I have over a dozen automation systems running 24/5.5, so I been busy and continue to keep very busy. I now have my best friend and business partner doing programming, I have trust issues, so this works out very well for me. I have found that by designing new entries, new ways of looking for when probabilities of trend ends, so like where most get losses at end of trends, I been concentrating on this on a part time for 2 years. So I have found 3 unique patterns based on original trend when most likely added entry signals are above 85% will fail, these have nothing to do with extremes like lows in a downtrend, i.e. seeing clustering lows or small breaks of pivot lows or Head & Shoulder bottoms, depending on average Swing length is in zone of normal movement of entire one minute swing, like in normal volatility ES is 7-10 points I can over 50% expect reversal on this alone, but when one adds patterns into the 7-10 points, this increases my percentages of what can be expected. Of course back testing does not mean it will happen, but I am not gunning for "what if's" I am targeting what I can make on consistent basis. I let my long term positions "let profits run" and hedge when it calls for doing so. I have formed the opinion, and back testing proves it, that as long as I am hedged correctly and receiving stock dividends and can sell options on stocks/ETF's if market goes down, I am still going to have an up year and beat the Indexes.
Numbers/percentages are my life, challenging myself to get better. I still manually trade something every day, keeps mind sort of sharp, less chance of "losing it" it all, and always testing something to see if good enough to have programmed. But the fact is I can't remember as much as I need to when scalping, memories come and go, sometimes I can see the pattern and like a deer in headlights slow to doing what to do. And no, don't have Alzheimer’s disease, have areas altered due to surgeries. So automation way to go.
What I find amusing, if I shown me all this 40 years ago, would not understand most of it, and yet each week in the forum people like begging for mentoring, or systems or a way not to do the 10,000 hours, they don't understand it is a long journey to keep money, not hard to trade, but hard to keep your capital and appreciate it. I still believe if one can't triple a sim account three separate times, no reason to go live or do contests like Combine or other one, just wasting more money.
Good Trading to you Illini Trader.
