POLL: Are you troubled more by losing trades or decent moves missed by your method?

[maxpi]

If I worry about missed moves and make bad entries..... well, then I have more losing trades! I could vote in both categories really.

Today I decided that if the frigging market doesn't want to give me money on my terms then I'm not going to beg, I'm not going to chase.. same as a couple of women I know.. forget it.. I had almost no fills all day, it's a slow market, it's acting a little different... whatever, I can wait..

 

[trackstar]

Did no one notice the fear greed mantra?

 

[mavericktrader]

You shouldn't be troubled by either.

 

[Lethn]

The thought of a losing trade is easily what bothers me the most. Losing out on extra profits you can at least recover from but if you lose that money completely then your chance is gone.

 

[Specterx]

Losing trades are definitely worse imo, no question.

Of course I realize that losing a dollar and forgoing the opportunity to make a dollar are mathematically the same thing, but think about it this way: you can miss every single trade for a year and end up no worse than when you started, but a year of nothing but losers would devastate your account.

Missed trades don't leave you worse off than when you began. Moreover, losing trades (= lost money) reduces the opportunity you have to make money in the future by eating into your capital.

 

[jack hershey]

Quote from Specterx:

Losing trades are definitely worse imo, no question.

Of course I realize that losing a dollar and forgoing the opportunity to make a dollar are mathematically the same thing, but think about it this way: you can miss every single trade for a year and end up no worse than when you started, but a year of nothing but losers would devastate your account.

Missed trades don't leave you worse off than when you began. Moreover, losing trades (= lost money) reduces the opportunity you have to make money in the future by eating into your capital.

Thank you for pointing out the OP is comparing apples and oranges from his personal trading viewpoint.

When comparing things it is always good to have a common resourse for doing either repair work or for iterative refinement.

There is no connection between the entry point and the market pattern in the mental processing of a trading plan.

 

[ammo]

Quote from Gabfly1:

A decent move that did not register by the rules of your system. Again, I don't mean the comparison of single moves with single losses. We all know that any method, no matter how valid, will incur losses and not catch every good move. The question is, which of these 2 "weaknesses" in your present method of trading do you find more irksome.

there must be 5 or 6 times a day when u want to take a trade and it is not a good enough setup, most of those would have been losers ,not trading is trading in a sense,so i don't mind the missed trades, The losers are just part of the business, but when you take a good whack, a big loss, i would say that is worse than missing a trade

 

[LeeD]

Quote from Specterx:
Missed trades don't leave you worse off than when you began. Moreover, losing trades (= lost money) reduces the opportunity you have to make money in the future by eating into your capital.

I have to agree here. Missed trading opportunities are much beter than realised losses.

 

[Gabfly1]

Quote from Specterx:

Losing trades are definitely worse imo, no question.

Of course I realize that losing a dollar and forgoing the opportunity to make a dollar are mathematically the same thing, but think about it this way: you can miss every single trade for a year and end up no worse than when you started, but a year of nothing but losers would devastate your account.

Missed trades don't leave you worse off than when you began. Moreover, losing trades (= lost money) reduces the opportunity you have to make money in the future by eating into your capital.

I'm inclined to agree with you and others here who have voiced a similar opinion. Although we're supposedly expected to "love" our losses, I've never quite developed a warm relationship with them. To be sure I take them quickly, but they definitely don't warm my cocoa. So, like you, I guess I place a higher premium on reliability. Further, the better the reliability of the method, the higher the leverage you can employ, all else being equal.

However, the downside is that if your "typical" winning trade is larger than your "typical" losing trade, then the opportunity cost of a missed trade is higher than the actual cost of a losing trade. And while it is true, as you wrote, that if you missed every single trade for an entire year you would end up no worse than when you started, we surely must agree that profitable trading is not about standing still and ending up no better than when we started.

And so, we have the tradeoff.

 

[Gabfly1]

Quote from jack hershey:

Thank you for pointing out the OP is comparing apples and oranges from his personal trading viewpoint.

When comparing things it is always good to have a common resourse for doing either repair work or for iterative refinement.

There is no connection between the entry point and the market pattern in the mental processing of a trading plan.

As usual, Jack, I have no idea what you are talking about. However, I'm sure it's all very exciting and leading edge.