Journal of a 90% win rate trader

[PhoneticNachos]

Do you find that your losers average adverse excursion is 'large' relative to your winners average fortunate excursion? Got numbers?

They can be I suppose, over this last year I have been working to leave my trades alone more, this is still something that I can improve on, "letting my winners run".

Part of it is maybe that I still look at $100 profits as a big deal, since my cost of living is now barely $1,200 a month, now that I have no debt, or car payment.

This is a major point in trading psychology, gambler's in particular feel this, you talk or read about people in Las Vegas etc. THEY ALL remember their losing hands, but rarely the day to day winners.

This is right down to brain chemistry, your striatum and the mesolimbic dopamine system are all hard wired to reinforce this type of behavior.

 

[PhoneticNachos]

OP showed 254 winning trades (avg profit $95.47) and 22 losing trades ( avg loss $65.77).

That means:

• expectancy is $82.62
• from all the profits he made in winning trades, he gave back in losing trades 5.96%.

If his trading during the whole years is similar, it is not the 1-2 ticks profits and 100 ticks losses from your post. 276 trades in total give already more or less an idea about the performance. I think it is above average.

I do worry a bit about the holding time of losing trades. If markets are range trading it is not so dangerous, but if there is a real trend and he is wrong, it might get quickly bad.

Yeah, this is an area I can improve upon. Why I have more fixed trade decline limits (i.e. -$250 is hit close the trade), and have considered closing out any trades daily and just resetting the next morning.

 

[Thor]

I only scale into and out of my trades when they are in profit, never when they are bad trades.

Does this mean that you can get >90% winners or nearby, trading this system on stocks/indices?

Another thing to keep in mind is that since I trade a range of correlated pairs, usually if I am down on one pair I am up on another.

In this case having 2 Martingale ladders on up/down is preferable, even then knowing when to close out both trades is critical.

 

[PhoneticNachos]

Does this mean that you can get >90% winners or nearby, trading this system on stocks/indices?


In this case having 2 Martingale ladders on up/down is preferable, even then knowing when to close out both trades is critical.

It works for me. I work to improve, but I have long ago accepted that I think a trade differently than most traders.

I only trade like this for forex. For stocks I make long term investments only.

 

[NoBoB]

Currently this is my second best year trading

definitely less trading this year

Do you think there might be a correlation there?

Since this is forex, have you considered a funded trader account like from FTMO? You'd be able to trade a bigger stack and split the profits.

 

[PhoneticNachos]

Yeah I have thought about it especially using them for my OTAD (One Trade A Day) system.

 

[virtusa]

Yeah I have thought about it especially using them for my OTAD (One Trade A Day) system.

I don't like to trade the "one a day" or the "when my target is meet" system.
The problem with that way of trading is that you never know what you leave on the table. You can even miss 90% of the profit that day.I try to take every signal as that gives me the best results.

 

[James.DeGori]

I don't like to trade the "one a day" or the "when my target is meet" system.
The problem with that way of trading is that you never know what you leave on the table. You can even miss 90% of the profit that day.I try to take every signal as that gives me the best results.

I don't trade Forex because, I don't understand it. I do trades options and find 80% of my wins come from 20% of my trades, so I agree with "when target is met" is not really good strategy, at least for me.

 

[James.DeGori]

They can be I suppose, over this last year I have been working to leave my trades alone more, this is still something that I can improve on, "letting my winners run".

Part of it is maybe that I still look at $100 profits as a big deal, since my cost of living is now barely $1,200 a month, now that I have no debt, or car payment.

This is a major point in trading psychology, gambler's in particular feel this, you talk or read about people in Las Vegas etc. THEY ALL remember their losing hands, but rarely the day to day winners.

This is right down to brain chemistry, your striatum and the mesolimbic dopamine system are all hard wired to reinforce this type of behavior.

I am not trying to be a troll, but I truly do not understand what living expenses have to do with anything in respect to trading. My real estate taxes are $1,200 a month.

 

[PhoneticNachos]

I am not trying to be a troll, but I truly do not understand what living expenses have to do with anything in respect to trading. My real estate taxes are $1,200 a month.

It leads to reasons and motivation for trading. Philosophy and psychology are key components to be a better trader.

It is why I trade with, to supplement my earned income. I buy/trade stocks and crypto for long term investments. Forex is for reinvesting profits into long term assets like those.

As my scope for all investments is to be financially independent and retire early (FIRE as it is called nowadays).

I was an early retirement and dividend stock blogger pioneer, used to run a dividend investment blog too, from 2007-2010, before that term even existed actually, before people like MMM came around.