lol dude, calm down. my statement was IN AGREEMENT with you and was directed at tradersaavy. i think discussing stops is good, man. FRuiTY
There is one famous stopless system: Oddball. I believe its long-term profitable is always in the market and never uses stops. Perhaps its possible to develop systems which don't actually hit their stop for a large percentage of their trades. If you think about it this is the ideal scenario - because your system is a market model and if you can model the market well enough that you don't have to use an arbitrary stoploss then your system is about as robust as they come... Re LTCM: I believe their problem was over-leverage. The fact that they did not use stoplosses would not have been a problem for them if they had not had positions that were too big. in fact its possible to imagine that there was another group of traders copying LTCM on a much smaller scale who came out of that whole episode making a killing...because they kept their position size well inside the size their capital could cope with. Q1
I think I'll just keep cutting losses quickly. I can always get back in whenever I want to. If I widened my stops, I might end up wasting time and money making opportunties while waiting on the market. Besides that, several large losses in a row might just make me puke in the trash can.... ......
Fruity / TM........... Of course discussing stops is good. The name of this thread is "Daytrading Without Stops" What I couldn't believe is that so much discussion could take place on trading without stops. There is no discussion there. However, most of the discussion on this thread is actually quite good being that is on using and the placement of stops. Just a couple weeks ago a friend of mine was telling me how she would make a nice profit and then lose it and more. I know she is trading without a plan (she's new) and asked her if she knows where she'll get out if the trade goes in her favor and if it goes out of her favor. She pretty much knew where she'd take profit but did not even plan for exiting on a loss. I asked her to try trading with both of these points in mind before taking the trade and not taking the trades that have more risk than reward. I was thrilled when I spoke to her recently to find out that she is much more consistently profitable now that she trades with a plan, HENCE, USING STOPS!!!!! I'm also kind of jealous because she's only been trading for about 2 months and is profitable already !
by definition, one has a "time" stop while day trading. the end of the day. i rarely place price stops while day trading--- while trading my system, i utilize wide trailing stops since these positions are often held for quite some time. best, surfer
What does sprstpd stand for? not super stupid? I am being sincere in this reply. This person has broken out of the box in my humble opinion and I would never ridicule the comments and point (s) he is making, causing, and discussing. Some traders trade by systems, others by instinct, and then others by fixed or floating methodologies. We as traders in my humble opinion are forced to change, adapt and read the character (not forecast) of the market. Now, we are talking about the ES not a a basket of stocks. So for this thread I will limit my reply to the ES as the instrument being traded. I would never condone trailing a loss (LOL) but I think its deeper than that. Being a newbie or having experience is not a question as I believe sprstpd has experience. The choppiness of the ES or the trend days of the ES must be identified. WD Gann would attest to the cycles and waves that the ES would produce. I am still a student of understanding these things such as time cycles, waves and levels. Forgive me if I am wrong....But a stop would be implored by just trailing the low, considering its not an extreme trend day. Just because its "reversed in thinking" does not mean its not a stop. I guess the word stop loss and stop could have different meanings. But mechanically speaking you could be taken out of the trade based on a preset floating methodology. The various offerings of modifications that sprstpd has so modestly and humbly presented have been thought provoking indeed. For me personally it seems to be dependant on volatility measurements, MAE, MFE and wave timing. Anyways....I know some traders who have arrived at the conclusion that ES trading is gambling and is a randomly motivated market. Other traders have mastered the trend and can get in and out capturing some points. Both types of traders contradict one another and can BOTH be profitable. I personally would not enter a trade on the ES and walk away from it without a stop. Its not my cup of tea. But lets listen closely to sprstpd to see if we can get it. Michael B.
This is interesting, but an always-in-system is not actually what I was talking about. In an always-in-system, if you are long and then you get short, you can view it as: 1. you got stopped out 2. you initiated a new short position immediately However, as I don't trade always-in-systems either, I find them interesting to think about.
Do you always let the trailing stop take you out? Or are you looking for exits on your own terms? If your stops are trully wide, and if you exit on different criteria than the trailing stop, then I would argue that this is some variant of stopless daytrading.
Yes, "sprstpd" = "super stupid" for various reasons. One is because I like thinking about "sprstpd" ideas. Also, I find it helpful to be humble when it comes to the markets - so market, if you are listening, I am "sprstpd." And finally, compared to Mr. Market, I am seriously "sprstpd."