Spectre2007, I would have never dreamed you would be trading a martingale system...but I have done this simulation routine below in the past, that you hinted to, and it works like a charm: Wait for the tail in consolidation zone, and time interval, simulated martingale position, for nth number of losses. Than place a live trade with 1 contract. You can even rank your trade size based on how deep you are in the martingale. I know somebody that used Bollinger Bands...then there is that MACD guy... There are EA's that run a trade in SIM mode to find the set up and the Forex Community calls that Neurological trading which it is not that at all. ES P.S. here is a thought for you Forex Martingale guys...Measure a trend length for the past 10 years on your Forex Instrument of your choosing. Cut the length in half...3/4's....etc then turn your martingale on from 0.01 with 10k...I just thought of this now so you could also use an entry method similars to Spectre's... Here try this for the grail...TRADE the EUR/USD long and the USD/CHF long in simulation. These creates a somewhat negative correlated event. Measure that difference and then enter LIVE when it is wide in the simulation....use Sprectre's thoughts on the entry. ok done...back to replay... my Futures practice/training to become wealthy in a short time.
To add to this, I have martingaled/ averaged into about 10% of my trades over the last month. Took some outsized heat on the trades but it was in CL. I had done a few of these in sim previously with good results. I like to call it swinging a position. Say I get long a few contracts around a support zone, then price comes against me to my stop I’ll consider why price is coming back and a few probabilities against time of day mainly, data? News?. I’ll take off 2/3 or all of the position and look for lower support zones to scale into a long with a price swing down and then back up. I have to say this is a setup I never like taking but it has worked out 70% of the time. The key is to commit to the trade once you start averaging in and have a puke point/ ultimate stop. Have only been hit on this stop once where the swing down could have been a 5% day on CL. I don’t want to be trading full sized averaging in on a day like that as they tend to not snap back at all. Would prefer to wait for entry on pull backs going with the MOMENTUM- NOT MAJOR TREND. To be honest, I’ll take pretty strong heat on certain setups but I am phasing out averaging into large swings against me that break several levels I expect to hold. And inversely I would prefer to be on the other side of these events and take my money without the squeaky bum involved in holding pain. You can look at probabilities etc but for me in order to effectively trade off of those I would want the execution programmed. Thankfully my edge is not in martingaling trades but I do alright if I take em. Usually it’s my gut that gets me into them. I agree, the losses if you puke it or loose your nerve are pretty large and could wipe you out depending on your size and experience. Always excercise good money management. The more I trade the more I realize that making money isn’t so hard, it’s keeping hold/banking it and walking away is the hardest.