I don’t know what I might have typed previously, but I’m no longer really experimenting all that much—just fine tuning my targets, so I’m being much more selective about which positions I enter.
At a 90% win rate (or better) I’m not trying to achieve a 1:1 reward/risk ratio. Currently, it pretty much varies between 1:1 down to perhaps 1:3.
I know every trader who abides by conventional wisdom will give me grief over this, so I chose to delete my stop loss levels from the above image.
For me, more important than the establishment’s edicts on reward-to-risk ratios is my selection of which opportunities to pursue, primarily in terms of their structure and how the different components (moving averages and moving average envelopes) relate to one another.
I’m in the same Camp as Mark Rose…
“One of the key misunderstandings and prejudices I see again and again, even among experienced traders and so-called experts, is the cry I hear repeated so often that we should all be trading with a ratio of 2:1.
“Risk reward ratios are no judge of the profitability of a system. To really see whether a system has an edge, you need to know the success rate. A lower reward ratio will inevitably have a better chance of winning, so what matters is matching up the two statistics in a way that suits you: reward ratio AND success rate.
“Neither type of trade is ‘better’ than the other. They are different trading styles, and each has its merits. Whether you go for 3:1 or 1:3—or anywhere in between—what’s crucial is that you’ve still got that all-important edge.”