A software consultant who day trades stocks gained 805% in 2023

As a retail knowing many fellow retails doing "buy and hold", we don't ride it out, we tend to capitulate and get out at the bottom. Otherwise, there would be a lot more millionaires next door.

 

17 losers in a row daytrading means your system is chit and you are a gambler. Nothing else.

 

Here's the problem with that solution. What do you do if you stand down and the next trade would have been a masive winner? When do you get back in the game?

You can't possibly know what the outcome of the next trade will be. FWIW my solution to a losing streak is to reduce my risk and scale into winning trades.

Capital preservation is my #1 priority.
If you don't bet you can't win
If you lose all your capital you can't bet.

 

So what is the number of losses in a row you can take without being considered a gambler?
What is the maximum number of losses in a row you have taken?
And isn't a gambler with an edge a winner?

 

So you've had 17 losses in a row? I'm sorry but if you have 17 losses in a row you need to scrap that strategy. Period. Which sounds like what the guy in the article did. I'm a swing trader but I've NEVER had more than 4 losses in a row. If I had 17 losses in a row my account would be toast and it would be the end of my trading career.

 

I'm not sure he scrapped the strategy which is to day trade penny stocks, I think he adjusted his risk control, stopped revenge trading and took only trades that fit the original strategy.

I'm also a swing trader (stocks; long only) and 20 losses in a row would result in less than a 15% drawdown in my account.

 

Then you must be taking tiny,Piker-size positions per trade.

 

If I lose a few trades conservatively I just stop trading for a good while.

 

4, maybe 5.

Traders have edges, gamblers don't. That is the difference.

 

I suppose, Taking 1% risk per trade gives me a position size of around 14% of my account. If that's piker size then that's me.