When you're right, you're right. I shouldn't confuse the cause of my continued trading with the effect it had. Agreed. I do think I will increase the number of trades for next week. Haven't picked a number yet though. Three just doesn't seem to be enough to allow lessons to be learned if scalping. The intention was (and still is) to learn slow and build steam, but I think three was not a proper choice. And, my plan doesn't require me to make exactly my max. If I take less, that is fine. So at the moment, I'm thinking five will be the max for Monday. Increments above that will still be taken based on the plan of 66% or better for three consecutive days.
My own plan says 5 trades max. The problem I had recently is that I quit when I begin the day with 2 or 3 good trades (fear of losing the profits + ego satisfaction). And of course, if I make a bad start (negative after 2 or 3 trades) I don't mind taking my 5 trades because i want to make it back. That is not the way to go. My winning days are too small and my losing days are too big. I should do the opposite : keep on playing when I am ok and stop when I am not in sync. It is the same old good problem "let you winner run/cut your loser short" but on a daily scale. Hopefully, I'm still doing well but I could do much better... As I am unable to play my 5 trades as I expect to do it, I decided to reduce my number of trades to 3 and play them all every day.
Bong, Have you tried using tick charts to see if they give you yet another differnet perspecitve? I'm curious what your stop-loss is and your % win rate.
I know what you mean. I'm not sure what the solution is other than to trade as if every trade was your first for the day. I certainly don't want to force myself to trade just to make a quota, yet I don't want to undertrade for all the reasons that happens as well. I removed the P/L display from my screen and that does seem to help at least a little. With the max number of trades and a defined stop, the max loss should be known ahead of time and deemed an acceptable risk level. So knowing your P/L during the day shouldn't be important.
6 RTs / 1 contract / 0 points 3 wins / 3 losses = 50% Hard stops / targets @ 3tix/3tix 1. Sell 09:33:20 @ 906.75 for +0.75 2. Sell 09:40:46 @ 903.50 for -0.75 3. Sell 09:41:46 @ 903.50 for -0.75 4. Sell 09:43:43 @ 903.75 for -0.75 5. Buy 09:45:44 @ 906.00 for +0.75 6. Sell 10:14:04 @ 900.25 for +0.75 Obviously I either increased my max number of trades per day, or I broke my plan again. Which is it? I increased the number. At the start of the day I still wasn't sure how many was the right number. Somewhere between 4 and 6 inclusive was my initial thoughts. Looks like I picked six. As Sub will probably point out, it was the sixth one that brought me back to break even. That is the hard part about odd numbered max trades. You will either end the day positive or negative assuming hard stops/targets at 1:1. There is no break even. For whatever reason, I think my max number will always be divisible by two from now on. When I increase it, it will be by two and not one as originally planned. Trade two was taken on a pure emotional basis. Right about 9:40 there was a flurry of activity that created a down draft that made be go "holy cow, I don't want to miss this ride!". Dumb, dumb. My finger hit the button before my brain said "stop". And, being PO'd at that got me to enter another sell at the exact same price in the exact same direction a mere one minute later, because, after all, I had to have been right, or they owed me, or other such nonsense. Trade three: an emotional backlash at a previous emotional trade. Strike two for the emotions. I'm not entirely sure how much trade four was related to two and three in that sense. It sure looks like it was, as I was pulling the trigger rapidly by that point. But all in all, after only three days of the plan, I'm not really disappointed. I may need to add some clause to the plan about a required waiting period before I can enter a trade after a losing trade closes. Not long, but enough to make me stop a relax for a minute or two to regain rational thought. Analysis of my stop/target sizes is a little difficult because of the close proximity of trades 2, 3, and 4. Increasing either stop and/or target to 4 or more ticks would have kept me in trade 2 at least past the entry of trade 3 and most likely trade 4. With a 3 tick stop and 4 tick target I would have a 1.75 point profit because trade 3 and 4 would never have occurred. Who knows what would have happened if I had taken two different trades in the course of reaching my max. With a 3 tick stop and 4 tick target, I'd be looking at a 0.75 point profit and all trades would have been taken. It does appear that changing my stop/target will be in the future at some point, but not today or tomorrow. Not just yet.
No, I don't like tick charts because they don't have the time perspective. 30-sec bar charts seem to work for me. The risk to reward police might not like this but I use a 2 pt stop loss and a 1 pt target. I had used a 1.25 stop loss with a 1 pt target and found that I didn't do as well. Even though the risk per trade is higher the probably of hitting the 1 point target before getting stopped out goes up as well. I'm not sure what my win rate is I'd have to calculate that. Bong
6 RTs / 1 contract / -1.5 points 2 wins / 4 losses = 33% Hard stops / targets @ 3tix/3tix 1. Buy 09:37:48 @ 890.00 for -0.75 2. Buy 09:38:23 @ 889.75 for -0.75 3. Sell 09:40:40 @ 887.75 for -0.75 4. Sell 09:44:40 @ 887.25 for +0.75 5. Buy 09:49:28 @ 885.25 for +0.75 6. Buy 10:05:25 @ 878.00 for -0.75 Nice going! The second trade was another reactionary trade caused by the loss in trade number one. I am now officially adding the cooling off rule to my plan: No trades to be placed within two minutes from the close of a losing trade. Trade six was just plain stupid. I wanted to get some of the news action reversal. What was I thinking, especially with my tight stop in that highly volatile chop. And, against the news reaction direction no less. Stop/target analysis... With 1.25 stop and 1.0 targets, trade two would not have been taken. The other five trades would have ended with a total P/L of 2 ticks. Better than a loss I suppose. All winning trades did run for a least two points. I suppose optimal stop/targets for today would have been 1.25 stop and 2.0 target. Yet 1.25/1.00 has shown itself to have been better than my current 3tix/3tix for the fourth day in a row.
Based on my experience, i doubt that you'll do better than break even with the 3 ticks/3 ticks ratio. With the commissions and the spread (if you buy @ask and sell @bid), you already lost an edge before entering a trade. You will need a high percentage (probably around 70% or more) to make some decent money with this ratio. (I don't say that it is impossible... Isn't it Mr Sub ?) On this micro scalping frame, for sure you can't lose a lot quickly but you can lose a lot slowly. The only advantage I can see, is that it can give you the time to find the right P/L ratio by yourself. It seems that is what you are trying to do. For example, you could try to increase your profit target slowly (tick by tick), and see what happens. I'm sure that a good part of your trades would reach it. This process shoud help to increase your confidence in your setups and learn to recognize the good (those that can reach the target) and the bad ones (those that can't). Keep up the good work.
Bingo. That is what I was intending when I started this plan. The 3/3 keeps me from burning myself too badly, but still gets me used to entering live trades via my "system" and also gives me a chance to analyze how different stop/targets would have work out given my actual entries. The goal is to slowly loosen stops and/or targets over time. Thanks.