Quick observation. Neke's losing streak started with cannonballing on BIDU in Jan 2010. I'm shocked he bought $147,300 worth of put options (as well as shorting $108,000 worth of shares) with a $410,000 account. The put option position represented 35.9% of his account, which is a lot. With a $410,000 account size, an ideal 5% risk = a $20,500 position. If he's risking over 1/3 his bankroll on option trades, the ultimate risk of ruin seems very high. I'm terrible at cutting losses, so the only way to limit risk is to limit the position size.
+++ One of the most famous (and successful) system traders of all time once said "I will not trade anything unless I can put its long term chart across a room and see a trend" He also said he was a trend follower who used pattern recognition, and that his dad once taught him to "buy when price breaks out of a box and sell when it falls thru a box"....... ..... Quite the discretionary qualifiers for arming the algos.
So let me get this straight -- you think a 2 year draw down (and counting) is what a career track record for a solid trader who knows what hes doing looks like? with all your emotion, I bet you are not consistent and profitable. Let me present it to you differently: with all the sincerity and what not that you keep boasting about Neke, would you let him trade your account? Maybe you're now realizing for the first time in a long time what really counts in this game. Go look at the past posts. His equity curve is horrendous. With the withdrawals, and a conservative estimate of how much Neke will lose, he has until second quarter 2013 before he has less than three digits in his account. (Remember what that looked like for you back then?) Apologizes for being a tough spectator, however Blow has a great post. Maybe you don't like his attitude elsewhere, but that doesn't take away from his real experiences and thoughts.
Well you have to admit he's been losing money now for what, 3 straight years. In an IQ test often an unsolvable puzzle is given just see how long you will work on it. (longer = lower score) If he's really been trying to change things up it isn't working :at what point do you rationally throw in the towel? I want to know because if I'm faced with that situation hopefully I'll do the right thing, change or quit.
I sometimes find myself changing out of boredom. The one think I've learned to never change is low risk setups. The downside risk is always minimized.
+1 One of the main issues with trading in general is that it is very hard to determine whether its luck/chance or a genuine skill (edge) that has given one successful results. Kind of makes it impossible to define the often talked about 'consistently profitable trader'. Over a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero... Good luck though, Neke. Balls of steel to keep the journals running during this difficult draw-down.
This thread is interesting just to see how a trader deals with the ups and downs. But as his account size gets smaller and smaller, there is much less excitement here. I want to see those +/- 50K weeks, not +/- 5K. With a shrunken account size, the thrills are missing from this thread! neke, stop withdrawing money and max out your leverage and amp it up for us. We want action, baby!