Stop-loss: Trail or not?

[Overnight]

...
Why I do not just take the 10 tick profit? Well because, I rather wait for more profit (the old let the winner run) and just trail the winner.

GAH, exactly! That Is what I was grappling with every day with these ideas, but then 2017 happened and I started swinging and abandoned these strats, because it was all golden Hostess cakes with no Drakes devil-dogs ruining the bull party.

Now I crave a Ho-Ho. :-(

 

[Overnight]

Well, I screwed this one up, because I realized my trail was not working on the second contract. So I moved stop number 2 to the BE point...Then realized that I do not have a trail on the second contract.

It still worked...

K, I entered it again on another account.

I am trying to figure out now why the hell I set up the strat this way when I came up with it like 3 years ago. What the hell were the market conditions back then that made me make this? Oi!

 

[SimpleMeLike]

GAH, exactly! That Is what I was grappling with every day with these ideas, but then 2017 happened and I started swinging and abandoned these strats, because it was all golden Hostess cakes with no Drakes devil-dogs ruining the bull party.

Now I crave a Ho-Ho. :-(

Yep, because guess what. After you put the position on, neither of us have no idea/certainty what Mr.Market wants to do. We can only simply manage the position.

 

[Overnight]

Mother fucker, this latest one working also. See? All that matters is the entry. Grrrr.

 

[Overnight]

If anyone ever held a contest for super sim traders, I'd be in the top tier man. Simple stupid stuff.

 

[SimpleMeLike]

If only it were that easy. Here's an example of a strat I was messing with early on when the markets were sublime...

View attachment 214498

In this example, 3 contracts.

You take off first target at 6 ticks. Second target is 10 ticks after. When that second target is hit, the 3rd contract is on a trail at the BE of the second contract, and every time the price moves up 1 tick, the stop loss moves up one tick.

Something like that.

So why not just go 3 contracts to the first target of 6 ticks, rather than risk 3 contracts on a weird trail at a ~25 tick loss?

I just plugged this into sim while I was typing, and two contracts are off. Let's see what that final result will be.

Where did you get the profit target 6, 16, and 100 from?

In addition, where did you get the stop loss 24, 25, and 27 from?

 

[Overnight]

Where did you get the profit target 6, 16, and 100 from?

In addition, where did you get the stop loss 24, 25, and 27 from?

The profit targets were based on calculations of how much risk to take based on movement pre 2017, and during 2017. It had to do with expected market movement over the course of a day. Those times are gone.

The stops are split like that because of the software. In NT7, 3 stops at the same price will be gelled into one line on the chart-trader

With the slightly different stops, I can slide each stop where I want.

And the 100-tick target is just the "runner" contract. It is currently "running", up 4 points so far from the stop-target trail.

 

[Overnight]

It just closed out. This is how it looks when you get the direction right...

But get the direction wrong and it will fuck you at the drive through.

 

[imjohn]

imjohn,

When you exit the first contract, do you bring your second contract to breakeven?

If I'm running both exit methods concurrently, with half-size allotted to each, I treat them as separate trades. One doesn't have any bearing on the other.

Example if I was trading 10 lots

5 contracts - normal entry, normal fixed target/stop. 1.5:1 reward to risk
5 contracts - normal entry, trailing exit.. I dont look to get out at breakeven, I go out wherever my trailing method dictates, sometimes that's at breakeven or below, but breakeven is not something I target or think about.

Normally, I just trade one of the two methods (prefer the one with fixed targets as it's easy to trade), but I trade the two methods concurrently (1/2 size each) at times when the market is calm). I do like the results, but it's more work.

 

[SimpleMeLike]

5 contracts - normal entry, normal fixed target/stop. 1.5:1 reward to risk

imjohn,

How did you determine that your stop loss and and profit target will always be 1.5 : 1 (reward to risk)? Was this determined via back testing or just strictly personal risk and reward setting you chose for comfort, etc?