Sim VS. Real Trading Okay, I trade the S&P mini... been out of market for almost 2 years. I have been in Sim mode now for over 6 months, and doing well (my goal is 6 points per day) . The last time I was live I did well, then not. I have now instituted hard stops and exits and will accomplish this thru bracket orders. The failure to take losses and profits was probably my biggest mistake before. I am hitting my goal almost every day. What can I expect when I go live. Guess I'm looking to hear from those who succeeded when they went live.
Have you been taking comm and slippage into account? Lastly..... Dont forget this is a psych game and the difference between sim and cash is like night and day; emotions play serious mind games which is why I prefer everything fiully or semi automated.
If you manage to put a stop loss on every trade, you are ahead of the game. This is a extremely important step. You may think it's easy to do, but all it takes is one trade to set you back multiple sessions profits. Also you need a daily stop loss against fixed bias trading. Meaning if your feel for the day is wrong you need something objective in your routine that will limit the damage. No one in their right mind will trust you with their funds if you don't implement this step on EVERY trade. You shouldn't trust yourself with your funds if you don't do this either. If your stops are consistently getting hit, than your entries are off or the stop from entry is too small. Or your take profit is too large relative to the stop. MFA and MAE will show this.
What financial instruments are you trading? The option or the futures? Why would you choose futures as you financial instrument of choice as you are just starting out live? Why do you only trade one financial instrument?
If your backtesting is realistic and statistically significant enough, you can expect more or less the same average performance over longer time, but must prepare for live to fail in all kinds of manner anyway. The worst situation is if you're clueless as to why it's failing. The best situation may be where you succeed beyond expectations and you find the real reasons why as confirmation. Stop hoping.
No my stops are only getting hit on 20% of my trades. Long vs short, I'd have to look at my trade journal, but i tend to prefer the shorts. Look at today. Yes I have a hard stop on every trade at 8 ticks. I also have a hard exit at profit that I set depending on the market volatility, lately it's 12 ticks. I only trade the ES. I discovered bracket orders in 2015 and swear by them now. For my personality it's the only way to trade. Before that I had stops but would always hesitate to take profits and many trades went from profit to break even or lose. What I want to hear is your story of how it went when you went live.
It's important you get out of Sim, and into the ...trader's cockpit As another poster said, the difference between the two is Night and Day. Just like the movie Top Gun...you have to rattle your nerves away after a big loss, or series of losses -- or just any away gap. That's of course, assuming, you have a valid/working trading plan and experience and capabilities and competence; And you're not systemic or malignant or defective from the get-go. You can't fix stupid, I would say Good Luck to you on your journey -- But as Louis Winthorpe would say: '...it's not luck, Todd.'
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