Refer to that screenshot I posted above, plot it all on your charts, and see how long and short "might" work. It's a hell of a thing, but none of it was with same account on same contract month. *shrugs* Relax guys, Super Bowl is tomorrow? Cars? Speed? Manly bits!
I've pretty much tuned out professional sports but hey, It's the Super Bowl, cultural ritual and all that.
BUT....IF FREUD aka Sig went long in one account from A to B, then Short from B to C, then long from C to D that would be 3 RT trades. Bucks made! AND in the OTHER account Freud aka “the landscaper” went long at A and out at D he would make some more bucks. 1 RT So bucks + more bucks = lots of bucks And that is greater than Landscaper bucks which is really just a spike Therefore.......by having two accounts and at some point being long in one and short in the other can render more $ than just buy and hold for the big run..in the landscaper Anybody with a second grade education can “see” that.
Ps Given two accounts and trading the same size in each account i can potentially make more money than any trader trading using one account in a bull trend and holding from entry at the begining, to the exit at the ending, providing there are pb’s (which generally there are) because i pick of $ on the pb’s by shorting and compounding profits by going long again as trend resumes after the short is flat. Anybody with a first grade education can see that. Plus in the account where i am holding for the long haul i dont know when the trend ends so if it were to end soon after point B then I would exit with “some” profit but be in short and for a longer period of timebin the other account as the pb would become a reversal in the original trend. So by having two accounts there can potentially be a hedge AND more profit. As far as math goes...sorry but math does not work in the markets (except to some degree) because math is exact and the markets are not exact, but they are certainly uncertain. Furthermore, they can NEVER be exact mathematically or all a trader would need is the calculations and every trader upon obtaining such calculations would become very rich. There are too many variables and too many unknown variables and too many variables that CANNOT BE KNOWN beforehand, so math will not work in the markets, exactly. It has some usefulness but trying to take an exact science and apply it to something you where you can never know all the variables...well it just certainly will not work, exactly. You can control your entry point..your SL...but even your PT needs an uncertain market cooperation or it won’t work out.
@volpri, can't you do what you are describing in a single account? Sell some, buy some back. You can designate some portion of your position as long term and add and reduce. That's trading around your core position. Besides logical/reporting/accounting separation, what is the advantage of being long and short at the same time?
You gotta' trust me on this... It can only work if you are really good at picking tops and bottoms. I've been going through this shit in my head for years, and after putting it into practice, have seen how even the most astute plans can unravel in the blink of an eye. The IDEA of it is solid, I agree! But in practice, you implement at the wrong time, and yer doomed.