Yes, but I can be in the market for 5 minutes instead of 10 minutes, etc.; I just feel like the more time you spend in a trade - then the higher predictive power you have to have - your trying to predict 10 minutes instead of 5, thats double the odds against you - thats the only reason I would consider more contracts, but as you said you could lose twice as much too, so I was just looking for opinions.
Yes. If you lose a pre determined amount (can be in dollars or a percentage of the account) during a month, you stop trading, close all positions and go away to the beach and come back the next month. Never cap your upside, vital to cap your downside. Think of your performance record over the long term.
Predictive, yes, but you must also be reactive as your predictions can mean jack shit! Do not take my word for it, as you can easily obtain the reports that will verify it for yourself if you are really interested and take the time to look it up, but index futures trading has changed drastically since a lot of the old text books were written - mainly due to HFT. This is the main reason your predictive powers, based on the knowledge you have acquired, are now worth jack shit! If you use DOM then you can clearly see what I am talking about. Common sense suggests that in order to correct your predictive powers to suit the current situations, you must therefore gain some new knowledge in relation to HFT and how they go about programming the code, for a computer is as thick as a 4 inch plank and will only spit out outputs based on the inputs that the programmer has decided to use. People being people, can only use information that they already know, so, it is very possible that what they use is already widely known, but it is so obvious that nobody bothers to think about it, thinking that HFT programmers use something that nobody knows about - I hope I am not confusing you, but it is as simple as that - but you have to figure out what is the common denominator for HFT programmers. J_S
I have to disagree with you here. You should never let yourself get into that position in the first place, for to do so means you have not yet developed a trading approach that keeps you in the game at all times! If you do not stay in the game, then you will more than likely miss out on good opportunities. Opportunity cost is one of the biggest negatives a trader will have. J_S
If you can afford to not have to work ever and just go to a beach, then i suggest just going to the beach and being happy. Yes the longer your in, the greater the chances of a spike or turn against you. But the longer the greater the profit potential compared to spread and comm charges. Sadly they eat you u alive. It's a tricky tricky balancing act, exit setup like a entry setup but in reverse, so its not time fixed, its the probability of making more money falling which makes you exit.
"Risk control is the most important thing in trading. For example, right now I am down about 6.5 percent for the month. I have a 3.5 percent stop on my equity for the rest of the month. I want to make sure that I never have a double-digit loss in any month." - Paul Tudor Jones interviewed in Market Wizards.
Yeah, that does seem like a good idea - I just never heard of it before, thanks. Btw, what percentage of your account equity is your daily stop loss?
I have depth of market, not trading off it; just watching it I haven't seen any great correlations between bids and price yet, but I haven't really watched it much to be fair. Thanks, yes I hadn't thought about this, but learning some HFT algorithms (if I can find them) makes a lot of sense - know your enemy right...
I would not go that far, but I would take heed of those who know how the HFT lads work, and what "principle" they mostly use to determine important levels that kick in certain buy/sell programmes. J_S