I had a good trading day today. However my position size was $3k. I was told to go big on high probability trades. I have more than 50k in my account that is waiting to be used. This is not margin. However, I keep telling myself I will go bigger on the next trade. Would love to hear how others went through the process of increasing position size?
The worst is going from one lot to two lot, or 100 shares to 200 shares as it is doubled. I'd put on the trade, went and made cup of coffee then returned, do that enough times you are wired from the coffee. I never got use to manual trading stresses, whether one lot or hundreds, was much tougher though when S&P 500 was $500 a point, so coming down to greatly watered down ES at a tenth of value, numbers didn't make me worse. Any time you are risking something you value, you going to be nervous. If doing shares, increase by 20 shares. Best you get to doing automation, now I don't check till end of the day.
My advice: Your new trading zen: Reality: Your accountant's reaction when your remaining liquidity hits 0.2 (R.I.P. Flounder Stephen Furst, Born: May 8, 1954, Died: June 16, 2017)
Shouldn't you look at it as 50K in your account to fall back on when your current trade goes to shit, and you take a big loss?
Going big is always potentially dangerous...no matter how sure you are of your "high probability" trade is, You shouldn't size, in my opinion. You should instead always trade the same % of your account -- if you are Good, then that % will naturally grow on its own, You won't need to do no risky deviation that can leave your acct in a jeopardized state, If you are able to grow and manage your trading acct organically and healthily...all your trading fears will slowly dissipate,
I guess this is a question of quantity vs quality in terms of growing your account. I feel going big on a few quality trades is better than taking a large number of small position sized trades.
Who told you to go big on high probability, it's really not that complicated. You trade 1lot on a win, 1lot on a win, 1lot in a win, 2lots on a win, 4lots on a win, if you take a loss you start from the beginning again, if you break even you are etrade at that level. It's called an exponential curve, it's the reason you exist, assuming your not a creationist. The reason why you can't follow this beyond idiotically simple rule, cognitive dissonance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance