So, you had a real bad trade how are you going to handle it?

[trader198]

if I feel i am too late, out with no hesistation

if the trade is against me, I just sit tight and wait for the odd to be in favor of me, whether hold overnight or days, just wait.most time patience paid me off daringly.

I do not take lump sum big loss, one I have a plan beforehand ( I use stop loss and my size to control how much I lose, the loss does not exceed my account value 3.618%), second I trade options, I do not use stop loss, I let it expire worthless with planned affordable loss (3.618% of my account). I have lots of this kind of losers, but since they are in my control, they do not bother me.

I do one trade after another. I use a constant % to decide how much I trade.

my suggestions are: never put yourself in this kidn of averasry situations in the first hand

 

[ocean5]

Quote from lwlee:

It's $50 a point for each lot. Every point against you is $15k (300 lots). Say at 1950 handles, ES is down 5 points, by now you are down 500k. What was your lowest drawdown point?

One tick - $12,5*300cars*13 levels = $48,750 approx.

 

[FreakofNature]

Quote from Handle123:

What a flipping day to ask this question, I not only took one full loss but took two of them in a row today in ES, I trade 300 lots at each price level in the morning till I make my daily goal, so I average down on each trade going against me for a total of 13 levels on the Dom, so a total loss on 3900 lots, each price level will lose one tick less.

I am like the deer in the headlites, empty feeling in my stomach, I look outside to see if EMS has been called out, pinch myself hard to see if I been dreaming this nightmare. Keeping staring in disbelief if I did something wrong !!! I didn't get angry, just looking if there was something I missed, the method just lost, ok, get up, do a couple jumping jacks and sit down. Market keeps dropping and no signals to get short, I sit there, tick tick tick tick, WTF is that sound coming from? Never noticed that clock making that sound before.....ok, ok, ok, get the game face back on. Ok, signal to buy, wow going against me and add on, get one tick plus on original entry plus more on add-ons. I went into more defensive mode, quicker to breakeven plus one tick, smaller targets, never went for any homerun trades cause that not my style of trading. In the end of the day, I recovered 65% of my losses on fourteen trades. Today was a good day, I stayed focused, didn't force any trades, no revenge trades, all system trades.

Will today's trading make me change anything of my method, no. Losses are part of trading. Have to remain as calm as I can to stay disciplined, focused on my rules. Will this happen again? You bet it will, it is part of the game, can't take it personal, the method lost, not me. Tomorrow I won't change a thing cept get rid of the clock....

for real or humorous post?

 

[Ghost of Cutten]

I don't feel any 'pain' from a losing trade. Just irritation at myself if I made a mistake. I 'handle' it by identifying what I did wrong, then trying to correct that in future.

Example - I dropped about $60k on Apple in the last week, and was fine because I feel the position is sound and is still in a bull market. I lost about 22k on bonds as well, but fine because I had played a breakout and exited once it failed and hit my stop.

By contrast, I exited a long Gasoline short Natural Gas spread at a 28k profit, and was pissed off because it was premature, if I followed correct trading technique I'd have stayed in the position.

 

[Handle123]

Quote from lwlee:

It's $50 a point for each lot. Every point against you is $15k (300 lots). Say at 1950 handles, ES is down 5 points, by now you are down 500k. What was your lowest drawdown point?

My give up point is usually around 3.25pts, but I don't use stops, I don't want to cause my own slippage.

Sorry, but don't feel too entertaining today. But "Cheese" head is rather funny, but am not Green Bay fan, more like "da' Bears".

Well, another phucking losing day, another double loss before the huge upmove and of course I went long but didn't go against me more than 2 flipping ticks, so not nearly enough add-on contracts. Two days in a row the method made money by just trading original signals, but the add-ons certainly have hurt. Last year I had three losing days in a row once and drawdown was 945k, took me 8.5 weeks to recover as it totally messed me up, since starting averaging down-this was first major drawdown. I was taking chemo then for brain and taking them now for prostrate, but I really doubt this has altered anything. I recovered 31% of total loss today, but very deep in hole(no pun intended, LOL) for the week. After ES went into chop, I got very aggressive on entries going for 3-4 ticks. I am generally a chop trader, and don't normally trade all day any more, past two days of all day trading has worn me down. But all were good signals, very tough to get out at targets today. All my yearly stats have 1-4 days after April 15th to be difficult day trading for me, so I thought with the delay of filing, I could trade normal....

Losses happen, drawdowns happen, impossible to make it every single day, and if you test out your method far back enough, you should know 99% of the time, what can happen.

Most of what I have accumulated in 34 years have been thru long term stocks and commodities, so equity swings can be large even if you are positioned in broad array of instruments. Just have to learn to accept what market willing to give.

Not too happy, can't drink-I'd get sicker, food don't make stomach happy any more and no energy to throw anything at the wall, so nap time.
Tomorrow another day.

 

[lwlee]

Yeah, I should have been clearer. He's adding at different price level so the initial 300 cars will steadily lose more money. It depends on what price level he's trading at.

Quote from ocean5:

One tick - $12,5*300cars*13 levels = $48,750 approx.

 

[ocean5]

Quote from lwlee:

Yeah, I should have been clearer. He's adding at different price level so the initial 300 cars will steadily lose more money. It depends on what price level he's trading at.

I would suggest to use 2-3 ticks 'gap' when adding contracts,instead of using each level, at this time.Then cut 300 cars in a half.The structure is unstable.It`s a distribution time,we see some huge block on sale at times.Scary..

 

[stock777]

We have many whales here at et. 500 lot traders 1000 lot traders, we even have traders who trade entire forests. get it.

 

[stock777]

there is NO way to trade size and not have big losers.

period.

no discussion needed.

How to have $5000 on the winning horse?


Prepared to have $5000 on losing horses.

"Grow a Pear"

 

[tomahawk]

Quote from Handle123:


Not too happy, can't drink-I'd get sicker, food don't make stomach happy any more and no energy to throw anything at the wall, so nap time.
Tomorrow another day.

Not only is it another day, it's a day after a huge drift up day ... likely some good chop for your method to thrive in. Hang in there man, on all fronts.