Quote from sync:
I agree that I want a measure of how good my decisions are. But how do I determine if I did the right thing a good percentage of the time if I'm not sure what the right thing is? As you said, looking back at what would have happened is useless.
What are you trying to accomplish with adjustments?
1) Prevent large losses? If that's the priority you can easily see whether you accomplished that goal?
2) Correctly decide how the market is going to move next? That would be a terrible goal, IMHO - but if that's your goal - did you succeed? On balance, did you save or lose money with your ultimate decision?
3) Reduce risk? Reduce it sufficiently? That's more difficult to determine, but if you never incurred a large loss and if your adjustments turned out not to have been necessary, did you still come out with a profit? In other words, all things being equal are you pleased to did something, or would you have rather closed your eyes and hoped for the best (I shudder at the thought).
4) The 'right' thing is not the decision that would have earned or saved he most money. the 'right' decision allows to to remain within your comfort zone, reduces potential losses to acceptable levels, and allows you stay in the game - and that means not going broke.
You have raised a difficult to answer question. If you 'feel' okay about what you did - regardless of the results, the you are probably okay. future record-keeping may prove helpful.
If you have doubts - as I suspect you do from your question - I don't think there's a 'best' way to resolve those doubts. To me, staying in my comfort zone and giving myself the opportunity to profit while limiting losses, is the 'right' thing for me. I have no idea if that's good enough for you.
Mark