Grinding it out, day after day

hi, you say before that your systems need to be at least 55% win rate. Is this because of the fact you sometimes add to a loser when it moves against you?, so in effect you are averaging down but as your win rate is above 50% you have the expectancy in your favour for this style of trading?

basically i think by being above 50% win rate your chances are improved when adding to a losing trade as in the long run expectancy says you will be correct more times than not doing this. Also sequence comes into play so you must account for your worst case run of losses but on 55% win rate it should not be so bad, maybe 4 or 5 losing trades on a trot. So the worst case losing sequence should be split up to know what size to keep adding.
 
Quote from anesthesiaman:

You make an important point. For me trading swing trading futures, I'm happy if ES moves 20-30 points or oil 2-3 dollars or gold 10 dollars.

I can't imagine trading for just 2-3 ticks. What does "really large volume" mean to those people who trade futures going for 2-3 tics?

10 contracts? 20 contracts?

Thanks
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Trading for 2 to 3 ticks is not the same as averaging 2 to 3 ticks.


This is likely true with your swing trading as well. For example you are happy with a 20 - 30 point move, however it is unlikely your average trade yields (based on actual historical results) 20-30 points.

The variance of results is usually significantly higher than the expected or average value.
 
Lescor,

Any chance you can list some of the equities you been trading on a particular day to get an idea on what kind of action they had ?
 
Lescor,
What is your win/lose ratio %?
What is your profit factor?

I wonder if you even consider such stats, I am new to startegy/auto trading so was wondering how much attention u give to these.

thaks
 
Quote from jayjay121:

why dont you adjust your postion sizing relative to the volatility of the individual stock?, for example trade larger size when things are quiet, and trade smaller when things are busy?

This way you would not need to rely on volatility and your performance would be smoother?

hi, you say before that your systems need to be at least 55% win rate. Is this because of the fact you sometimes add to a loser when it moves against you?, so in effect you are averaging down but as your win rate is above 50% you have the expectancy in your favour for this style of trading?

basically i think by being above 50% win rate your chances are improved when adding to a losing trade as in the long run expectancy says you will be correct more times than not doing this. Also sequence comes into play so you must account for your worst case run of losses but on 55% win rate it should not be so bad, maybe 4 or 5 losing trades on a trot. So the worst case losing sequence should be split up to know what size to keep adding.
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First of all, it's not just a lack of volatility but a lack of liquidity. If I doubled my share size, I'd miss entries because my size would invite more front running. I'd also have a lot more slippage on exits. You guys who don't trade stocks or trade a couple hundred shares at a time have no idea how hard it is to move any kind of size in this market.

I've never said my systems need a 55% win rate. Win rate is unimportant, it's expectancy that matters. I do add to losers as part of one particular strategy. This strategy also happens to have a very high win rate, probably in the 90% range. But I've also had an entire month's worth of gains wiped out on one loser. So don't think that adding to losers is such a safe bet just because you have a high win rate.
 
Quote from Nexen:

Lescor,

Any chance you can list some of the equities you been trading on a particular day to get an idea on what kind of action they had ?
More...

Sure, here are some of the symbols I traded yesterday: NNI SPMD TBT GES NVDA HAR
 
August stats:

Traded 22 of 22 possible days. Green on 15 of them, but two of those should essentially be called a scratch. Best day Aug 12 +12k, worst day, Aug 11 -12k. Grossed $30,300 on 1.87M shares traded. $3k of that was made on futures, so gross cents per share was 1.5.

All I remember about August was how dead it was, especially the last two weeks. Way slower than I remember any other summer month. Worked fewer hours than probably any other month.

The swing trade strategy I started on at the end of April is closing in on 200 trades booked at this point. So far it's losing money, though I made some tweaks after the first 100 that have turned it into break even since. This is in line with my goal, which is to break even if the market chops and make decent money if it gets some kind of trend going. Now with 200 trades I have enough stats to dig into things further and make some real tweaks, which should improve profitability. So far it's been a simple theory put to work with minimal $ risked, now hopefully I can do something with it.
 
Lescor,

how do you manage a position that triggers, but keeps on going instead of returning back to the mean. Since you dont use predefined stops what plans to manage the risk do you have then?

Thanks!
 
I time out, or I might just not like the look of it and change my mind. Or the stock might just be flat lining and I want to leave so I just give up. Or I'm down a lot and squirming in my seat and I cover some of it just to scale back the risk. It's kinda subjective.
 
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