I am with you V. I do not have losing days. Not because of any form of narrow based thinking ... indeed quite the opposite. There are several trades in each of my 90 minute days. How much wriggle room I allow depends on what the channels and delta is telling me. Each day I apply my method to the market. Some parts of the method are fixed and some ( like pts take) are adaptive. It does not occur to me that I would have a losing day. When the price action and the delta agree then I do one thing. When the price bounces around s or r in the direction of the trend, I will scalp it for a points target. All I am trying to do is bring in net pts daily without too much drama. The protection of my lot size is paramount and this is based solely upon confidence. Two things of vital importance to me are: to balance my tic bar size to the market in this moment. and to apply the best suited channel size.
<i>"I am with you V. I do not have losing days."</i> The big players who rake in five-six figures monthly in 2006 P&L thread have numerous losing days. They wish there were never losing days for them, I'm sure :>) Is it fair to assume you trade their size or bigger for substantial net results? Or is the price of never losing miniscule % returns on capital?
They say that every question contains it's own answer and so I am going to let you work this one out. Imagine trading day in and day out for positive net points. Your comms are a fraction of one point and so re entry is no concern. One part of your strategy is to buy the bid or sell the ask, when you can and when it suits. Now ask yourself this question. "Am I going to increase my lot size every day or am I not"
ES Daytraders, Whats max heat you will take ? The amount of heat, or stop loss placement, should be determined by your trading methodology, which has to give you an edge over random setups/entry. Do you only have to trade one method? Absolutely not, there are many ways to achieve profitability through intra-day trading. But I can guarantee you, for every trader that is profitable, he/she understands the risk parameters of every trade they take, and has an approach to the markets which they've backtested and knows to some degree will yield a positive result over time. Effective stop loss placement can range anywhere from 2pts (8 boxes) to as much as 5pts (20 boxes) and yield very positive results. IMHO part of the problem is that you're trading in a shop, and as it has been alluded to here, the methods which you are encouraged to employ are not necessarily the best for your trading career TT76. Regards, JJ
<i>"They say that every question contains it's own answer and so I am going to let you work this one out."</i> I was always terrible with riddles. Just too short an attention span to figure such puzzles out. I do know this: if I never had a losing day in the ES, by the end of year one it'd be 500 contracts turned daily, balls to the walls without fear. Logical deduction assumes that no losing days = keep adding size until positions are maxed. But I wouldn't venture to guess what you do, nor is this statement one of ill intent. For me and most others, controlled losses are part of the profession. It's encouraging to hear that others can do better than that. Please keep up the excellent work :>)
Hey fl9, if you and V can generate profits intra-day, everyday, my hat's off to you. Even with months of screen time and entire weekends spent backtesting and analyzing many different approaches I haven't found the edge which can deliver such results. Now, playing two or more entirely different, semi-to-non correlated systems and/or multiple markets may be able to do so, and/or you've put your efforts in money management such that you can always pull out the win. But that's hard, my friends, that's hard. Regards, JJ edit: actually years of trading first stocks, then mini's, but months of treating the markets as if they were a trading lab.
This is the result of 10 years work. Everything changed for me a while ago when I decided to aim for a smooth delivery of net points. By smooth I mean daily, not trade by trade. To achieve this I began calculating comms based on 100 lot trading and I began trading several times per day for 90 minutes only. I do not allow myself the luxury of only taking trades when I can see 8+ tics to the next level. I must trade and I must trade profitably.
<i>"This is the result of 10 years work... Everything changed for me a while ago when I decided to aim for a smooth delivery of net points. By smooth I mean daily, not trade by trade."</i> <u>I am 100% sincere</u> when commending you on that. Very few traders on earth are capable of similar consistent production. By far the vast majority who try, fail.
Looks like you should be trading 5 minute charts based on your stop. Here is a chart with a simple 5 period moving average, displaced -2. If you don't understand a displaced moving average look it up or see "simple prifitable method". You should have some kind of stops in futures as you are highly leveraged. Average True range on the 5 minute chart is around 1. Good luck!! Here are the major styles of equity trading: Scalping - The scalper is an individual who makes dozens or hundreds of trades per day, trying to "scalp" a small profit from each trade by exploiting the bid-ask spread. Momentum Trading - Momentum traders look to find stocks that are moving significantly in one direction on high volume and try to jump on board to ride the momentum train to a desired profit. Technical Trading - Technical traders are obsessed with charts and graphs, watching lines on stock or index graphs for signs of convergence or divergence that might indicate buy or sell signals. Fundamental Trading - Fundamentalists trade companies based on fundamental analysis, which examines things like corporate events such as actual or anticipated earnings reports, stock splits, reorganizations or acquisitions. Swing Trading - Swing traders are really fundamental traders who hold their positions longer than a single day. Most fundamentalists are actually swing traders since changes in corporate fundamentals generally require several days or even weeks to produce a price movement sufficient enough for the trader to claim a reasonable profit. Investopedia. When did scalping become a dirty word?