1) I like being able to get in or out of positions afterhours if needed and while I don't use stops overnight I do have a set up where if certain price levels are hit (in currencies, gold, and ES) then esignal sounds an alert through my stereo(some kind of freight train sounds that I think comes with windows) which is wired in to a built in speaker sytem in my home which believe me wakes me up right away. Rarely happens but my wife has apager that goes off all night when she is on call so she can't complain 2)Taxes. Profits on futures are taxed 60% at the Long Term Capital gains rate and 40% at regular income tax rate. My wife's income already puts us in the top bracket so...
...thanks for explaining. That's heavy. This is the first year I've made money with futures, so I forgot about the tax angle. And ah, yes, gold. I remember how delicious it was selling the fillings out of my teeth in '73. Practically had to cut the wife's finger off to get at her wedding band.
Done more than 200,000 future trades so far, but you may be right. Always good be be reminded by some brothers. So thanks to all for your good comments.
It's the nature of scaling in and out, it will never produce the greatest possible profit, nor the least. You are in effect admitting that you cannot time the market perfectly and so are willing to lop off the "ends" and be content with the middle ground. re: system developing and testing, overlaying a scaling entry/exit will almost always make a profitable system (on paper) less profitable. The thing is scaling may in fact turn an unprofitable system profitable, yet most people would throw out anything that didn't produce a profit with a single contract. I think the important thing when it comes to using scaling in systems development is to have it already incorporated into the root of your idea, instead of thinking of it as some added feature to augment returns.
And once again anticipating the move but still not riding the wave. Today short @1322 on the open and the NQ moves to 1326 and I'm of course confronted with fear. This time I didn't take the loss but instead covered with a small gain @1320. Still the whole thing is totally BS. The problem is that when the trade goes against you right from the start, you are ready to take any profit instead of letting it go because you still feel the pain.
I too was short at those levels this morning (see EGO CHALLENGE 29 Sept 2003). I will admit I paniced too on the first entry but after being stopped out I realized that the market failed to take out the overnight resistance high so I imediately sold again and placed my stop-loss outside of the high. I exited with 12pts!!!!! The moral of the story. If you get stopped out the 1st time, try again with the appropriate stop.