Wow, so THIS is what separates the noobs (me) from the pros (you)! My method has always been to enter when price has moved 1 centimeter away from the 20-bar moving average on my 3-min chart. :eek: All kidding aside, thanks for taking time to answer so many questions; it's been helpful.
Thanks - I thought I read everything in this thread before I posted that question but I guess I missed that. The second subpart of the first question and the second question still stand though.
Lescor, you mention 10, 20, and 30-40 k drawdowns. Are those daily, weekly, monthly ? How do you handle these % drawdowns mentally on a 100k account ? What is the worst drawdown you have experienced % wise since you became profitable and how did you condition yourself mentally to come back from it ?
Yes, and I'm asking some questions to a winning trader that I hope get answered. It's his decision to answer my questions, not yours.
TraderZone just like lescor so much that he is afraid we would scare him off. It's all good intention. We will be gentle with lescor.
That's interesting because Maestro inferred that he is RTM trader also. So logically, this would work best on choppy or range bound days. On trend days, most say less than 20% you would get killed. Lescor, I appreciate your thread, how do you determine range vs. trend? I would make an educate guess that this ranging stock market in last 1-2 months has been helpful to RTM.
I would expect a -10k day once or twice a month, 30-40k, hopefully not at all, but they do happen, maybe a couple times a year, but that is really affected by volatility or major market events. If I'm losing that much on the bad days, I should be making more on the good ones. Bear in mind that 100k is not all my available capital. I sweep my profits out of my account now and then, but often keep a big chunk of that in cash if I don't have a use for it. I would never put 30% of all my capital at risk. If 100k was all the money I had, I would trade much smaller size than I do. I like to operate with a healthy cushion. A number of years ago I had a massive fat finger error that cost me almost 30% of my account. It was pretty rough, but I came back the next day and just operated as normal (with some new risk controls in place). There was nothing wrong with the strategy itself, just operator error. The best thing was just to get back on the horse and carry on.
The day of the infamous "Corey-nary" Days like that can happen to any successful trader (and most have had them). Those are the deep wounds that season a trader, providing an experience that can help avoid a future blow-up. Speaking from my experience, I was very risk adverse and cautious to begin with. Then, I had a similar fat finger in the crude oil futures market a number of years ago that could have been devastating, and it gave me even greater respect for risk (including the risk of self inflicted stupidity). Great thread, Corey.