link included above. picture of said Ponzi schemer's former house: <img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=2769878> edit: sorry to take the thread further off topic! sweet house you are building lescor! g/l
Yes, regularly. Often times I don't like the stocks in a particular sector or I'll see some weird symbol in a scanner I don't know and just stay away from. Odds are better for some setups at different times of day too. Or it could be a case of a decent setup but the time for it to play out might not be worth the hassle or the risk. When I say if I see a valid set up, I take it, 'valid' includes factors like the above.
Again, it depends on the strategy. I'll trade anything under the right circumstance. I might not trade a chinese solar ipo as an intraday mean reversion play. But I might also not trade something as benign as XOM in a system that looks for S&P 500 correlation. How about all future questions that start with "what do you look for...." just assume that the answer is "it depends on the strategy"
Lescor, I am kind of surprised that you haven't started to trade a little smaller considering all the money that you have made the last few years. I am guessing that you are pretty well set, so why stay with the large size? The market giveth and the market taketh away.
I'd say I'm comfortable, but definitely not set. In a way I am trading smaller size because I'm not really any bigger than I was two years ago but I have more capital to work with. I've reached a comfort level with the risk I take and I think that helps a lot with my consistency and my mental state when trading. I never feel like I'm risking a significant amount of my capital, and I don't ever want to feel that way. If anything I should be trading bigger size or finding more ways to put my capital to work. I don't use it as efficiently as I could.
Great thread and thanks for all the sharing. I was just about to ask you if you plan on increasing your size and how you plan to go about it? How have you increased your size in the past? (e.g.- you made 100k in profits so you were able to take on more risk so you doubled size on only your best setups? I'd like to hear your thought process and reasoning behind this since I'll be going through this in my own trading very soon) Do you ever vastly increase your size when you've been on a hot streak and find a really good setup? When created a gray box, do you backtest? Do you forward test? Could you please shed some light on both methods and your thoughts on them? (eg - you backtest on telechart for the past 6 months then you forward test it with 100 shares until it's profitable for 2 months, etc) Thanks!
Lescor, please excuse my persistence, but I would like to hear your opinion about viability of the OPG strategy too:
Haven't really changed much there. Been pretty consistent over the years, probably averages 25% of my total.
Hi Lescor, You mentioned that you are always trying to research new systems because you are afraid the market is always changing. Have you noticed if your more profitable system have lost its edge over the past few years, Such as OPG or RTM?