Week 45/50 ended 11/18/2011 Code: Opening Balance: 167,065 Net gain for the week 5,277 ------------------------------------------------- Net Balance: 172,342 Relieved to have a positive week. Lots of work is being undertaken to diversify away from RTM strategies. The few ones that will remain will have a way to enforce stop losses. That will reduce winning rate (this week have 47% winning rate and still profitable. I think this will be the way going forward. For some reason the RTM strategies as previously implemented have been a sucker for the past two years, and I have compounded the problem with discretionary blunders). There is one colossus hanging over me right now: the need to start bringing out 5K monthly from the market for family needs. It is certainly going to reduce risk appetite even further in the near term.
'the need to start bringing out 5K monthly from the market for family needs." it is not easy to trade under pressure. good luck.
Or maybe lost his job? (hopefully not the case). Neke, cut back your expenses, 60K per year out of a 180K account is way too much.. try to get that down to below 30K for the first year. Explain to your family that belt tightening is required this next year. Having to make 60K just to get by will be too much pressure..
Hi Neke! I have registered in this forum some time ago because of your threads. Been following them for a couple of months now. But as Businessman already said it´s time for belt tightning. Remember that you lost this year 2 1/2 years of withdrawals. 60K out of your 180K portfolio would mean a yearly return of at least 35%. O.K., your track record for 6 of the past 7 years shows that you are able to reach that but that was a time when you were not depending on those returns. The market isn´t rational in these times. 60K means you have to win an average 1.250 bucks every week. If you have more weeks of the sort you had this week, that´s no problem. You´re able to withdraw your needed amount of 5K and you´re also adding to your capital stock which enables you to dip into your capital in a less successful month. But nonetheless: keep up the good work.
No I still have my regular job. I have cranked up supplements from the market from an initial $0 in the loosing years to max out at about $5K monthly about the time my account peaked in Nov 2009 - by which time my family had increased by 2. Of course at the time, with a balance of $640K and the way the account was growing, it never seemed there might ever be a problem with that "conservative" expectation. Unfortunately, when the bad times set in, the expenses have been cast in stone - so to speak, which is why you never run up expenditure anywhere close to your performance. So yes if the bad performance continues, we will have to scale down in the near future - wife is aware of the lean times, but I am holding out for as long as possible - will not decide to pull my kids from private school or the like without a fight.
Week ended 46/50 ended 11/25/2011 Code: Opening Balance: 172,342 Net loss for the week 3,202 ------------------------------------------------- Net Balance: 169,140
Sounds like your keeping your sizes big even though your account is shrinking. Loosen up the stops but if you really understood risk management your position sizes should be based on percentages of equity. Fixed contract size may see you to $150,000 by year end, so I want you to know that none of your systems are even remotely robust. Neke, minimizing losses is the same thing as maximizing profits. A lot of the details have been omitted by you for fear of the next to impossible chance that someone watches a trader draw down to less than 25% of his peak is not likely to have any quants that would think reverse engineering a poor, generic strategy desk out the box generic trading system could possibly be worth their time . No, my first but of advice was to seek professional help and adopt passive strategies like indexing which you could time for short term positions but as far as that goes I really am trying to help you. If you first admit your system has no edge you can move on in life because in all liklihood I don't believe you will see a half mil for at least ten more years and even so I doubt you'll get to $250k before year end next year. Your symptoms are the classic gamblers ruin and if you don't recognize this then, I'm sorry but you deserve to lose. If talking about your trades is difficult you are a total moron and then there's zero point in billboarding weekly posts of failure and though you are anonymous the market has detected you on radar and is firing bullets in the sky like a Baghdad firestorm along with SAMS and heat seeking missiles that have a 99.9% hit ratio. Please this isn't funny and I don't know if that's a metaphor you'd understand but you need to stop immediately because your children are now the most important thing in your life and I urge you to actually seek advice. You don't know what you're doing but if trading's not a full time goal absolutely stop autotradingbot your unprofitable systems and recognize that if your systems weren't performing 4 months ago they aren't performing now. Please. Take the month off. I want to see at least 1 goosegg of $0 np. You need it and your trading has been attrocious. Here, if you insist on trading you will be significantly better off trading the NASDAQ 100 watchlists. Trust me, I know your systems are trading everything and you absolutely will not make money with such a large universe and if you've ever wondered why your trades have now randomized then I tell you nearly every single trading system immediately becomes more robust by switching to the NASDAQ 100. I'll even guarantee if your backtests don't improve then every bit of research I have must not be valid maybe due to randomness but it's not invalid or bad advice. Think about it but absolutely go to trade the nasdaq100 and I know that even if your still losing it will probably be less and even profitable.
I wonder if it's that new reliance on making 5 grand a month that's causing this slump. To me it is an entirely different game when you NEED to make a certain amount of money every month compared to not having any pressure at all.