Thanks for taking the time to write this journal. I too have been a prop trader for a number of years, and have also become complacent over the last few years. The difference however is that my complacency has almost driven me out of the market. Skimming through your posts has got me thinking about what made me successful in the past, and what can i do now to try and reignite the passion I've lost and give trading one last chance. You mentioned in prior posts that you trade from a primary list of stocks and you'll sometimes hedge your positions. When you have 15-20 positions on a once, do you ever hedge those positions either with equal longs/shorts, dollar value, etc., or do you just take what excel pops out and let it ride, hedging only when the trade/market starts to turn.
When I hedge with an ETF, it's done as part of a pre-defined plan. One of my strategies involves putting on positions that meet certain criteria. I will take these trades even if it gives me a lot more longs or shorts. But I don't want the strategy to be dependent on market direction, so I have built in a formula to start adding spy or something similar at certain levels. If I'm building into and adding to positions playing for a mean reversion, like in the case of a strong market move, I don't hedge those. As positions build up and go against me, the heat increases. I size accordingly so I can take the heat, but if it gets out of hand, I start taking losses rather than hedge.
Hi, Lescor! What makes you decide to take loss on certain positions? Extraordinary volume, not typical price behavior, or you read news on a fly about what caused that move? if not secret... With best regards, Leon