The technology I am using allows me to show nice pictures of trades taken. There is no edge per se here. As far as testing is concerned, it's a long story, but basically it is a mechanized implementation of some setup that a friend of mine has been using for quite a while. We backtested it formally on the first 4 months of this year, but my friend had been using it for much longer in a more discretionary way and it had worked. The setup also works well for ER2, should in principle work for YM too. The forward testing has started in May, but it has already been in the form of actual trading. Since the monthly drawdown is rather small, we could afford to take this risk. It was not anything new for my friend, anyway. It's been successful so far...
#3 PL=2 pts Total PL=2-3.5+2 pts Knowing that this trade could potentially do a lot of damage to the bottom line as the entry position was rather far away from the place where the stop could have been adjusted I took no chances of giving this bastard, Mr. Market, the satisfaction of adding even the slightest slippage to this potential damage. I placed the trade with a limit order. Well, it turned out that my dear friend, Mr. Market, produced the coveted 2 pts in no time and without too much of the struggle and that a market order would suffice for that too. Did I call him 'bastard'? Oh, I am so sorry. I can't believe what I sometimes say when I am under stress, but that's still nothing compared to what some post in other threads. And these people are only papertrading!!
I got all excited about a new journal until I read the opening post. If we can't disuss the system, why subscribe to this thread? Michael B. unsubscribe
"2 pts in no time"? i thought the wait was rather long! lol - well as long as it makes money in the end, patience is key - great work, electron, all the best.
if you have any clue at all about strategy development, pls just take the time to look at the posted trades - the strategy here is obvious as day - all the trade details are posted here, what else is to discuss? - just benefit from learning how a competent trader executes and manages, good luck.
#4 PL=-3.5 pts Total PL=2-3.5+2-3.5 pts There are two kinds of poor entries in this system. This one was different than the first poor entry that led to a similar outcome. I was aware of it but I took the trade because a poor entry does not have to result in a losing trade and it certainly does not have to lead to a 3.5 pt loss. I don't think that Mr. Market is after me, although he probably disliked my yesterday's 'bastard' comments about him. However, I do think that this market is very congested. Two max losses the same month happen for the very first time since I started trading this system in May. This did not occur in the first four months of this year either. Well, I have made some money with this system trading it with twice the current size and for particularly good entries even with thrice of it, so I am not necessarily defeated, but since this year the system has never had a drawdown worse than 4.5 pts, I will stop trading it if we hit a 9 pt drawdown. Every system has bad days, one has to realize this or else one can abandon a good system just at the moment when it is turning the corner. The most frustrating thing about these steep losses is the fact that they were freakish accidents. Even very minor changes in the market dynamics would have sliced them by half. But that's precisely the nature of nonlinearity... I guess, that was bound to happen some day. As I said I am not using any discretion for these trades. I had not used it before either and it had worked. In fact, one month I had gotten slightly ahead of my friend who applies discretion to this system. But this month my friend is 3 pts up with 3 trades only and I am 3 pts down with 4 trades. That's why trading is not only science, but also art...