Could this simple formula be profitable?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by Risepoint1879, Feb 10, 2019.

  1. Sorry for the write errors, english is not my first language :p

    Your pockets wont be deep enough, no matter how you turn it.
    Even if you start with minimal bet size and only risk 100 USD on the first trade, the losses of the individual bets will look like this in a 20x losing streak:
    100
    200
    400
    800
    1.600
    3.200
    6.400
    12.800
    25.600
    51.200
    102.400
    204.800
    409.600
    819.200
    1.638.400
    3.276.800
    6.553.600
    13.107.200
    26.214.400
    52.428.800

    And thats only the results of the individual bets, the cumulated losses will be almost 2x these numbers.

    And 20x losing streaks are absolutely nothing exotic in a 50-50 game (just ask the casinos). But in this case we are not talking about a 50-50 game, but a 75-25 game which makes it even worse regarding the losing streaks.
     
    #11     Feb 11, 2019
  2. No point in a discussion, won’t work. Where did this idea come from!??
     
    #12     Feb 11, 2019
  3. tomorton

    tomorton

    The 1:3 r:r almost certainly means you will never accumulate enough winners to outweigh the losers. If the ratio was 1:1, you would break even (ignoring trading costs): the market would need to have equivalent amounts of buying/selling ("energy" input if you like) to move +1R or -1R so you should get 50% of trades winners and 50% losers. Of course this is pointless as it makes no profit.

    But there must be some r:r at which the excess size of winners means a positive return, while the closeness of the risk to reward means both winners and losers are effectively as likely to result from market activity as the other. But I would bet the ratio will be extremely tight, say 1:1.1 or 1:1.2. Seems hardly worthwhile given the risk of wipe-out from strings of losers.
     
    #13     Feb 11, 2019
  4. tonyf

    tonyf

    No, because prices are not normally distributed. They may be log-normally distributed in selected cases, but any chock to the data set will skew your model.
     
    #14     Feb 11, 2019
  5. fan27

    fan27

    For ES, NQ and YM Daily data, I ran a simulation (5000 times) where 500 trades were randomly selected between 01/01/2000 and today. Here are the results without any commissions or slippage factored in.

    Where stop is Entry - (ATR * 1) and limit is Entry + (ATR * 3):
    1070 out of 5000 runs had a positive result

    Where stop is Entry - (ATR * 2) and limit is Entry + (ATR * 6):
    2238 out of 5000 runs had a positive result

    Clearly a loser.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2019
    #15     Feb 11, 2019
    bpr and Risepoint1879 like this.
  6. smallfil

    smallfil

    A number of faulty assumptions: 1) stocks traded will always hit the targets, what happens when the stock reverses and drops? While, stocks may hit and even exceed the target price, that is not guaranteed! 2) assumes a utopian world where stop losses are hit and executed at the exact same price, what happens in a gap down or when the bid and asked spreads widen?
    This is similar to that chimp experiment where they had the chimp throw darts and they would trade which ever ticker the dart hit! In this example of yours, there is no risk management!
     
    #16     Feb 11, 2019
  7. JSOP

    JSOP

    Yes that's the only thing with Martingale system; you need infinite amount of trading capital theoretically. But we are discussing the doability of this "simple formula" proposed by the OP so we will assume deep pockets is a given.
     
    #17     Feb 11, 2019
  8. bpr

    bpr

    In the second scenario it is profitable right?? ..or am I missing something ...
    2238 out of 5000 is 44% in 1 to 3 risk to reward would make a lot of money

    ATR is dynamic so tough to say
    may be better to test this with fixed stop loss and TP.
     
    #18     Feb 11, 2019
  9. I believe he meant that out of 5000 runs of 500 trades, only 2238 were green, not that 2238 make 3R profit.
     
    #19     Feb 11, 2019
    fan27 and bpr like this.
  10. %%
    LOL; enjoy it much more when you cut back after 1st or 2nd loser + skip the blindfold :cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:.:D:D
     
    #20     Feb 11, 2019