it aint craps we are playing here, there are no rules. It's more like war. If you are so sure you are going to win just send all the troops in everytime. Man, that dry powder is nice when the first attack failed. I know of no one that was so good that they could make it bracket trading with constant size. I know I certainly couldn't do it.
Sorry you had a bad day. Intra day, the markets seem to of been trending and closed near their highs. Long term, they are in an up trend. Maybe the trend is not your friend and the range is where you should engage.
Sure you are going to win ? By looking at the trend of what the math is telling us (One cant adjust some thing without another thing being inversely effected) The only definition of a sure win is one that meets the criteria of a black swan but is not a black swan....
when I started out, all the oldtimers told me, "Just trade one contract, that's how you learn to trade." but just like you said, it came out to about 50/50, but the spread and commish got me some would say I had no edge when I finally got a little ahead, I could put on or take off multiple contracts, and then it started to click so maybe you could say my edge is position sizing personally, I don't like the word "edge". I think it is a silly notion gamblers use to prove to their wives they are not gambling the trend would have been more than my friend, it would have been my lover if I had been on the right side. I try to protect myself from getting on the wrong side, but this one fell through the cracks. the chop pays the commissions, and sometimes the bills the trend gets swept into the bank, and and then to the IRS 50% is a good place to start, but you are never going to find what you are looking for until you move beyond that. It's not a coin toss. You either need to be right more than you are wrong, or right bigger and wrong smaller. But who am I to give advice? I'm quite certain everybody on this site did better than me this week. Just trying to get my head back out of my ass. It got so bad today that's the only place I knew to go to hide.
Still not seeing the benefit in putting down more contracts. If it is your only edge and you are paying any fees then your edge equals your fees which is negative. I hope you do not only come here to hide from your looses. With so many posts its a scary thought.
well that is certainly why I am here tonight. Just hiding until the market opens Sunday night. I'm almost always in, very rarely flat, and I have multiple positions, some of them aren't worth a damn so they are very small. Others are moving against me and they are always small. Some show some promise and they are medium size. I almost never put on anything large. You can do a lot with just small and medium. Large is just for those once in a while deals.
You predict what type of market condition is to come and pour more funds to the appropriate system? So the theory is that it is easier to predict market condition (or when one system will work over the other)over predicting market direction. I cant imagine why you would limit your gains by leaving the loosing system with funds unless it is for optimizing in live trading. Consistency makes sense, But taking risk out without taking out the same amount of gain potential seems illogical to me. Then again, the idea of hedging is widely used.
let me just say this, the idea of buying after something has gone up is very counter intuitive. Everybody wants a bargain. My strategy forces me to add to winners. I have a few rules. Never add to a big loser, and never scale out of a loss. Scaling out of a profit is usually better than getting flat. I don't like to talk about it, because I am tired of defending, but I also add to losers. and when the whole account hits it's new profit target get flat, no matter if all the individual positions are win lose or draw. And take some time off to watch (and post.) My downfall this week was one small position that just kept going and going harder and longer than anyone thought was possible against me. I don't like to change strategies midstream, so I just religiously stuck with the system which has worked so well in the past. oh well, Sunday starts a new week. that's why I didn't post much last week. I don't like to talk when I am in a drawdown.
You tell your friends that if they think you found a way to beat the market they should be nicer to you. Its amazing how much we discriminate against losses and not wins. The top posts show how flipping ones rules 100% will lead to nothing new, The R:R ratio is nothing more then a preference of death by needles versus death by knifes. This goes for all aspects of trades. Including your idea to go against the grain and add to looser. So Add to your looser, Add Add ! Like with anything the more you do the faster your results come. Why would one want to delay this process? Buy coke and hold if you want to wait on results.