Prudent Risk Management + No Edge = Positive Expectancy??

PRM = take loss quickly. What about winners? How do you decide when to exit/take profit? A winner can easily become a loser. I think deciding when to exit a winner is an edge by itself.
Sometimes we retails can't get any break. We can try "let winners run" and most ended up a loss. So, we put a trailing stop and most got stopped out before the run.... :banghead:
 
Today’s example below. I entered long at $236 around 2:40pm. Price immediately went up. I moved stop to $236.25 and set profit exit at $237.75 and walked away. About 20 mins later I came back and the price was hovering around $236.7. When it dropped to $236.56 I couldn’t take it anymore and exited with a small profit, but ended the day in red. If I had waited until my original target gets hit, I’d have been a few hundred $ positive today.


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Happened to me all the time.
 
Last Thur & Fri I did this experiment: Removed my constraints and simply kept trading using the same guidelines I have been using since July's paper and 6 weeks of live.

You won't believe it, both days were (significant) losses after a total of 59 trades. Does that prove if I truly have any edge, PRM is my edge? o_O
 
Your edge is momentum. Trailing stops, or setting a target greater than the stop in the direction of momentum, are components of harvesting that edge even if you bucket them off to the side as "risk management".

FWIW the past five weeks, at least, have been extremely trendy and directional. Volatile, but not panicked or overly emotional. Conditions for intraday momentum strategies never get better than the past few weeks. It's highly likely your strategy would perform worse in more of a back-and-fill market.
 
Your edge is momentum. Trailing stops, or setting a target greater than the stop in the direction of momentum, are components of harvesting that edge even if you bucket them off to the side as "risk management".

FWIW the past five weeks, at least, have been extremely trendy and directional. Volatile, but not panicked or overly emotional. Conditions for intraday momentum strategies never get better than the past few weeks. It's highly likely your strategy would perform worse in more of a back-and-fill market.
Thanks.

You are telling me I shouldn't be too cocky about my edge or as a PRM disciple so I shouldn't confuse brains (skills) with a bull (trendy) market. :finger:

It make sense. No wonder some days nothing worked with exactly the same approach.

How can I tell when the market is trendy vs back-and-fill?
 
Last Thur & Fri I did this experiment: Removed my constraints and simply kept trading using the same guidelines I have been using since July's paper and 6 weeks of live.

You won't believe it, both days were (significant) losses after a total of 59 trades. Does that prove if I truly have any edge, PRM is my edge? o_O
@Specterx is right, my edge is mainly I am trading in a trendy market. There is probably no real edge.
 
@Specterx is right, my edge is mainly I am trading in a trendy market. There is probably no real edge.

Exactly, there is no edge in trend trading. You can close your eyes, flip a coin, scratch your left nut to decide when to buy or sell, and cut short you losers and let your profits run. In a trend, any of those entries would work.
 
Thanks.

You are telling me I shouldn't be too cocky about my edge or as a PRM disciple so I shouldn't confuse brains (skills) with a bull (trendy) market. :finger:

It make sense. No wonder some days nothing worked with exactly the same approach.

How can I tell when the market is trendy vs back-and-fill?
Combine methods, or try to gauge market state. A very wise poster in the past (starting with a) said it here.
 
Exactly, there is no edge in trend trading. You can close your eyes, flip a coin, scratch your left nut to decide when to buy or sell, and cut short you losers and let your profits run. In a trend, any of those entries would work.
True, but some certainly have beter statistics then others
 
Exactly, there is no edge in trend trading. You can close your eyes, flip a coin, scratch your left nut to decide when to buy or sell, and cut short you losers and let your profits run. In a trend, any of those entries would work.
I think I actually verified your thesis. Here is a 20,000 ft view of how I trade:
As for what do I use? I followed what @SimpleMeLike said: click buy if I think it is going up, click sell if I am wrong or when it is going down.
In general, there is a 50/50 I am right. My 50/50 statistics proved that.

If you are right, this is the edge: Minimizing losses in the 50% of the time I was wrong and maximizing gain in the 50% of the time I was right, furthermore, once in a while I caught a trend. PRM?
 
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