What's your Nov drawdown?

Your Nov drawdown?

  • 1-5%

    Votes: 27 17.3%

  • 5-10%

    Votes: 20 12.8%

  • 10% or more

    Votes: 32 20.5%

  • Drawdown? My arse...

    Votes: 77 49.4%
  • Total voters
    156
Quote from austinp:

<i>"I'm with you Austin. Had some gold positions over the last two days that just kept churning until I threw in the towel and then the HUUUUUGE move came."</i>

The damndest part is, had I taken the exact-same trades in ER2 it would have been a 100+ point week. Same trades in NQ would have been more than 200+ points.

ER was much more orderly than ES, and NQ was a lot smoother than both. But, ES has size I need whereas the other two don't.

The ER traders I work with were giddy over trade results there. I'm watching all that unfold on the charts myself. Signals confirm, ER moves off as expected. Meanwhile, the ES chops and churns and chops and churns before finally heading off in the same expected direction.

I trade a 10min trend/signal chart and faster chart for continuation signals. Anyone can learn to read which way price action is leaning at any moment in time: up, down or sideways. It is extremely frustrating to get the correct reads over and over again while being repeatedly stopped in gyrational noise before price action goes from A to B as expected.

*

It was my first real week of trading a fledgling pool. Would have been swell to book +50pts ~ +75pts first week out of the gate. Everyone always wants their best foot forward with something new. Instead we get tape violence, two steps beyond what I'd call volatility.

In time it will all even out. There are some 20+ point profit days ahead of us soon. I can live with averaging +5pts ES per day. The trader in me wants more. Greedy buggers, the whole bunch of us. By Monday I'll have forgotten the whole thing. Weekends are refreshing.

Perspective :p
More...
Your ES comments are exactly why I trade the "accordion" trade management with the ES (dynamic position) and I trade fixed position size, entries, and stops on the ER2/NQ/DAX.

My discretionary trading account is up 3.6% for the month of November. My automated accounts are beating my discretionary accounts so far this month as usual.
 
Quote from austinp:

<i>"If you didnt make money this week you are, how you say, not good."</i>

Well, we hear a lot of talk about all the money made in this board. Only thing is, we don't see many blotters in P&L thread ($RM excepted) to walk the talk.

Volatility is nice, I'll take that over dead markets any day. But... I got pounded out of two dozen shorts this week at any reasonable stop before markets actually tanked.

If you trade the ER or ES, you got pounded out of your stops (long or short) plenty of times. Period, end of story.

Instead of price action failing and falling from the same fib grids, clusters, trend lines, prior highs - lows, 2x tops and bottoms, pivot values, etc (stuff that all veterans see) like they do in normal markets, those same magnets got double, triple and quadruple thrusted.

Today I was short three times in the afternoon near highs before the watershed. I knew it was coming. There were half-dozen tech layers clustered right there, screaming short side. But the tape kept popping and popping and popping before it broke like we knew it would.

That's the difference between now and high volatility like July and August had. Tapes would break, coil sideways, break and coil, then break and collapse. These days they chop and chop and chop thru a wide sideways range between surge moves.

I bought this ES tape all the way from session lows to afternoon highs. +2pts, +4pts and then -2pts, -2pts, -2pts as it chopped downward before surging upward again. ER was similar but better than ES, NQ was much smoother than both. Individual stocks can be real hairy, especially limited volume ~ O/I issues.

Yes I made money. I can make money every day, any day. It was one helluva struggle, even knowing which way the tape was going every swing. Which direction next never surprises me... I can measure = see them all. It's the deep pullbacks thru stops that make the difference between -2pts or -3pts and +4pts to +8pts closed trade result.

If everyone just gutted this market like a fish, please share the results with us in P&L 2007 thread. Everyone's invited. I saw a tape that was radical in movement from points A to B to C to D. The turns were predictable, as usual. Holding the trade thru extreme whipsaw noise is another chore altogether.

Viva la volatility, but too much of a good thing is not always a great thing :)
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This volatility requires larger than usual stops, but then that requires smaller than usual size (at least if one wants a steady equity curve!).

The way I see it, if I keep my stops the same for all market conditions, I'll get chopped (or should I say, STOPPED) to death on days like Friday (Thursday was not a walk in the park either, and neither wasthe previous Friday).

I'll admit it: I really DON'T make more on choppy and highly volatile times than I do on choppy and less volatile times. Contrary to all of the spam emails that flood my Yahoo account, smaller size is sometimes a good thing! :-)
 
Volatility is the day traders dream. If you can not make the money in a volatile market then you should give up trading. I trade future S&P e-min and up over 120% this month and in July and August I went over 200% for each month. Also those 2 months were very volatile. Volatility will bring out more of your best signals. Best signals shows up less in lower volatile market. That is why many pro traders, like a volatile market better than a normal market.
 
Quote from nutcracker:

If you can not make the money in a volatile market then you should give up trading. I trade future S&P e-min and up over 120% this month and in July and August I went over 200% for each month.
More...

Over 200% in July, over 200% in August, and over 120% so far this month......Great % gains, but they're meaningless without also mentioning your account size.

So how much are you trading with?
 
Quote from Longhorns:

Over 200% in July, over 200% in August, and over 120% so far this month......Great % gains, but they're meaningless without also mentioning your account size.

So how much are you trading with?
More...

Ease up on him a bit Longhorns, he may be using Gilliam Curves after all you know....:D
 
Quote from austinp:

<i>"If you didnt make money this week you are, how you say, not good."</i>

Well, we hear a lot of talk about all the money made in this board. Only thing is, we don't see many blotters in P&L thread ($RM excepted) to walk the talk.

Volatility is nice, I'll take that over dead markets any day. But... I got pounded out of two dozen shorts this week at any reasonable stop before markets actually tanked.

If you trade the ER or ES, you got pounded out of your stops (long or short) plenty of times. Period, end of story.

Instead of price action failing and falling from the same fib grids, clusters, trend lines, prior highs - lows, 2x tops and bottoms, pivot values, etc (stuff that all veterans see) like they do in normal markets, those same magnets got double, triple and quadruple thrusted.

Today I was short three times in the afternoon near highs before the watershed. I knew it was coming. There were half-dozen tech layers clustered right there, screaming short side. But the tape kept popping and popping and popping before it broke like we knew it would.

That's the difference between now and high volatility like July and August had. Tapes would break, coil sideways, break and coil, then break and collapse. These days they chop and chop and chop thru a wide sideways range between surge moves.

I bought this ES tape all the way from session lows to afternoon highs. +2pts, +4pts and then -2pts, -2pts, -2pts as it chopped downward before surging upward again. ER was similar but better than ES, NQ was much smoother than both. Individual stocks can be real hairy, especially limited volume ~ O/I issues.

Yes I made money. I can make money every day, any day. It was one helluva struggle, even knowing which way the tape was going every swing. Which direction next never surprises me... I can measure = see them all. It's the deep pullbacks thru stops that make the difference between -2pts or -3pts and +4pts to +8pts closed trade result.

If everyone just gutted this market like a fish, please share the results with us in P&L 2007 thread. Everyone's invited. I saw a tape that was radical in movement from points A to B to C to D. The turns were predictable, as usual. Holding the trade thru extreme whipsaw noise is another chore altogether.

Viva la volatility, but too much of a good thing is not always a great thing :)
More...

My blotter is on P/L
 
Quote from opt789:

Exactly.
If you are an emini trader and have not made obscene money these last two weeks then it is time to look for a new profession.
More...

Exactly.

Early November has been an almost exact replay of mid-August. Since we are talking ** Zero Sum Game **, a lot of people made windfall profits in August. The same people cleaned up last week.

If you lost money in August - you should have evolved enough to be making money in November.
 
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