There appears to be a trade off. "To be good in trends, you need to accept a bigger stop. To be good in ranges, you need to accept smaller targets." But what if the two really are not mutually exclusive? What if a wanna-be decent trader (like me) says "all my trades start out as scalps"??? And then, if it starts to take off, he lets it fly??? This has been my goal, but I am satisfied with the range trading I have done so far. Again, the market is ranging approximately 70% of the time. That is a pretty big number. Even with the charts I posted yesterday you could see that I got out way too early on #3 and #4. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...0-at-2-00-per-day.339591/page-33#post-5017004
Don't beat yourself up with the I should have held on after thought. In my opinion that is all post hoc rationalization. Your win rate speaks for itself and your style of hitting consistent base hits is winning the game so far. Better to take profits consistently with a high expected value than holding on for higher nominal gains but lower expected value overall because of a lower success rate. With that said did you hit any homers today with that big drop ha ha?
And one question for you? Have you always been this good? I know you have a decade or more of experience; how has your win rate and profit factor evolved evolved in that time? If it has increased substantially was this due to psychological changes and therefore a better application of your method or more to do with actual changes in your method/approach?
I agree with your comment. And a long time ago I gave up feeling bad about missed trade opportunity. "There will always be another trade" is another big slogan of mine. And speaking of trades, my biggest was $26. So I can let some run after all . . . .
All I can say is "I paid my dues." My win rate has stayed in the 80% range during the past 13 years, but I attribute this mainly to my small targets, as mentioned in the last post. From the very beginning is was thinking "base hits, base hits" and it worked. For me, the biggest problem has not been entries but STOPS. What do I do when I am wrong? This has haunted me for 13 years. And I am not out of the woods yet, although this journal with the tight stop is really good for me. The most valuable thing that has happened is (1) publicly posting my results in a journal like this and (2) going through the OneUp evaluation. In both cases, it is the public exposure that has made me follow my rules. Unfortunately, it is too easy for me to justify breaking them without the risk of public shame or evaluation failure. I know this doesn't bode well for the status of my self-discipline, but it is working for me now by being here. I will think some more about your question.
I lost about $30 today. I was up $30, but the market kept going down when I thought we'd get a turn late in the day. Keeping the losses small is SO IMPORTANT.
Not too bad at all. Can you kindly post a screen shot of yesterday's trade entries and exits. I am interested to see where you hit that 26 home run. Thanks.