Do you live off trading? or you just growing your account? How long did it take to recover those +30% DD?
Honestly, this was to be expected at some point as your equity curve including all trade history tells a very different story than the daily equity curve - where your system on multiple occasions goes deeply in the red intraday in order to end the day with a relatively small gain. Equally, you will cap the day at a small daily gain. It can work great for extended periods of time as it's done until now, but once in a blue moon that one large loss is inevitable.
Last DD was 2022 @ -31%, recovered in about a year. Before that, significant DD in 2019 also about a year. Both times due to general market condition and wrong bets on options. Big enough size, DD did not have financial impacts.
Very good points. What I found in my limited day trading experience, is if I tighten my stop losses, I also reduced my profits. There is no free lunch. Kelly will help if you know your expectancy. Many great traders used fractional Kelly but that also reduced their gains. Depends on how confident you are about your model and your risk tolerance, and risk management, a 25% DD, if recoverable, should not be a show stopper. I shouldn't pontificate. I am still a student trader, still learning and when I day trade, still can't stand losing trades.
4.5 years later and you are profiting, and you still doubt. Time to put your grind to the wheel. Want a song for that? Of course you do. We will try to find the informative singing for ye., because we have no imagination. :-(
OP has done extremely well in 4.5 years. You may be different but I am never sure if I will survive or my method will continue to work. That is why I continue to look for new ways to trade. I have been at this full time since 2010 and fortunate to start with some size. As the founder of Intel, Andy Grove said: Only the paranoid survive.
I'm very sorry to hear that. But based on your strategy, that was expected. It wasn't if it would happen, it was when it would happen. IMO, You are doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing: Letting your winners run and cutting your losses early (easier said than done!). But I'm sure that your determination with bring you where you want to go. Keep going...
I've tested the "let winners run". It doesn't work in daytrading. Swing trading, maybe. You're screwed on two fronts: having the right entry, and having a runner which happens like 30% or less of the time; all within a limited timeframe. BY the time you actually catch a runner, you're already suffering steep drawdowns by a thousand cuts.
I started to be profitable when I started to let my winners run. And I'm day trading. I'm not here to convince you. Just adding my 2 cents if it can help.