I've thought about that but the commissions on MHI are what kill me, and I would start experiencing a lot more slippage if I started trading a lot of MHI contracts. I concluded that it's just better if I man up and accept the risks of trading HHI.
See below for a visual of my session by session cumulative net P&L since mid-April, which is when I started trading Hong Kong again after moving into my new house and settling in for a month. One of the demons I'm fighting right now is my comfort and unhealthy attachment to this nice gentle uptrend, because I know that by scaling-up the volatility of my returns will significantly increase, both for winning and losing sessions. Well, I know losing sessions will be bigger, but I need to be aggressive on winning nights to make sure those are big as well. As I've written these last couple of posts I've noticed HHI has formed 3 no-brainer setups that were all winners. Would I have had the balls to take them and see them through if I were still trading, or would I have packed it in and gotten happy with making a few hundred? The willingness to destroy this happy uptrend on my P&L is required in order to achieve a higher level of overall profitability. After all, by looking at this chart, you can conclude only one of three things: 1) I'm incredibly lucky, 2) I'm employing a martingale strategy that hasn't blown up yet, or 3) I actually have an edge. If I actually have an edge, then scaling up should only increase my overall profitability. If it's one of the other two options, or if I have an edge but mental/emotional flaws that will eventually surface and cause me to act foolishly, then nothing can help me. I'm guessing by the end of August we should have some clues as to the answer.
Got back from vacation today, wife and kids are still out of town so decided to trade tonight. I was a little rusty after a week and a half off, but managed to do ok. About half of the profits came from some currency futures trades that I made while waiting for Hong Kong to open. +2072 HKD & +$287 USD Total = $554 USD
Despite a relatively handsome profit (compared to previous nights) I'm extremely unhappy with tonight's trading. Hong Kong had the most beautiful short squeeze with tons of action, and I only pulled out a fraction of what I should have. I exited my winners too quickly, kept my stops too tight when I should have been more stubborn, reversed on bad setups, and allowed myself to get shaken out of good positions by trailing my stops too close. I should have pulled in over $2k USD, the market put it out on a platter for me but I just didn't have the balls to take it. Damn I'm pissed. +5074 HKD (+$652 USD)
Check out this 3-minute chart of the HHI morning session. My grandma could have robbed this bank with her eyes closed. Morning sessions like these are rare, and you've got to recognize when something special is happening and go for the jugular. I'm going to have a hard time falling asleep tonight because I'm fuming over this missed opportunity.
Tonight was a battle. I got chopped up early, was letting winners run when the market only gave a scalper's profit (thereby getting stopped out with losses when the market reversed), and was taking scalps when I should have let my winners run. I came into the session agressive due to last night's frustrations, and the losses mounted quickly. At the 45 minute mark I was down almost $1k USD, and was about to throw in the towel and walk away to preserve my account. Then I caught a lucky break on a nice big breakout upmove and was able to ride it for a while to give myself some breathing room. From there I continued to be agressive and took every good setup I could find, eventually working my way back up to a reasonable profit. I wish I had never dug myself into that early hole, but it feels good to have climbed my way out. +2991 HKD (+$384 USD)
Tonight was a series of 2 steps forward, 1 step back moments. It was a relatively tight range with lots of early chop, so several of my setups weren't working as expected (I usually start off the session playing for range expansion, reversing on stops). However, after digging myself into such a deep hole early in the session last night, I was determined not to make the same mistake again, and was much more cautious and patient, and didn't reverse on stops that I normally would have. That cost me some good trades. Add in a healthy dose of trade entry errors (I missed the entries to 3 good trades because I either entered my stop limit order wrong or couldn't enter my stop orders fast enough because price skipped several ticks between one bar close and the next bar open), a trade mismagement error (didn't take the scalper's profit the market offered, which is what I told I would take before entering the trade; result was a loss), and it was a mediocre night compared to what it could have been. +2343 HKD (+$301 USD)