That's pretty much what Hardison is doing with his Automated Gold Trading journal. It's also what old time poster "emg" advocated for in his thread "small traderz lose, they just lose!". Just a tight stop turned around, upside down. My own breakout algo from yearz ago used the Tradestation Trailing Stop, which is based on percent open profit above a minimum target, instead of the normal broker style based on absolute price. The lezzon: taking small profits at a high rate is the Walmart trading model and works fine under certain conditions. And cutting losses has to happen well below the consolidation range the trade was based on. You rarely see clearance sales at Walmart because they are careful to invest in the staples that don't go out of style.
I like driving, everywhere I look, I see patterns, trees, buildings, mountains. I have had jobs most people never consider that I thought was either interesting or fun, I use to change lite bulbs on towers, kept in good shape till knees said no more. Always loved sights at 500 feet. I get into trades where there is noise, quick reversion cause rubberband stretched too far, some would call it divergences on some indicator. On ES it might be 1 trade for 9 ticks if done in first 30 minutes of day session and 5 minute bars offering large bars. After that seeking 4/5 ticks on 2 profitable trades net. I very seldom have 2 losses in a row in a year, but on any loss, next trade the target is the loss plus the target, if price is moving enough to hit my stop, certainly moving enough to get my profit as well. Very seldom trading past 3 hours during any session, evening, Europe, USA, overtime though targets are 4/5 and stops usually 4/5 ticks but can't do size. My systems scalp almost any future that can handle 10 lots overnite and over 100 during day session but will do less on meats, favorites. Am sorry am not timely, too much to do and at end of chemo couple weeks ago. I USE TO ave down 12 levels, one loss would wipe out 2 months of profits, although testing proved overall was profitable and was for me, there comes a point when it simple does not make sense. I no longer average down. You are so correct, my long term commodities system has given me over 100 losing future trades in Indexes, BUT I hedge knowing that finding extremes is difficult, almost all overall trades make money cause hedge makes up loss of futures and another $50-100. I do occasionally get losses on futures and hedges, part of the game. Been playing the game decades, I won't scalp any system that does less than 95% profitable 24 hour days, am usually above that percentage. I have developed 2 systems that do 99+%, gives at least one trade an hour on Indexes, Energies, Meats. Am too old to care who likes me or not, whether am false or true. Done doing contests, show n tell and on last student who is profitable 36 days in a row. You keep learning, testing, when people say it can't happen, it can't happen for THEM. I pushed through it.
Do so many trades in your lifetime, wins/losses don't matter. Trade well below your account size, this is huge when starting out as so many have accounts 5k or less. Losses can be like 10% of the account for some. They think they going to be next Monroe Trout. If your losses are less than 1% of your account size, you most likely not going to fret much.
On a 5000 dollar account 1% loss is only 50 bucks. As such as I like scalping I am not sure I could make that work and maintain a high win rate. Plus get back any losses from losing trades. If I lost 50 on 1 ES contract 4 times in a row how would I get back 200? I'd have to make 5 1point winners in a row after the loss to get back the 50 loss plus comm costs. So how would you trade ES on the 5000 account limiting loss to 1%. Hope the chemo works for you.
Of course it is doable on a micro but you were discussing ES and 1% max loss per trade. I don't think that 5000 is big enough account to do that on ES. Maybe $50,000 or $100,00.00 account but even then if 10 losses in a row would do a lot of damage. You mentioned one of your systems had 100 losses in a row? I can't imagine that! The way I scalp I have to for the most part have higher initial risk vs reward. That is, I am initially upside down. Big risk, small reward, coupled with high probability that the trade will work. Odds are very high it won't work if I take on small risks with tight SLs. It will end up being 1000 paper cuts. To do what you say I would have to be extremely skillful on entries and exits while reading PA and no averaging down. I can't do that. I use averaging down if the context supports doing so because I am looking for a bounce in the direction that will render me a profit on the average down position taken and at least a BE on the initial entry. And more often than not a profit also on the initial entry. At least enough to cover commissions. If I get the direction wrong, I take my loss most of the time before my wider SL is hit once my premise for taking the trade is invalidated. Then I double or triple up in the correct direction to quickly get my loss back. But I have a wider SL and upside-down R:R because the algo's will cause too many losses even if I have a position in the correct direction