A little update on my latest curve trades. During the ag upmove of April/May, I realized I had too much LT positions which required attention, and I wasn't focused enough on my daily scalping to the point that my scalping performance suffered. Given that during the period from January 2015 to April 2016, my LT trades only represented approx. 10% of my revenue( and scalping 90% ), I decided to liquidate this thread's positions. Here is the last EC when I was done liquidating. I know it is not that bad, but fundamental/ Curve trades requires so much effort compared to scalping, that I decided to stop for a while. I plan to come back in the field later, but for now I am focusing on automation, and not really following grain fundamentals. See you later...
Do you monitor your equity curve perhaps like you do a chart? I have drawdows and back testing them I have a "mean" average, so when I reach the "mean" average, I increase lots or shares to take advantage of my retracement, works pretty well, of course I don't bet the farm on what I add and only do for couple of days when it resumes going up. I had bought an assortment of 3rd part softwares through the years and only start taking trades on them after their "mean" drawdown and when they make new equity highs plus couple weeks, I exit all positions till next drawdown. If is like fishing a marlin, pull on rod and reel in, let it have some line to pull back, do back and forth till fish gets tired.
I know a few guys doing the same as you, but I do just the opposite. Like Marty Schwartz. When I am in a DD and finally lose confidence, I trade super small until I feel the "edge" is back. I know it takes more time to come back , but confidence is more important to me than getting to high water mark ASAP...
I think there's a chance you're trading your P/L, tradator. How often do you watch your EC or P/L while trading? How often does the concept of dollars or currency come up or is in your face as an aspect of making trades? With regards to trading longer term curve trades, why make such a large issue out of the fundamentals? Just trade the price. There's no way scalping takes less effort from a time investment aspect.
I rarely watch my P/L simply because I use X Trader and everybody knows X trader P/L is false if you trade spreads overnight. I see my P§L once a day with my statement. When I scalp, I just watch a price ladder and react to what I see. I have been doing it for 10 years, it's totally automatic. When I do LT spreads, I check the shape of the curve, read the fundamentals, calculate the max carry, test on historical datas to find seasonal relevance...I use a lot more brainpower to trade LT.The problem is I am so used to scalping which produces very little to no DDs that I have a hard time sticking to a strategy when the performance is not as stable( as it is the case with LT spreads ). Here I took the good decision though, my scalping has gone a lot better since I am back 100% at it...