Perhaps some folks might find it useful to participate in a thread about risk/reward, about cutting your losses short and "letting your winners run." Or not run.
I'll get the ball rolling here.
I don't let my winners run. Never. The pain I experience in watching a profitable position turn to a losing one is just too unpleasant. I feel guilty about saying this, a less-than-competent trader, definitely not one of the smart set, "Uncool," in fact. But here's the simple truth:
I trade the ES exclusively. The only way I'm able to be consistently profitable is with a 1:1 rish/reward ratio. Risking about 1.25 to make about 1.25. Sometimes less. Never more.
I should add that "consistently profitable" means consistently profitable for all of three weeks. Better than nothing although, I'll be the first to admit, a swallow doesn't make a spring.
As for my use of the modifier "about." Sound a bit squishy? Permit me to explain. I say "about" a 1.25 stop because I don't use hard stops -- I close the position when it becomes clear that my assumption at entry was incorrect at the get-go, or has been invalidated with the passage of (not very much) time. Often, this means the position is closed before it has hit my mental stop, which means sometimes I close for scratch or even a tick or two "accidental" profit. Sometimes, however, I will stay in the trade even if it has met or exceeded that 1.25 mental stop, if the conditions that led me to enter the trade appear to be still valid -- i.e., if the conditions are such that I would enter the trade at that moment, if I hadn't entered earlier. In that case, I'll allow the trade a little additional room in which to work. How much room -- again, I let the conditions dictate. I can count on one hand (out of hundreds of trades) the number of times when conditions have led me to a hold a position that has moved adversely by two points or so. Last week, however, I found myself in the surprising, and unsurprisingly uncomfortable, position of holding through a four point adverse move. The position did, however, eventually move in my favor (my methodology kept firing re-entry signals in the direction of the existing trade), and I closed for 1.25 points profit, my max allowable profit.
So, that's why I say, when all is said-and-done, a 1:1 risk reward.
Comments? Criticisms?
Is this any way to make a living?
I'll get the ball rolling here.
I don't let my winners run. Never. The pain I experience in watching a profitable position turn to a losing one is just too unpleasant. I feel guilty about saying this, a less-than-competent trader, definitely not one of the smart set, "Uncool," in fact. But here's the simple truth:
I trade the ES exclusively. The only way I'm able to be consistently profitable is with a 1:1 rish/reward ratio. Risking about 1.25 to make about 1.25. Sometimes less. Never more.
I should add that "consistently profitable" means consistently profitable for all of three weeks. Better than nothing although, I'll be the first to admit, a swallow doesn't make a spring.
As for my use of the modifier "about." Sound a bit squishy? Permit me to explain. I say "about" a 1.25 stop because I don't use hard stops -- I close the position when it becomes clear that my assumption at entry was incorrect at the get-go, or has been invalidated with the passage of (not very much) time. Often, this means the position is closed before it has hit my mental stop, which means sometimes I close for scratch or even a tick or two "accidental" profit. Sometimes, however, I will stay in the trade even if it has met or exceeded that 1.25 mental stop, if the conditions that led me to enter the trade appear to be still valid -- i.e., if the conditions are such that I would enter the trade at that moment, if I hadn't entered earlier. In that case, I'll allow the trade a little additional room in which to work. How much room -- again, I let the conditions dictate. I can count on one hand (out of hundreds of trades) the number of times when conditions have led me to a hold a position that has moved adversely by two points or so. Last week, however, I found myself in the surprising, and unsurprisingly uncomfortable, position of holding through a four point adverse move. The position did, however, eventually move in my favor (my methodology kept firing re-entry signals in the direction of the existing trade), and I closed for 1.25 points profit, my max allowable profit.
So, that's why I say, when all is said-and-done, a 1:1 risk reward.
Comments? Criticisms?
Is this any way to make a living?
