Whats is your YTD % return?

Quote from dalodoma:

Gained 12% so far on my 9 swing trades.

Max drawdown 9%

Leverage 2.5:1
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I buy into a blackjack game with $100, make $250 in one hour. My hourly rate of return is what? Annualized to what?

I prefer to think that I am getting "paid" for my years of blackjack experience and expertise, rather than making money on the money. Money is just a tool.

FWIW,

Don (still bored, obviously) :cool:
 
Quote from Don Bright:

That's exactly how I train the bootcampers on the opening only strategy.....tell me "how many cents you made, not dollars". Whether it's on 100 shares on day one, or 2,000 shares at the end of training...the consistency is important....we can always "dial up" the volume for more actuall $$.

Don
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Ah, now I start to understand. Deep pockets make the difference :)
So, besides consistency, what else do you consider important? I mean, supposing that two traders have the same consistency, what would you look at? How they handle risk? How often they lose?
 
Quote from andread:

Ah, now I start to understand. Deep pockets make the difference :)
So, besides consistency, what else do you consider important? I mean, supposing that two traders have the same consistency, what would you look at? How they handle risk? How often they lose?
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Good question, and that is where the "art" of trading comes into play. 2 could have the same number of winners and losers, but make differeing amounts of money. Based on risk tolerance, discipline, and overall (what I call) "comfort level" with their skill at understanding the markets. Moving up from $5.00 chips, to $25 chips, and then $100 chips without chaning the way you play the game (so many change the way the play/trade when the stakes get higher, usually with adverse consequences...that is one reason to get people to a "minimal" volume, share size, etc. early on). Hard to get a 2 year traders to move from 100 shares to 500 shares....but if they get that "comfort level" early on, they have no problem dialing up a bit when the time comes.

Don
 
Quote from Don Bright:

Good question, and that is where the "art" of trading comes into play. 2 could have the same number of winners and losers, but make differeing amounts of money. Based on risk tolerance, discipline, and overall (what I call) "comfort level" with their skill at understanding the markets. Moving up from $5.00 chips, to $25 chips, and then $100 chips without chaning the way you play the game (so many change the way the play/trade when the stakes get higher, usually with adverse consequences...that is one reason to get people to a "minimal" volume, share size, etc. early on). Hard to get a 2 year traders to move from 100 shares to 500 shares....but if they get that "comfort level" early on, they have no problem dialing up a bit when the time comes.

Don
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ah, sort of scalability.

Thanks
 
Most definetely he wasn't trading 'pips' :D


Quote from Richbynature:

How do you measure a trader's skill level?

Well I can't see any other method than to reduce the question to the total profit in terms of "pips" and the maximum drawdown in "pips" too.

This is then independent of:

1. Account size
2. Financial instrument traded

For example, on futures FX, the spread is (varies tightly around) 1 pip with commissions ~ 1/2 pip (at Interactive Brokers). Somebody else might be trading a small stock at CMC (deal4free) with a market spread of (let's say) 13 pips.

Now clearly it is going to be harder to make profits where the spreads are 13 pips (for example) or more. There will be fewer timeframes over which a profitable change in price is likely to take place.

So part of the skill of a trader is in choosing the right thing to trade (FX is comparatively cheap, cheap to me = small spreads compared to typical moves, in terms of pips).

The reason I suggest we should only talk in terms of pips is simply that everything scales to pips (through stakes) and spreads are fixed on each individual instrument.

Hence the skill of a trader should be more effectively discussed through discussion of statistics measured in pips. Stas might include:

1. Total profit (pips)
2. Largest drawndown (pips)
3. Analysis of profit per day / week / month / year to understand statistical distribution of wins / losses
4. I also like to know what % of trades 'make me the profit'. In most businesses there is a 'business winning' cost. For me I think of this as the trades which cancel out (ie all the losers, summed up through to the most profitable trades). Presently only 18% (the top 18%) of my trades 'make the profit'. Translated another way, 82% of my time while trading, in the market, is 'wasted'. This is because I don't have a crystal ball. Instead I use statistics. So I guess a higher value for this measure would also be a measure of success.

I reiterate a statistic that I think must be important: Warren Buffet has averaged 21.5% for 40 years - if you can match that (21.5%), then you are doing something right.
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Quote from stock_trad3r:

Starting from Jan 2006 what is your guys overall percentage gain/loss so far? Just wondering how people are doing here.

Mine is down 8% TYD.
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NEGATIVE@!@!@!
 
Quote from Don Bright:

I buy into a blackjack game with $100, make $250 in one hour. My hourly rate of return is what? Annualized to what?

I prefer to think that I am getting "paid" for my years of blackjack experience and expertise, rather than making money on the money. Money is just a tool.

FWIW,

Don (still bored, obviously) :cool:
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I thought you were 86'd out of the casino's. What counting system do you use for blackjack? I was using the expert count, but it doesn't work very well. I'm thinking of learning a new one. Maybe the "red seven count" or "hi-low" . Not sure. Hi-low would have to calculate the true count. More brain work. Not enough toes on my feet. lol.
 
Hi Dieselman,

What are you trading? 80 K trades seems like too much for futures. Is this FOrex?

Rgds,




Quote from dieselman8:

+500.2%

80,341 trades.
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Quote from SarahG:

I thought you were 86'd out of the casino's. What counting system do you use for blackjack? I was using the expert count, but it doesn't work very well. I'm thinking of learning a new one. Maybe the "red seven count" or "hi-low" . Not sure. Hi-low would have to calculate the true count. More brain work. Not enough toes on my feet. lol.
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I use a basic plus/minus count (keeping track of aces with my feet). Trick is to be able to use a large enough bet ratio to make any real money. I start with 1hand of of 50 up to 2 hands of 250, for 10 to 1...if that works, I then go to 2 hands of 500 which usually brings a lot of attention.

Cruise ships seem to be a bit nicer to us...let us play...usually pays for the trip plus a bit.

True count can be done with accurate estimate of "penetration" with a shoe/double deck.

Don
 
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