NoDoji...Approximately how many trades do you take on a daily basis? If you, for any reason believe this is proprietary, feel free not to say.
michael21, mechanical or not, scared money - makes no money. though based on your comments it may not be the money but instead the fear of being wrong or anxiety of being right? how failure/success will 'change' you or your future? what if you are not a smart as you thought? only you know, but you need to fix it right in your head. stop contemplating the effects individual trade outcomes have on you, just focus on the plan and know your outs ahead of time. embrace the pain from losing and learn to develop a healthy sense of greed. no matter how much R&D you have done the fear will hinder your ability to execute. just pull the trigger or better yet hire a hot stripper to do it for you
All technical systems are essentially the same, so we don't need to know the rules as much as his market and his risk.
Generally between 20 - 25 trades a day, between 8:30 and 2:30 eastern time. This is what my research indicated and when I finally got to the point of trading all my setups, sure enough I was trading that often. My written trading plan consists of: Minimum monthly profit required Description of market research and results of that research. (This is where I did daily analysis to define setups that appear a certain number of times a day, result in a minimum profit target X% of the time, and offer a risk:ratio that, combined with the average win rate, produces the minimum profit required through varying market conditions.) Definition of market environments in my trading time frame (range, channel, trend) Description of setups (with-trend, counter-trend, range plays) Filter criteria (factors, such as major news events, that exclude otherwise qualified trades) Rules for entry, stop loss and minimum profit target for each type of setup Criteria for stop-and-reverse scenarios Rules for adapting to changing conditions (price range and volatility) Once you have a trading plan like this and reproduce the results in simulation (or via an automated system), I'm pretty sure it's normal to take it live and screw it up by micro-managing the trades instead of following the rules. Even those who automate are at risk of overriding the system. Once you realize that messing with the plan causes failure, and you finally learn to simply follow the plan, trading is like an assembly-line job where you know exactly what to look for and what to do when you see it. There's no hesitation any more because you've done the work necessary to trust that the end result will be the same as the results during the testing phases. There is no fear of losses, because you know that individual losses are meaningless at the end of the day/week as long as you follow the plan without fail.
Donna, whatchu mean by a minimum monthly profit target? I thought you were a "trade the system, and let it roll" kind of girl. Regardless of outcome.
Wow!...Had no idea you were pulling the trigger that many times per day. You are what I'd call a scalper. But, if it works for you, drive on with it!! Thanks for the reply.
She might scalp, but always expects them to rise to the occasion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqv5caIr4GY&feature=relmfu
Assuming that the method yields net positive results, which the OP has assured us, this is very good advice.
To make a living trading you need to generate enough income to pay the monthly bills, cover taxes, and put something aside for fun and for savings. So the trading plan needs to be able to generate that minimum profit or you won't be able to trade for a living. I trade a volatile contract which can sometimes move 20-200 ticks ($200-$2000/contract) in less than a minute (I think I once had a 50-tick breakout trade in just a few seconds.) My minimum profit on a trade is 20 ticks unless a stop-and-reverse setup appears. If I was trading something like ES or a stock 20-25 times a day, then I would obviously be a scalper.