I don't really use ATR. I just use the daily range. Since I only seem to hold onto losers I'm better off gathering what a "typical" day ought to look like. If you want I can post my "homework" that I do to make those decisions but it's just the last 10 days intraday range divided by 10. ATR is a valid concept, but I always seem to be off on my calculations when I compare it to the computer, so I stick with average daily range. I do all this by hand. Simpler is better. Me Tarzan. As far as trailing stops go, every time the 20 bar H/L breaks again, that new breakthrough bar is the new stop. If the market immediately reverses you reverse with it. This works, it really does. If you don't get movement for 6 bars, you get out regardless of the stop and that applies to both the breakout trade and the reversal trade. Sort of a time stop. Albert
Try to think in points and concentrate on 1 instrument like the NQ, so that points mean the same thing. Michael B.
This is just the typical updating process that goes on daily. Kind of herky jerky during the holidays but more regular after the first of the year. Albert
Yea, I'm still in those two trades. I need psychiatric counseling. Forgive me my trespasses, trade genie. Let it come back to your old pal. Puleeeze.!!! For a better view of how bad my timing can be, check out this weekly chart of Copper and tell me what the heck I could possibly have been thinking. Really never looked at this earlier. Puts things in a whole different light. Ouch. Should I just write the check to refill the account now? Albert
Here is where the NQs are as of tonight. Shame. This is the clowning glory, eh? What do you tell the guy with the two black eyes? Nothing, you've already told him twice. Albert
Spreadsheet that should have been posted yesterday. A little monotonous, but I am waiting this one out against all odds. It is one of the reasons we discretionary traders get a bad rap. I once tried to go the mechanical route. I called an outfit down in South Florida and asked them if I could get somebody to trade the systems that I had developed. All of them were good on paper but didn't do me much good (as you can see from this exercise) The owner of the firm talked with me for a couple of minutes and concluded that what I needed was to capture the "feel" from before. Well, it ain't happening. So, I am reading some more books right now, rereading some older books from the past to try and capture that old "feel" again. The funny thing is that when things are going well you really aren't thinking. You seem to already "know" where the market is going, don't ask me how. But at that point it is ludicrously easy to take money out, it just falls into your lap. Albert
Albert, I think you are a great trader who is currently in an irrational state. You need to break out of your funk, man. First, you can practice your exits without the baggage of being right or wrong. Just pick a random entry an manage the trade. Second, you can test your past entries and see if they are better than random. I'll bet they are! One was to do it is calculate the "BS (better than stupid)" ratio, where you take the sum of the MFE's and divide by the sum of the risks. A number greater than one is good. Details on all of this stuff in my journal.
Thanks for trying, but irrational traders are bad traders. Ergo, I am a bad trader. No argument there. A=B, B=C therefore A=C. Got it. I'm never gonna trade anybody else's money. I'm never gonna write a letter that takes in five times as much as my trading. I just want to understand why I am such a numbskull right here and now. I believe with all my heart that I will be terrifically successful at this in due time. No doubt about it. I just want to get out of this funk and get back to the person who whaled at this market like it was a mosquito. I have looked at my old trades, believe me. Worse than random. At times defying logic, common sense and even gravity. And then I would close the trade at a profit after it looked like my head was about to be guillotined. Just came back like magic. My broker told me there were people trying on the same trades in his office and getting killed because they wouldn't hang in there to the bitter end. Therein lies the problem. My MFE was almost exactly at the close of the trade. Poor R:R ratio. Albert
my "system" kept me out of a trade. I wanted to short corn and the attachment shows where corn was at that time. But it was not at a 20 Bar high or low so I passed. Albert