Moral of the story? Any individual trader working one stock, one commodity or one currency will have numerous net-loss days. Period, end of story. Anything purported other than that is pure fallacy. lescor has put together an amazing streak of net-profit weeks and months with plenty of losing days sprinkled in. all streaks come to and end, nothing lasts forever. That said, here's hoping from everyone that some hot irons find their way from the proverbial fire to your bottom line... if for nothing more than symbolic reasons alone
how do you interpret the winning streak on P&L thread? NoDoji, for example, hasn't had a losing day for months, or maybe only 1 recently. There are others too.
she works several symbols and markets... stocks, ES and CL if confined to just the ES alone, two 6pt sideways range sessions this week (mon and thu) make it pretty impossible for solid profits my point was specifically noted to single symbols or markets. does anyone currently posting in P&L thread out-earn the OP of this thread? would any = all of the people posting in P&L thread trade account balances and performance over the past several years with lescor? would they willingly do that even though he has a number of net-loss days all along the way?
Actually even multi-market doesn't stop the odd losing streak. Its just statistics ... if you trade a system consistently ... there are bad streaks. The number of bad streaks relates to win rate or perhaps to "not big loss" rate as suggested by lescor's "find a way to recognize these early." Every strategy has some form of pain.
I did have quite a streak going (I think 40 up days) before this week. Austin is right, I watch CL, ES, AAPL, AMZN and POT, and occasionally a stock that comes on my radar that I believe could make a strong move. I also trade small and ultra-conservative, which makes it easier to have a steady winning run. If I was trading only ES, there'd be many days I simply wouldn't trade at all because of the action. Last year I had a long string of up days and gave a huge chunk of it back. It's a marathon and it's the long run that counts. If I took more risk and traded as Lescor does I'd likely have awful results, even if I traded a larger account. He's been in the game much longer than I and is able to handle the mental game of swinging a big one. I can do it in my sim account, but I know I'd fall apart live at this point. As an example of how screwy my thinking is, trading 1 lot of CL is the equivalent of trading 1000 shares of POT, but I find CL way easier to trade than 1000 shares of POT because the quantity "1" seems so tiny compared to the quantity "1000".
Lescor, Several people said that posting their p/l on ET actually hurts their performance. Why do you think it is? Is your trading any better or worse since you started this journal?
true that... and we're all wired very differently as how to best approach the markets I'm wired to hunt for and catch the bigger profit swings in a market. If a market is going anywhere, I can find the right side of price action to be on. I have great patience to wait for trades to mature in catching moderate to big profits... I have no patience to sit thru dead, sideways chop that goes nowhere at all. Know thyself. Nodoji knows herself well, and works to her strengths while working on her weaknesses. Same for me, it's time I watched more markets = symbols on slower charts and hit the moving targets when presented. We all eventually figure out what works for us individually, then we simply need to do more of that. And stick with what works thru all market conditions. lescor has some six-figure profit sessions ahead of him this year, before 2010 closes out. Count on it
Well, you are a little confused. First you say you have no patience for slow days and do not want to trade consolidations, fine, then you say stick with what works through all mkt conditions, fine again. What you are missing is that others might decide to trade consolidations. Agree, trading what i consider "noise" is last resort.........BUT a good trader can pull a couple handles out before calling it a day. Think of it this way: I want the gravy intraday swings, so does everyone else, the beauty of that is when we get a breakout or a "RUN" we all are partners and are "one for all and all for one", remember in grade school how we were taught to play "together games" at recess? During slow days, yesterday was a 6 rth handle day, there were enough signals to get better than the range. I am not saying i did that, just saying a profit was there to be had just trading the breakouts in a 6 handle range day (24 ticks, top to bottom). That was without trading in consolidation. Yes, double yes, the ES has been slow lately, nothing new, we been to this fair before. No one is saying Lescor is not a really good trader, no one is challenging his numbers....... you are on the defensive for no reason aside from association about how good he is and about how some might say losing days are rare, very rare. That is apples and oranges comparison. When a trader trades an individual instrument day in and day out, they are conditioned to trade what they see and will ADJUST relative to what the mkt is offering on any given day. In days gone bye, i traded the corn mkt when a 2 cent move a day was a good day. A slow day in ES is STILL fast enough to pick up some nickles and dimes. I "FIGHT" like hell when losing during the day...........i immediately change into a "GET EVEN MODE" , not revenge, not angry, just a different set of tactics to peck away and accept the new challenge. I get so determined to "get back" that i am not at that moment in time interested in catching the next run. First things first, besides as a breakout trader milking a range to get even..............i will continue to buy at the range low and sell at range high. if i buy in a range low and it drops below.............it is a small loss, thats the bugaboo of range breakouts the wrong way...........if you do not keep in command the commissions and small losers can take away the somewhat larger winners in a hurry. Most narrow range days, like yesterday offer good breakouts. There are many ways to make the nut, some days are peanuts, so what. Ok, lets move on. PS: Besides Lescor is also a Canadian, extra brownie points he gets. PSS: and lets understand this as a hugh difference. I fully agree a "SYSTEMS" trader will have bad days, that is a given. A smart system trader does not have only a single strat and tactics to trade the mkt only 1 way. A discretionary trader adjusts on the fly.