http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wa...oint-tumble-in-the-dow-industrials-2017-07-28
I am not in the prediction business. However, this article points out an interesting stat.
" ... for the S&P 500, going back to 1950, 61 of the past 67 years have had a 5% downdraft at least once, or 91% of all years, according to Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist, at LPL Financial."
So, let's just use a round number of 6,000 for the NQ. A 5% move would be 300 points. Catching the entire move is unrealistic, gap or no gap. But, if one holds until the close - profit targets be damned - even if you identify the trend move late, catching 30% of the move is quite realistic. That would amount to 100 NQ points. $2,000.
So, on this fictional paper trade account that would amount to a 40% gain off the original 5 grand.
But, let's say you had 30 grand in your account, but you were only playing three contracts. That is is 6 grand, or 20%, in one fell swoop.
So, why design a strategy to catch these large trend days when they rarely happen?
For one, look how many times a 2.5% move happens - quite a bit. Keeping all ratios the same, but dividing by two, those are impressive gains and percentages! The difference is the frequency.
If you can switch gears feom mean reversion to trend following my hat is off to you. I cannot!
Simple systems for not so simple minds.
Btw, you still get to keep all the chips you acquire when the market is trending up.