Quote from austinp:
Apart from who does what specifically here, let me add that wins & losses, ratios, etc mean very little to bottom-line results. That is of interest to data mining, but doesn't tell a whole story at all.
Today for example I began trading CL in 4-lots, 2 and 2 on split entries at 8am eastern. I went from down -1440 on the 4-lot efforts back to +40 ahead of the 2pm news.
Once I saw how chop-pounded the tape was from relentless sideways volatility, switched to 2-lots and finished at tally posted (attached)
By far I had more losing "trades" than wins, probably an 80% loss ratio when you count stops at scratch or -5 cents or -10 cents (max size stop) all combined. The actual profit runs were maybe 20% of all trades... but they were much greater than the controlled stops.
Moral of the story? Keep your losses contained, work with markets that generally move enough to give you ample chance to recover drawdowns. That is definitely NOT the ES futures, which are hands down worst possible choice for retail daytraders. That symbol is way too congestive and range-dead for effective profit consistency.
Trading is about controlled stress, controlled excitement, controlled anxiety, controlled frustration, controlled elation... pretty much self-control. That and a real methodical trading edge is the dual path to success.