need some trading advice

[Occam]

Quote from jedwards:


To make a long story short (I posted on this many months ago), I traded it in January and suffered stunning losses, which basically set me up for abject failure the next several months because I lost faith in the system, so I would trade discretionarily from the system, cut my profits early because I was afraid of taking further losses , etc.

You're probably aware of this already, but just in case you're not, I'll point out that: the difference between backtesting and real life can be "humongous". All backtests performed in the physical universe suffer from some degree of error, and this error can easily exceed one's expected profitability.

 

[Handle123]

You backtested it over fifteen months, that's all? You got to be kidding !!! I do backtesting over ten years, taking samples of several months of each year, and absolutely need min of 3000 sample size. If you are risking more than 2% on any one trading signal, you are asking for doom, cut back size till it is under 2%.

Your backtesting should tell you what is top ten worst drawdowns, and what the 'mean" number of losers are, then wait till you get that average and then start trading the method.

Risking what you are and taking losses makes it extremely hard to come back.

After trading three decades, I concentrate on low losing weekly percentages, what do I have to do, to keep losing percentage below 15%, comes down to money management rules. So that means many breakeven to small profit trades and full target profitable trades.

And backtesting never produces what you try to make in real world.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from jedwards:

blox87, unfortunately my discretionary trading is absolutely horrendous. It's beyond bad, it's the exact opposite of the markets, which is why I have abandoned it completely.

Don't take this too lightly, but you have a real edge here if you can push through the psych barrier.