Did you trade it as well? You can only quantify your actual risk if you know where you can exit. During the recent CPI releases there wasn't any liquidity to exit. It moved instantly a huge amount of points against you. What if Wednesday spiked 100 points against you in a blink and your market stop order had a 50 point slippage or more? Still a good risk/reward?
I traded SPXU and not the futures. But I understand your point, you have to have appropriate risk parameters in place and make sure your position size reflects that.
No offense but your frame of time on experience means nothing to me. An edge with a consistent profitability curve over years is all that matters. Just because someone does (or tries to do) something for three decades doesn't mean they know everything or are the final arbiter on everything trading. Ive seen it done. It makes no difference your stance of agreement. Anyway we can agree to disagree. The bottom line is if you can read charts at a high level and your psych / discipline is where it needs to be - the rest is noise. ALL OF IT. EDIT: I should clarify the rest is noise if youve mastered such approach. Many ways to make money in the financial markets.
Yes, I agree that you can trade around a news, but not during THE news like FOMC. There are many news that I disregard myself. But there are big ones that you need to be aware of, and possibly stay out of until the dust settles. Unless you have inside info, which most of us do not, you don't know what could happen. But here's my point. The outcome is really simple. Either you were right or you were wrong. If you were wrong, however, you won't be able get out of your trade without incurring a huge slippage (as Lasseiz Faire already pointed out). You make it sound as if you could get out with a very minimal slippage. That is total nonsense. And that's what my gripe is about.
You do realize you're arguing against technical traders who normally don't care about the news, right? We're specifically talking about the recent CPI reports and FOMC reports this year.
Lets clarify. Im not arguing but telling what i know to be true. And yes - i realize im speaking to mostly technical traders that choose to have selective hearing relative to news releases (which clearly affects their decision making when it shouldnt). Everyone needs to do what works best for them. If you put a live trade on going into these major announcements and you end up with a losing trade you were simply wrong in your analysis.