The usual question: how is it possible?

33 strategies?!

In terms of feeling guilty, it depends what your intentions are. When I retire, i'd like to have enough to start a non profit grocery store & restaurant, volunteer my time, etc...
 
Yes, 33. I don't want to say what I want to do, because I don't want to be disapproved or get the thread off topic (I want to do drugs, but legally - I will go to Amsterdam and smoke marijuana for a month).

Here's an idea for the 34th strategy. I gave access to my paper trading account to a friend of mine who knows nothing about trading (but very intelligent), and with 30k (virtual), I told him to try to make some money with the futures I am trading. He made 1600 $ in the first 24 hours. I asked him if he could tell me what was his idea to make those good trades. He said "I wait for something to go up too much, and then wait for it to start coming down" and then he goes short (he doesn't even know what it means to "go short", but I told him to sell when he thinks it will go down). This sounds like the "oscillator" type of thing, something someone told me about in a private message. What system can we make out of this? Any advice?

Recapitulating: I wait for something to go up too much, and then to start coming down, then I go short (and viceversa). This needs some thinking. Something good could come out of this. If anyone wants to work on a system together, we could start a thread and build a system based on this concept, "open source" type of thing.
 
Now the strategy could work both ways, but let's worry about short, to make it more simple.

How do I measure "go up too much"?
In a simple way, without using "oscillators", I would use a series of consecutive higher closes (hourly, or any timeframe).

How do I measure "start to come down"?
One lower close.

So for simplicity we will use hourly closes. 5 straight higher closes is "goes up too much" and a lower close is "starts to come down".

Then I need to pick a market that ranges all the time like the EUR. Not the CL because that will run me over and keep on going up. Or I will simply test all markets and see where it works best (and make sure that's not chance).

Then I need to pick a time where there tends to be reversals, which should increase my chances. The system is complicated and simple enough and it should work.

Right market, right time, and "went up too much" and "has started to come down". Then I exit via take profit or stoploss. This could be my 34th system.
 
Quote from travis:

Leveraged forex, just like me. And I, too, am developing other strategies now (have 33 now, but 7 of them don't work). Smoothing the equity curve, exactly. That is what's been driving me crazy for the past year - the drawdown. For two straight months I double, and then suddenly the next month the systems want to lose everything or almost. Then I get irrational and try to get my money back and I'll lose everything with my discretionary trading (it happened twice already, in one year - I started many threads about it). Then, in the past 6 months, I was forced to understand the concept of "money management", which for me doesn't go very far - I can only understand the kelly criterion (I am bad at formulas).

I am glad you liked the thread. I need people like you and the others to tell me this is normal, otherwise I will be tempted to give everything back in order not to feel like a criminal, like I am doing something illegal, or like it's not going to last (and this will cause me to panic as soon as I see some drawdown)... similar destabilizing ideas that go through my mind, and that lead to self-sabotage.

But thanks to this forum I am always getting a sense of what others in my situation are thinking and experiencing and this keeps me balanced and on track. Other than here and on similar forums, all I hear is people who say:

1) "it's impossible - come on, if it worked, everyone would be doing it".
2) "it's immoral to make money without working".
3) "it's like gambling - you might as well play the lottery".

That's all I hear from normal people.
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Giving back is a worthwhile endeavour. The ignore button helps a lot (except with 50-aliases-and-dynamic-IPs like cold/c-kid).

Perhaps you can also identify newbies who post and directly offer thoughts as well. But the above comments come with the territory.
 
I didn't read this thread thoroughly, but based on the first page alone, it sounds like the OP is trading a martingale.

If so, you're playing Russian roulette. There is only one possible outcome, and it's not pretty.
 
Quote from travis:

Regarding your "signing off" this thread, it's a pity, and it happens because you didn't learn to use the "ignore list". Great feature. You see, it doesn't matter how well you reply to these evil people being sarcastic, aggressive, negative, or mistrusting in the best of hypotheses. The minute you reply to a degrading post or objection, you are going to get into a bad mood. Whether you reply kindly, aggressively... whether you win the argument... even if the guy apologized... it doesn't matter. The best thing is to not reply and to place the guy on your ignore list. Even more important - place the guy on your ignore list after reading the first half of his first sentence, or better yet if you spot a "smiley" in his post. It's like applying a stoploss. Instead, if you reply, it's like hanging on to a losing trade, hoping it will turn into a positive one.
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Thanks. I probably need a higher threshold like you say for negativity before hitting ignore. I tend to assume people are sincere too long.

About signing off, I fixed it so ET can't send me any emails anymore a few weeks ago. Previously the replies to threads in my email were distracting and interrupting real work.

So I probably can now avoid saying that I will "sign off" of threads any more.

It seems I have said I'm signing off from different threads and then people post replies or otherwise prompt me to stay on the thread.

I hope things work out like you expect with regards to staying the course.

Sincerely,
Wayne
 
Yeah, you don't have to reply forever - of course you have your work. Just like I don't have to go on talking forever, so maybe I will shut up, too, for a bit.
 
Quote from travis:

I need people like you and the others to tell me this is normal, otherwise I will be tempted to give everything back in order not to feel like a criminal, like I am doing something illegal, or like it's not going to last (and this will cause me to panic as soon as I see some drawdown)... similar destabilizing ideas that go through my mind, and that lead to self-sabotage.
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You're not doing anything criminal or illegal, and certainly not immoral.

But without a better understand of statistics, you are setting yourself up for catastrophic failure. (I see you've "lost all of your capital" multiple times, so perhaps that level of failure isn't that catastrophic for you.)

Let me put it this way (with the textbook example of a martingale). You can implement a similar strategy by going to Las Vegas and playing blackjack. Bet $1 a hand. Every time you win, keep the $1 and play again. Every time you lose, double your bet. Whenever you win again, you will have won back all of your losses + $1.

No one ever loses, say... 50 hands of blackjack in a row, right? All you need is ONE win, and you'll have a profit. You will (eventually) be a billionaire, and no one in Vegas can stop you.

In reality of course, you won't. You'll have exactly the equity curve you described. You will be profitable 99.99% of the time, and the 0.01% loss will wipe out your trading account entirely.
 
This thread is getting really weird.

No stops, doubling up on losses, hate smileys, "going to amsterdam", etc.

Who hates smileys?

Sounds like you're all a bunch of freakin' hippies. But wait, you hate smileys so that can't be it. I have to admit that I'm totally stumped here.

I'm pretty much putting all of you on ignore.

This is for you, travis: :D :D :D
 
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