dilemma...

This morning the office manager of my firm, has a meeting... and in this meeting he addressed the issue of leaving early... Hypothetically speaking on an UP day (300+ for the day) when do you walk away from your desk and cease trading??? On the flipside of the coin, youre down the same amount when do you stop trading??? what are you thoughts on trading, over trading, and calling it quits for the day???

 

If you are having a good day and your in the zone, why should you get up and leave? Your probably going to continue to make money. Put a trailing equity stop in on your account, and leave then.

Brandon

 

that was my contention in the meeting and still is now... and contrary on down days, IMO once youre down a certain then you step away and go home or turn off the machine... not when youre on a winning streak... they oviously felt differently then myself, and it led to an argument more than a discussion... their opinion is that "from experience" most traders give back their profits from churning themselves... IMO if you take logical trades, along with calculated risks, and trailing stops their shouldnt be any issues... correct me if i am wrong...

 

Depends on the day and the market "cycle". Until a few weeks ago, most if not all of the money could be made by 1130. Recently, however, there has been a lot more afternoon action, making some sort of move in the morning, basing for several hours, then making another move after lunch. Abandoning the work after 1130 has not been productive.

--Db

 

Two very good prior discussions on this particular dilemma:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4477&highlight=afternoon+losses+intraday

or

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=157186#post157186

NihabaAshi

 

thank you for links... after the market close ill read them.. i just got into a few positions so i cant really read/post on here... thanks again...

 

I would think that it is purely an individual decision. A trader has to learn himself when 'he' or 'she' can put the gas to the pedal or when they have to just lay off and call it a day. One person giving their profits back churning, may be another persons kind of day when they make the trades that can make their week or month. Some traders are great at digging themselves out of a hole, others are just as adept at digging themselves into a bigger hole. Only experience of your own trading will tell you when to call it a day.

 

dgmodel:

Personally, I don’t set any profit targets and would just let the profits pile on as the market makes them available to me. Therefore, I won’t walk way from the day just because I am up X points. If I am experiencing a draw down for the day however, I will stop trading for the day if I find that my two most recent losing trades were both due to my inability to maintain discipline or failed to follow my trading rules. But if my discipline was okay and I followed my rules on the trades that just happened to turn out as losers, I’ll keep plowing along for the day.

Kermit

 

This is why you keep a journal.

Day 1:
10:30: PL:
12:30: PL:
15:30: PL:
16:00: PL:
Day 2:
etc

You'll need several months of data to justify the assumption of independent samples. It would be useful on a trader by trader basis as well as an average basis.