JM I was going to ask you; with your trades at the end of the day today did you have problems with that consolidation? ie did you get wipsawed? were you worried about a breakout in one direction or another. How did you play it?
2 Trades, one I shorted, and my stop immediately got hit, for a 9 point loss, but my trade didn't get executed exactly at resistance... I guess market orders aren't always good. So I went down 9 points, and then after it came back up and touched again, I shorted, and gained back a lot of points for a 7 point gain, and then just let the market go on from then. When I look back at it, should have been textbook trading, but I wanted to be long, instead of short, but I missed those opprotunities for a few reasons. Could have been a nice day... and hey, I got out of one bad trade and made up for it in another, but just felt weird today. But a bad day at school didn't help to the situation either to tell you the truth. Tomorrow I will be looking for better... although I will probably be busy checking with the broker and getting everything sorted out, that i'll be all worked up and If I did get my account set-up, I'll probably just wait until Friday. Anyways... off to bed, long day tomorrow, and then I finally have my account opened, so that just adds to the drama for tomorrow.
Don't mind your comments at all and I think you have a great point. I devised a great trading strategy. And it is based on CHAOS. Markets can and will do anything it wants at anytime, and going into it with a set system or a set stop is just not the right thing to do. Because each and every little moment in the market is not exactly the same, and warrants a different reaction from you. Just like that, I don't do the same size at all times either.. 1, 2, 3..6, 9, 12, 15, 18 etc.. depends on what I see in the market and what my odds are. You can make as much money as you are willing to lose. Thus, when you compare yourself with others who get stopped out on their set stop out points, if you can tolerate a bit more pain, the gains would exponentially be greater. It is not a loss till you get stopped out. And the point at which you get stopped out is often times a better place to acutally make an entry. It is an even better entry point, so why should you get stopped out? And to make up for a -$ 1,000 loss, you need to make +$ 2,000 just to get back to even. You need to win twice for each loss just to get back to even. Thus, your utmost goal should be not to lose money. Not to get stopped out, and stay offensive at all times. I don't know what else to say... I have a huge win % and I like that. But, of course I had some Huge Losses as well. But they are very rare that I am willing to tolerate them.
"It is not a loss till you get stopped out." That´s EXACTLY what a friend of my dad said when he held on to a stock and saw 5 million usd shrink to 600K... not implying you would do the same, but hm...
But, I believe you can position yourself in a way that should rarely be a concern to yourself. It is like in golf, there are those sides of the fairway that you have to aim for because they provide an easier approach shot onto the greens. Also, when you hit into a green you have to position your ball so that even if you miss the green you have a lot of room to work with. Of course, I am not great at what I do and thats why I still get burned for some huge losses. But, anything less than 100% win rate would be a disappointment for me and that is what I am working towards.
but you gotta have a mental stop somewhere? let´s say you´re bullish and get caught in a downtrend that you didn´t expect. when do you close your position? when your down 100p, 1000p, 2000p?
Hopefully I will never again get caught up against the trend. But, those were the times when I was impatient and undisciplined. Goal is 100% win rate eventually and that means not taking those trades that have a potential to be a loser. And this should not be an issue if you let the market do its magic and be patient. No "SET" mental stops and you get out of a huge loss when you are out of equity in your account. Of course you cannot run out of equity if you have a huge account......meaning, you have to UNDERTRADE... thus, my mental stop would be 2% of my account equity, but my goal is to never let it get there.
your method can probably be good, IF you´re willing to take a huge loss once in a while. Without a stop it can´t be that difficult to make 1-2k/day with ten contracts, and since ym doesn´t trend much you won´t get caught in a trend that often. As long as you can take a loss of 100p or something once in a while it might work. But this is clearly for someone who doesn´t use much leverage...
these huge gap downs every day are sooooo disasterous.. oh the fear.. oh the humanity of it all!! all aboard $$
"I got that book The Disciplined Trader by Mark Douglas." Glad you like it JM, if it helps you as much as it helped me then you will be fine. Ripley, You have one of the most dynamic trading methods I have ever seen. But if it works for you then more power to you. "-I was long 12 contracts @ 475, from around noon (12-12.30), and I was holding onto huge losses. - " Since when has 20 points been a huge loss to you ?