Take every setup ? Or quit when you're up
- Thread starter wiesman02
- Start date
Even if you stop for the day, try to keep track of trades you missed on that met your criteria or switch to sim. Do this for 1 month. At the end of that time, the results will answer whether or not you should stop trading or take every set up. I mostly will take every trade I see. I have a max drawdown for the day and it I hit it I stop trading. I am a believer of setting profit goals and trying to reach them either daily or weekly. I prefer daily and that is what I set my max drawdown to. You should not be have a daily drawdown of $400 when your average winning days are only $100. I only trade on a 5 minute chart. I used to use a 2 min for entries but I find the higher time frame you use the easier it will be to stay in the trade for more profit. The key is consistency. 1.75 points average on 4 days out of 5 on a 40 lot may just pay the bills.
that's it,fear,it's the ingredient in every dish that you serve up ,no matter what you cook,it doesn't taste right,blame your fridge,your stove ,your pots and pans,its none of those ,its that special ingredient you add. When you were a kid you were afraid of falling when you were learning to ride a bike,drowning before you knew how to swim,some people allowed these fears to keep them from ever riding,swimming driving,thats ok if you dont need to do these things. But your a trader,you have to get over this,someday you will,someday could be a year away,never or tommorrow. Take your fucking setups,take your losses ,ride your winners,quit your fuckin whining ,get on that horse and ride like the wind
I still have my old spreadsheet saved, "TradesNotTaken.xls", to remind me of what happens when I pick and choose instead of taking all the good ones.
I use a 5-min for setups and a 3-min for entries. Have to switch right back to the 5-min once in or the noise cuts the winners short every time.
The only justification I can see for quitting when you're up is if you're primarily a discretionary or "gut" trader and you are prone to frustration; if you find that giving back a good chunk of your morning colors your perception and causes overtrading, it may well be true that the next or "marginal" dollar profit is indeed riskier. Setups are setups, but discretion = perception so do what you need to (ie, the irrational) in order to keep an even keel.
Still suffering from this.. took the short stop right under ORB on NQ today (1825.25) AFTER the massive gap down you would think.. no way it can go down further.. WHO ARE YOU to surmise that?? If I were watching it develop to place the trade it never would have happened.. like so many agonizing missed trades recently.. well 10 minutes later 20 NQ points..
The thing with oversold or overbought markets is if you had been taking every good setup in the right direction from the start without thinking too much you can afford the final wrong trade..
IT IS FEAR! and refusing to REALLY accept the loss. Like wanting insurance without paying the premium. You don't want to endure one losing trade/day. The reason we take this sooooo seriously is a serious barrier to so much potential.
Wasting the current volatility we've all been yearning for is a trading sin. Take the next 20 setups in a row and I bet you won't be worse off..
Rashid, it took Bighog about a year and a half to pound this into my head. He never quit telling me to follow the trend, until it ends, period! And I never quit doubting the validity of it! Until this year. The psychology behind the trend-following price action is that it takes a LOT to change crowd sentiment. It doesn't just change because price is "too high" or "too low". After 2008/2009 I think we all realize "too low" is still a long way off from the current state of affairs.
I made more money so far this year shorting lows, buying highs and trading with the trend than I made in all of all of 2009.
Trading in the direction of the market.. the holy grail..If you can quit when you are down huge, then the answer to your question is 'yes'. if you can just walk away after being down like 1k, then it's much easier to walk away when you are up 2k.