Holy grail of daytrading

[logic_man]

Quote from Crispy:

His mkt wizards interview stated much lower %s. I think it was "my best guy gets it right 53% of the time".

53% of the time, the best traders in the world. Think about that. This game is about base hits, not home runs...

Whatever the number, I agree that it isn't anywhere near 100% and that really a significant number of your trades are just breakeven, when you add together the winners and losers and the largest percentage of your gains will come from the few big winners.

I've asked a couple of times for examples among well-known traders of it being otherwise and have gotten crickets.

In baseball, even the biggest sluggers hit more singles than home runs and they're taking home run swings at every pitch they think they can hit a home run on. Some things just aren't in the realm of human capability, even if they are within the realm of human imagination.

 

[tenthousandmen]

Quote from bwolinsky:

If the holy grail is to only take your best trades, naturally that's not possible to do consistently, but you can leverage up your high probability setups if you have two algorithms with 70+% win percentages so that when they agree you bet larger than you otherwise would have.

This is assuming you have at least 2 holy grails.

I don't understand the 70%+ number you keep repeating in the board?

 

[Crispy]

Quote from logic_man:

Whatever the number, I agree that it isn't anywhere near 100% and that really a significant number of your trades are just breakeven, when you add together the winners and losers and the largest percentage of your gains will come from the few big winners.

I've asked a couple of times for examples among well-known traders of it being otherwise and have gotten crickets.

In baseball, even the biggest sluggers hit more singles than home runs and they're taking home run swings at every pitch they think they can hit a home run on. Some things just aren't in the realm of human capability, even if they are within the realm of human imagination.

Totally agree.

 

[bwolinsky]

Quote from tenthousandmen:

I don't understand the 70%+ number you keep repeating in the board?

If you have a system with a 1:1 ratio that wins exactly 70% of the time, taxes, slippage, and commission will leave you at breakeven.

 

[newwurldmn]

Quote from bwolinsky:

If you have a system with a 1:1 ratio that wins exactly 70% of the time, taxes, slippage, and commission will leave you at breakeven.

your commissions are 50% of your "bet size"

 

[bwolinsky]

Quote from newwurldmn:

your commissions are 50% of your "bet size"

It's not that, it may be with slippage 5-10% of your profit, and the government takes 40%. Leaving you marginally profitable even with the minimum required to make 1-2% per month at the end of the year.

 

[newwurldmn]

Quote from bwolinsky:

It's not that, it may be with slippage 5-10% of your profit, and the government takes 40%. Leaving you marginally profitable even with the minimum required to make 1-2% per month at the end of the year.

I see where you are getting your math. But you are making 2%/month AFTER TAXES.

There are virtually no significant investment opportunities that offer you that.

Of course no one else (including Indiana Jones) has 2 holy grails.

 

[bwolinsky]

Quote from newwurldmn:

I see where you are getting your math. But you are making 2%/month AFTER TAXES.

There are virtually no significant investment opportunities that offer you that.

Of course no one else (including Indiana Jones) has 2 holy grails.

Significant? If you can't pull $1k to $5k per day with $50k it is pointless to trade futures if you're willing to risk half anyway when most will risk 100% of their capital.

 

[d08]

Quote from Crispy:

For me the holy grail is a 1-2 rr min..but to each their own I guess.

Not so simple. What is you have 1-2 rr system which has 20 straight significant losers straight in some point of history, basically eradicating the possibility of using extreme leverage?

 

[rallymode]

Let's assume you have your magic down and are able to identify those 10 trades year after year, how do you manage the eventual market change? How do you adapt? By your rules you will be sitting out in perpetuity since you will no longer be seeing the perfect setups. And if you do manage to identify that setup under the new market conditions, it will likely no longer be what you are looking for which brings you back to taking any setup.

Personally, if i am not committed to the market most of the time, i kind of lose its pulse figuratively speaking. Finding that pulse again might actually cost me more than the losses from the bad(in hindsight) setups. As far as coms and fees, if someone is paying 6 to 7 figs in commissions, their earnings should be substantial or they need to be reworking that edge.