I admire your persistence! Keep going, we are all rooting for you.@ironchef While I agree with you in theory that tighter stops could potentially reduce some of the trades that became eventual winners because I gave it extra wiggle room, this is not what I meant when I say tighter stop losses.
If I look at the distribution of my losses, there are the normal small losses and the occasional medium losses(which I do want to get smaller but I accept them as part of sometimes giving too much wiggle room). Then there are the outsized losses that are like 10-20x larger than the average losses!!! Those are the losses that is killing my performance.
Those are the ones I'm trying to get rid of. Just getting rid of those in themselves would be sufficient to make me nicely positive since I do believe I have a positive edge that is getting wiped out by outsized losses.
Well, the good news is I believe I'm heading in that direction. This morning I put on a trade and as soon as I realize that it's not heading my way I got out in 2 minutes! That loss was a medium sized loss. I guess I could have gotten out much sooner. But this is a huge improvement as compared to that fateful Monday February 5 where I was like deer in the headlights and sat there for like 20+ minutes before getting out. In a market that moved as violently as that you can easily lose hundreds of points(of which I did).
Yep, I just checked the screen. It's been about 25mins since I exited and the market moved a 100 points against me had I held! The next area is to realize that the direction has reversed and reversed my trade after exiting for a loss. But I think that should be taken carefully and only when it's evident. Sometimes reversing can result more losses as the market whipsawed and you get chopped up.
So in this sense, cutting losses HELPED! The medium size loss is offsetted by some gains I had earlier. So totally manageable and recoverable.
I just did a trade and it cut the medium sized losses by half. Another trade and I'm back in the green. Medium sized losses are recoverable. Small losses are scratch trades(noises).
One other thing I regret this morning I let a winner turned into a loser. Ouch! Then in my most recent trade I exit before it turned into a loser.
Slowly piece by piece I'm building the good habits of consistent profitable trading while doing consulting on the side...
Hopefully it will all come together in 2018 to be a good year.
Need Advice
- Thread starter trader99
- Start date
I ask for the manager and stand up when he comes to my table, I am 6'6" tall and look straight into his eyes and say how disappointed to get this meal I ordered and what are you going to do about it? They always take it back and I order something else. Restaurant might ekk out some profit still and I never dine alone.
Automation scalps for most part, intra-day, some systems have like a Bollinger band but different formula and only on the side of my trade, it contracts as bar's ranges get bigger and expand when they get smaller, big bars to me means volume not going to be evenly distributed and those in control are not controlling and small bars need larger stops cause often times it is after first 90 minutes and does not take much to move the market and clip the "tight" stops. But this only engages after the time stops have brought up to "Breakeven +1 tick". There is no point in having the same protective stops for the beginning of the trade and after so many minutes or even hours, the beginning of trades, history shows us are usually most risk, once price travels in the direction of our intended signal you can alter your protective stops based on price action, volatility or the planets alignment for that matter, but you don't need to stay with same ones. Just the same after you original entry, buying higher can have different kinds of signals where 65% of the contracts you take profit of so much and let the rest ride, too many traders either don't think about this or don't know how to go about making changes as one goes deeper into trends.
But only after much back and forward testing does one want to make changes.
DEBT is not a friend, like trend is a friend. And even more so= while learning ,debt can be a enemy. 100% of foreclosures in RE are leveraged; sure millions + billions have been made investing/Trading RE+ stocks, with leverage.
Still amazing how many ''Different '' hamburgers chains/chicken chains, LOL are still making money; not a stock tip
I have sold all my RE off to one buyer and got my price, but for much of the years doing RE, I was heavily in debt, and I didn't care at all about as I sought out lawyer/CPA nearly at beginning of doing it, but most people think what is the harm of not controlling the risk involved, those are the ones who can't sleep at night. You think Trump ever lost any sleep building his empire?
Same goes with trading, if you understand the risk, respect yourself and risk, work at backtesting and forward demo testing, you are ahead of many doing none or parts of it.
Nice going @trader99, keep it up.
%%
Havent been there myself; but those that have gone thru it note bankruptcy is a horrible pit for many. 100% of foreclosures are caused by leverage. And if bank forgives debt some have to pay tax on that; i dont know NY , RE.
Is he standing on a box, or something?
I live in short city along U.S.A/Mexico border and almost everyone are under six feet. LOL If I wear cowboy boots, am near 6'8" tall.
Federal bankruptcy then no taxes, but if you don't file, you will be on hook for taxes on federal and don't know bout state. Texas we have no state income taxes. But if you have a bussines, it foolish not to be LLP or LLC.
Handle123...has anyone ever told you that you kind of look like retired wrestler Kevin Nash/Diesel,
2018 ET, extraterrestrial trader. Make Trading Great Again, double espresso Starbucks and double whiskey,
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Handle123...has anyone ever told you that you kind of look like retired wrestler Kevin Nash/Diesel,
,
2018 ET. Make Trading Great Again, double espresso Starbucks
No, but when I was taking experimental drug for Prostates, my hair turned very white and was shoulder length and longer whiskers, so had to carry candy canes in December, it was fun. When given lemons, make lemonade.
@Handle123 : Thanks for the encouragement. I'm a bit frustrated today. My stops are too tight. I lost money shorting in a down market! Due to the spikes!
I love my hotkeys with automatic stop loss! Thanks to @Xela suggestions! Saved me a lot of money!
I'm really a chart reader. I should also be a chart trader. Predefined stops not based on chart pattern can get you chopped up. I should have adjusted my stops accordingly. Lessons learned.
This is March. My cutoff/stoploss on this daytrading experiment is September! If I don't consistently produce decent money weekly/monthly then I will cut off and focus a 100% on my consulting and/or go back to corporate job.
There's opportunity cost to trying to learn to trade. While I've been able to limit my losses to manageable levels now, I'm still not making the kinds of money I thought I would. In a job or even consulting, you get paid every day. With job, you get benefits(which I'm currently paying out of pocket), 401K, and bonuses. All these things add up.
To be fair to the process, I will give it til September. And I focus on weekly and monthly rather than daily targets. Any given day you can make or lose. But hopefully by the end of the week or month I will net positive enough to cover my expenses and make as much as I did before. Otherwise, it's a hobby. And hobbies are expensive.
So send your positive thoughts & encouragement ET! After that I'm out. Maybe I'll trade an hour a day in the morning before work. That's it.
trader99
P.S. Of course, I reversed and went long then got stopped out again. then it rallied...
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