makes them more profitable?

I average about 70% winning days. 74% in '08, 66% in '09, 72% so far this year.

I definitely have some big days but I wouldn't say a handful of those make up the bulk of my profits. My top 10 biggest days might account for over half my profits, but my top 10 biggest losing days would be a mirror image, only smaller. For example in 2009 my top 10 biggest win days totaled $530,000 but my top 10 losing days totaled $415,000. Overall it's a pretty even distribution.
 
Quote from lescor:

Most of my profitable exits are either at a target or a time out. I have a hard time being patient enough to hold on for a trend to develop. More accurately, I haven't put the time in to come up with a method to hold on for a trend to develop.

How long does it usually take to reach target or when time stops starts kicking in, are you talking about minutes or hours? Will you ever get timed out after 10 minutes, or is it more like after having position for several hours?
 
Lescor,

What is your average winning trade in $ and ave. losing trade? Also if you don't mind sharing, what would be your biggest winning and losing trade this year in $.
Thank you
 
Quote from turbodog:

How long does it usually take to reach target or when time stops starts kicking in, are you talking about minutes or hours? Will you ever get timed out after 10 minutes, or is it more like after having position for several hours?

Could be seconds, could be hours, could be days.

DOTS. That's my new term I just came up with for this thread. Depends On The Strategy.
 
Quote from gnom:

Lescor,

What is your average winning trade in $ and ave. losing trade? Also if you don't mind sharing, what would be your biggest winning and losing trade this year in $.
Thank you

I only record individual trades for a couple strategies so I don't really know the average. It'd be rare for me to have a $8,000 to $10,000 trade, win or lose.
 
Quote from TheAngryHermit:

Lescor, if there were a dozen ET'ers in a dark room looking for a black cat, would you tell them if there was no cat in the room?

No, I'd put on my night vision goggles and snicker.
 
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