I define risk as the amount I can lose on any one trade. I calculate risk as a % of my account. I calculate position size by dividing the difference between my entry price and my stop into whatever amount Iâm willing to risk. If Iâm willing to risk $100 and I have a 20 cent stop, my position size is 500 shares. So if you widen your stop and reduce your position size, the risk in theory could be the same. Can you tell us what win/loss ratio and risk reward ratio you were at and where you calculate you will be with your new rules?
I'm willing to risk more $ per trade and give my trades more room. I'll update you on win/loss ratios once I have enough stats for new approach. In any case, I'm sure you are aware that trader with 30% win rate and 3:1 risk to reward ratio is the same as 60% and 1:1.
Thats true until you factor in Commissions, slippage and human nature. I tend to move my stops so that I see a little profit and have been known to take a little more loss than I first calculated. My planned 3 to 1 works out to 2.16 to one in reality.
I'll preface with: You've been trading longer than I, and you know your own strategies, and I don't know at all how you trade. But... I think it's important to share: I went through a similar phase last year and found that my trades, when given more room to work, often took exactly what I gave. After much frustration, I spent months in sim over the summer and through the fall honing my strategies and defining an "edge" that allowed me to have very strict risk management without averaging into positions, and without using wide stops. Since then, my losses have been very minimal.