How to best let winners run? swingtrading TVIX, VXX, SQQQ

[Turveyd]

I keep falling for the letting runners run, if I don't and I take small profit and keep loss equally as small, 80% win rate, as soon as I slip back to being lazy and waiting for seeing, my loss size increases as I dig in and my win rate drops hugely as I always hold too long then get SL'd badly.

Small and Often wins the day, is my recent conclusion, and back checking small and often = make builds confidence, switch to longer holds then back down again.

 

[trader99]

I keep falling for the letting runners run, if I don't and I take small profit and keep loss equally as small, 80% win rate, as soon as I slip back to being lazy and waiting for seeing, my loss size increases as I dig in and my win rate drops hugely as I always hold too long then get SL'd badly.

Small and Often wins the day, is my recent conclusion, and back checking small and often = make builds confidence, switch to longer holds then back down again.

I can get small wins all day with about 70%-77% win rate. but what's really stopping me from getting big P&L numbers is not holding onto my winners long enough. I'm still working on that. With a superrunner I get out thinking it has already ran alot then of course it runs and runs and runs all day. Just catching one of those super runners can make my week! With size that would be glorious!

Working on it...

 

[bone]

My clients have traditionally had very mediocre results with trailing stops - volatility takes them out of a winner far too soon. We've had good luck modeling trading range long term and scaling into profit targets.

It's important NOT to get too greedy with your profit targets. As a speculator all you can really do is take your piece out of the market and move on to the next opportunity. I've found that the types of personalities that thrive off of "buying a low" or "selling a high" are looking for some sort of ego confirmation from the markets and that never works out well.

 

[Turveyd]

I can get small wins all day with about 70%-77% win rate. but what's really stopping me from getting big P&L numbers is not holding onto my winners long enough. I'm still working on that. With a superrunner I get out thinking it has already ran alot then of course it runs and runs and runs all day. Just catching one of those super runners can make my week! With size that would be glorious!

Working on it...

Sounds great but then you treat all moves like runners then they all turn against and become losers.

 

[TommyR]

tvix is a buy and hold for the long term.

that was a joke. one could make a lot of money short term buying it but over the long term it will go down a lot faster than most other sh1t on an exchange. driftwise. fgo.

 

[trader99]

Sounds great but then you treat all moves like runners then they all turn against and become losers.

Yeah! That's the hard part about trading. How to determine the length of a trend. A trend can last a few minutes and be consisted a trend by a scalper. But an intraday trader wants something to last 30mins to potentially hours.

If you know how long a move gonna last then you will be golden

 

[Turveyd]

Yeah! That's the hard part about trading. How to determine the length of a trend. A trend can last a few minutes and be consisted a trend by a scalper. But an intraday trader wants something to last 30mins to potentially hours.

If you know how long a move gonna last then you will be golden

Can't make that work, resolved to giving up and sticking to near scalping, sadly I like the idea of 50pt moves, but 6pt moves sure do add up quickly.

 

[trader99]

Can't make that work, resolved to giving up and sticking to near scalping, sadly I like the idea of 50pt moves, but 6pt moves sure do add up quickly.

Yep! You are exactly in the same boat as me!! I always dreamt of catching the big moves. But ended up catching the medium sized moves at best and most of the time just small scalps.

I realized those small scalps with SIZE do add up to a nice positive day/week/month. In fact, scalping results in the smoothest equity curve compared to my other strategies.

However, on super volatile days, I do catch the occasional big swing but not anywhere near as big as I like(100+ points move).

One day.

 

[bone]

I realized those small scalps with SIZE do add up to a nice positive day/week/month. In fact, scalping results in the smoothest equity curve compared to my other strategies.

However, on super volatile days, I do catch the occasional big swing but not anywhere near as big as I like(100+ points move).

One day.

Which is why IF you're profitable over a protracted period of time - you don't change for the sake of changing. One of the more frustrating aspects of my consulting business is dealing with clients who decide to get cute and sabotage themselves.

 

[comagnum]

Once traders understand that only a small % of their trades make the lions shares of their ROR, they will want to ride the crap out of their winners. I want to be a complete hog with my winners, leaning in with size & bailing only when price action sours. I want to be sheep with my loses, bailing from the losers every time with no hesitation.

Layering in/out is the way to go for riding winners, you can ring the register at lower profit targets with a partial part of your positions & still have a lot more upside. Taking out some profits makes it easier to continue riding the winners with the remainder of your position.

Ken Grant was a risk mgr that worked for Paul Tudor Jones, he has been a consultant to a number of super star traders & firms. He looked at the raw broker records of the best traders, this is what he found:

"Across all market conditions, trading styles, time frames & traders, one rule holds true: 5-10% of all trades account for 90% of profits. Awareness of the 90/10 rule provides you with an opportunity to focus on those trades that, if they work, will produce material profits,while if they don’t, they won’t cripple you from a capital-preservation perspective." Ken Grant