Quote from shortie:
+35% in 2009. I play mean-reversion in different time frames with holding times from minutes to weeks.
I don't know how some of you generate 200%/yr year after year.
i counted my chickens way too early: finished 2009 ~+20%. not sure if anybody can learn from my mistakes, but at least i hope i will so i am typing this up.
i had two trades that started as purely intraday plays but went against me. in both cases i added to losers "to save the trade" even though there were not signals to do so (
just the opposite). not only i went against my own entry/exit rules, i also exceeded my max position size on those trades. in the end, what started as intraday trades became multi-day ordeal of trying to trade out of the overleveraged positions.
what's interesting is that at the time i was very much preoccupied with family matters and that may have clouded my judgment.
my lessons:
1. review (and backtest) my own trading rules periodically to reinforce the compliance
2.
follow the rules
3. eliminate "shoot from the hip" trading when under stress (ideally, eliminate/reduce when not under stress as well)
i often run into problems with 2. because i know that the rules i have are far from perfect so i am tempted to override them once in a while. what i need nail into my head is that while overrides are justifiable in some well reasoned cases, deciding to override a rule under time pressure is plain wrong.