@Redneck @NoDoji @Buy1Sell2 @aquarian1 @Gueco @pak @slugar @zbestoch @dratsum @wrbtrader @Handle123 Had my first live trade today (in over a year)! I am discussing this from a psychological perspective, yes it was profitable but it was a lot more nervewracking than trading on SIM... My risk/reward was horrible (0.5), b/c I set my limit order to simply 71.75 instead of the 69.75 target I had calculated. My thoughts: " afraid of my first trade being a loss, and my small account getting eaten up, I'll just take a quick shallow profit" If I simply set it to the original target of 69.75, then I would of had a 1 risk reward ratio. I wasn't too certain of where to set my stops Whether profitable or losing trade doesnt matter, what matters is that you follow rules.
My 2nd trade has bad risk vs reward after my 1st trade is profitable. I am looking for a certain profit goal and when the 2nd trade is near it I kill the trade instead of letting it reach a limit target so I need to work on that. I also have taking a break after my 1st trade when it's profitable because I have the fear of giving back the gains that I made for the day, but I know I need to prevent having a small number of trades on winning day and tons of trades on a losing day or my losing day becomes triple or more than my winning days.
TRADE ONE: SHORT/LOSS/CL Although this journal was initially intended to be utilizing my trade setup on ES → I am trading other instruments, here I traded the CL I apologize for my recent absence → just been quite busy.. I noticed a signal on the charts, so then I set my limit order to 31.20, TARGET= 31.10, INITIAL STOP = 31.39 EXECUTION Price moved up to fill my limit order at 31.20 at 9h37 (USING the DOM) → IN TRADE PERFORMANCE Price did drop favourably to 31.12 around 9h40 → I got scared by the retracement (green candle) and wondered whether i should still be in this trade or not So I decided to move my target and stop orders I didnt feel certain about this trade, and was not comfortable at all EXIT I was stopped out at 31.22 at 9h48 Murphy's Law → priced moved in my favour to beyond my target of 31.10 after! WHAT I LEARNT I have to stick to my plan / ruleset → cant keep arbitrarily move stops and targets in trade I definitely am undercapitalized when trading the CL The Risk/ Reward ratio was at 0.5 → have to take trades where there is at least 1/1 RR ration. Definitely need to learn more about trade execution This definitely was a rookie trade → how to grow as a trader? @Handle123 @Redneck @NoDoji @Buy1Sell2 @aquarian1 @Gueco @pak @slugar @zbestoch @dratsum @wrbtrader @Switchgear67 @rmorse @NoVoodooHere @Dinosaur_Supervisor @aquarian1 @nakachalet @Bob Rose @DDR @BlazeTrader @wrbtrader @ZenMusic
Ever see a real robot like at a trade show? It can only do what has been programmed to do, like robotic automobile lines building cars, they do same work all day and everyday. Day trading is the same once you are in a trade. R to R at least for me has never been 1 to 1, I have always risk more to get less, once in a blue moon it might be even. Those who get big profits, and I only know of one guy that can risks less than he makes, but generally most day traders have to risk more than they make. So, let's think in terms of risk, your target was 10 ticks, at some point you are up 8 ticks, you did not mention if you lowered protective stops, so if not you are risking 19 + 8 = 27 ticks to get 2 ticks? Do you see something wrong with this? Do you have stats on duration of time on winning trades? Do you know on losing trades how far profitable the trades became? When you are so far profitable, you need to think of locking in something, at least enough to cover fees. And if you get stopped out, who cares? Don't take it personally and play "what if's", you just go onto the next trade, this is a number game.
Interesting, I really dont understand why someone would risk more than their target, they better have more winning trades. I was always told that your Reward should always be higher than risk. I lowerd my stop from 31.39 >> .37 at one point......but in my mind I was like " not sure if this price action is reversing or not" so I made the mental decision to exit out the trade. Three 3min candles later after being stopped out at 31.22 price hit my target (Idiot). I will provide a more thorough answer to your other questions when I get back from work. @Handle123