May I ask what you found out here...? I'm still wrestling a bit with this issue myself. Generally, I find that a trailing stop is great when the market picks up a trend and/or momentum. But certainly for many entries/exits it's a bad idea. So for me, it seems like it's dependent on the actual trade and current price action.
Today, I finished up about $100 and am just shy of $6,000. I started on Jan 17 with $2,000. I am now 2 months and 10 calendar days into this experiment. Monday will be the 50th trading day. Yes, I have a LONG way to go to get to $200,000, but at about 2.3% average per day, I get there on trading day 205. I think that would be late October. The market has been the epitome of insanity, except that it finally spoke the truth and revealed that the Fed has really been the insane one all along - giving drugs ($$$$) to anyone who will take them. Yes the virus weakness is legit, but I think this major tankage would have happened much more slowly if all these stocks weren't propped up by corporate buybacks and all the other accounting shenanigans. For example at the end of the day today, the Fed announced a tapering of the QE purchases from $75BN per day to "just" $60BN per day or less next week, and the markets cratered. This market may never return to "normal," but I must keep going. So now what? I just need to keep doing two things that seem paradoxical. (1) I must protect this cash like the gold in Fort Knox, and (2) I must also grow the balance daily. I must honor all stops. I must be flat when the trade is not clear. I must trade well, always trying to improve my entries and exits. I must increase the contracts per trade. What is "2% per day"? It is an awesome number that is a large component of my financial future. Can I really keep it going? I don't know. But it seems to be working, despite the market volatility. And so I heartily recommend a similar 1% to 2% growth plan to every single trader who reads this.
>>>>>I just need to keep doing two things that seem paradoxical. (1) I must protect this cash like the gold in Fort Knox, and (2) I must also grow the balance daily. I must honor all stops. I must be flat when the trade is not clear. I must trade well, always trying to improve my entries and exits. I must increase the contracts per trade.<<<<< ========================== Excellent Post Steve. This quote should be posted in bold print on the center monitor of every trader.
Is that what happened around 3:30 PM ET? I couldn't find any news at the time to explain it, so thought it might have just been one of those Friday rebalancing acts, profit-taking, whatever deals.
Hey Overnight. Missing you over on Ohana lately. Here's the link. I didn't know until I read about it after close myself. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/s...fed-announces-bond-buying-reduction-next-week
https://yippy.com/search?query=day+trading+profit+targets https://yippy.com/search?query=day+trading+stop+loss+placement as Earl would say, "keep your goal before you and everything else takes care of itself."
Here is the new total after a $120 day. I am now trading the MES exclusively, and the dollars per tick is $1.25, which is much higher than the $.50 I am used to on the MNQ and MYM. Since most people trade the ES and MES, now I can finally speak the same tick language. LOL. Today I made $120 in 11 trades = $11 per trade. $11/$1.25 = 9 ticks per trade average on the MES. 9 ticks per trade is higher than I expect going forward, but the market was moving at an amazing clip today -- especially the late short squeeze rally after the house approved the coronavirus bill, and then BAM the previously mentioned drop after the Feds caused a "Taper Tantrum."
Thanks. And I guess this is the main benefit of the journal-- It keeps this 2% goal in front of my face.
You are doing great sstheo. 50 days and especially in very different market conditions says something. It says that you should be making more than a comfortable wage soon if you just keep doing what you are doing. The only thing that worries me a bit is your low number of losing days. It suggests you try to make sure you end the day in green as a goal on it's own which would mean adding risk once you start with a couple of losing trades. If this is the case be sure to do something about it, because then you are basically martingaling which will end bad sooner or later. If it is not the case then just ignore this critical remark and enjoy your impressive results.