Well that sucks, got up to +127... then I took a long trade 11078.... then market moved up some I coudl have taken my small profits i been doing, but figured I would try to shoot for a little bigger profit...... I then violated my stop.. then another.. then finally I closed out at 11058, and now i'm down to only +28 on the day
Getting extremly frustrated...... took a short position and just got stoped out at 11078.. my origional long a minute ago.... Had I ignored my stops I could have actually MADE money on that trade.. now i'm down -31......
I've had a complete meltdown, went form up 127 to down -200........ why the hell did I decide to start using stops today??? I was doing so well when I would ignore my stops.............. Now i remember why I hated stops to start with I get choped out of nearly EVERY position I enter...
Frosty, Taking small losses is a trader's job. Perhaps you should take some time to review your setups rather than trade without stops. If you have to have your position go against you by 20 or 30 points to have a winner, it would seem that your problem is the entries and not the stops. Best of luck.
loss 255 today....... Only averaging 100 a day, and loosing 255 in a day is NOT good........ RULE #1 needs to be DO NOT EVER take entries just for the hell of it, MUST have a reason, and no revenge trading..... almost EVERy entry for the last 2 hours has had NO basis as for as my trading methods go, they were no better than random entries...... If my bot didnt have such high draw downs, i'm almost tempted to just let my bot trade for me for a few days and take a break.....
Frosty, Don't want to kick you while you're down but it sounds like you're cutting your winners short and letting your losers ride. That is the complete opposite of what you need to be doing. If you're trading multiple contracts why not try exiting half of your position at a specific profit level (say 10-15 ticks) and then let the 2nd half ride until your setup tells you to get out or price comes back to your initial entry? And use firm stops. That way you can limit your losses and try to accumulate big winners. Nibbling 5 points here and there on winners and then watching your losers until they become so painful you throw a market order after 20 or 30 points is only going to increase your headaches and decrease your account size.
boro, Currently only trading 1 contract at a time. But you are correct, I am cutting my winners short and letting my loosers ride..... one of my MANY bad habits.
Scratch that 255 loss, now its a 400 loss..... I went nuts after the market closed............ I have had what I always get after a while, a HUGE FREAKING melt down......... once one or two things go bad I get out of controll and loose way too much.. I was already pissed by time I was down only 31, I shoudl have STOPED there
Got to put it behind you. Take a deep breath. Have a cocktail or two and relax. I hit my daily drawdown max by noon and just paper traded the rest of the day. So you're not alone. Does your setup also include some sort of exit strategy? Something that tells you to stay in the trade until certain criteria are hit?
My mechanical method does..... its really a VERY well drawn out strategy that has been VERY thoroughly tested.... all these trades i'm making, hardly any of them are from that method..... most of the trades I make and post into this thread are from a few other more experimental methods I'm doing.... Kinda funny, my one proven method I dont even trade it, I simply let my bot trade it on Ib's paper account while I trade a experimental method live.... doesnt make much sense does it Its not that I dont have faith in the mechanical system, because I actually do have a LOT of faith in it, but it has a relatively high draw down. My account is currently too small for me to trade that method without pulling my hair out from worrying too much.... I'm really tempted to let my bot just automate the process on my live account starting tomorrow.. but too scared..... May let it automate it, but if i see it get into a trade that I really believe will end badly, such as news coming out that makes the market sudelny reverse hard I may exit the position manually...... Or, quite possibly may let the bot trade ES, and I'll continue trading YM.. maybe this way will offset the losses between the two. Everytime I have a bad day like today, it causes me to want to try somethign completly new the next day..... PS: Maybe with the bot trading actively as well, it will make me feel like I dont NEED to take a trade just cus i'm bored or feel I need to be active. Maybe it would allow me to sit back and only take trades I feel very confident about and let the bot do the grinding away the rest of the time...