Most people see Bollinger Bands as a way to trade counter trend and make money, and this tends to lead to averaging down, and doing this on an intraday basis can lead to blowing your account.
What if you were to apply rules to keep yourself from blowing your account. For example:
2.5 SD instead of 2 (note that if you believe that price is random, as I do, this really makes no difference, but it will reduce the number of entries).
No averaging down. Use a full point stop loss on the ES. Exit is hitting the middle band. Note that sometimes this will still result in a losing trade. For example, price goes up a point or two, hits the band, you enter short. Price goes up 2 more ticks. Now price chops as the middle band catches up with it, triggering a close at loss of two ticks.
You can't initiate another trade until price touches the center line again. For example, if you take a trade and price goes against you and you close it out for a loss, do not take another trade until price has crossed the middle line again. This will at least keep you from reentering over and over in a trend against you.
Ok, now the above system will likely be about 50/50.
What if you only traded it at specific times? Don't day traders love the first hour or two because price moves more? Do this when price is historically boring and choppy.
Yes, you are right, this is basically asking the same thing as "well why not just use a trend following system only in the morning?".
But I can think of one other advantage to doing this instead of a trend following system in the morning, and that is that you tend to get better fills when trading counter trend. You can place your order and wait for it to be hit rather than having to place a market order once you decide price is trending.
Discuss.
What if you were to apply rules to keep yourself from blowing your account. For example:
2.5 SD instead of 2 (note that if you believe that price is random, as I do, this really makes no difference, but it will reduce the number of entries).
No averaging down. Use a full point stop loss on the ES. Exit is hitting the middle band. Note that sometimes this will still result in a losing trade. For example, price goes up a point or two, hits the band, you enter short. Price goes up 2 more ticks. Now price chops as the middle band catches up with it, triggering a close at loss of two ticks.
You can't initiate another trade until price touches the center line again. For example, if you take a trade and price goes against you and you close it out for a loss, do not take another trade until price has crossed the middle line again. This will at least keep you from reentering over and over in a trend against you.
Ok, now the above system will likely be about 50/50.
What if you only traded it at specific times? Don't day traders love the first hour or two because price moves more? Do this when price is historically boring and choppy.
Yes, you are right, this is basically asking the same thing as "well why not just use a trend following system only in the morning?".
But I can think of one other advantage to doing this instead of a trend following system in the morning, and that is that you tend to get better fills when trading counter trend. You can place your order and wait for it to be hit rather than having to place a market order once you decide price is trending.
Discuss.