lol...Well I would guarantee it that if Blox/Brian traded up to that size he would lose it within 3 to 6 months....That is a bet I would win unless he cut back to 1 ct or even better prove that he has an edge...Why throw good money away when there is no evidence of edge.. .this is not to have a go at you increasenow...quite the contrary I was licking my lips and thinking the same thing there for a second with the 100K that Brian/Blox has !! lol.. But Blox please risk as little as possible. Go with the 1 ct to start if you must and prove to us you can make consistent money with that... promise ? All the Best John
1 contract , 1 contract. Back to defining "the Edge" here is a bit I found about defining an edge for discretionary traders like myself. "Defining Edge in Terms of Trading Outcomes - Defining the edge of a discretionary trader is a somewhat trickier matter. The discretionary trader, by definition, is not relying upon fixed signals for trading decisions. Instead, he or she is reading market patterns from experience and acting accordingly. The edge of the successful discretionary trader is something akin to the edge of a highly successful athlete: it may be felt, but it is ultimately known only in retrospect. When we analyze a discretionary trader's results, we can see if the trader differs from chance in terms of the proportion of winning trades, the earning of profits, etc. For a trader who makes, say, 1000 trades, we can even conduct simulations and determine the probability that a random series of 1000 trades would achieve or exceed that trader's results. Indeed, by treating the discretionary trader as if he or she was a trading system, we can analyze results and identify an edge." .... The thing about testing a discretionary edge is that it takes much more time to see if it works or not compared to back testing a automated strategy. So here I am a year later after having a profitable demo account and moving to "real money" testing whether I'm good enough or not to make it as a discretionary trader. I'm pretty confident but I know positive thinking alone doesn't cut it. My edge is my ability to read the data that the market is giving me and interpreting the probability of the price hitting my target vs. my stop loss while managing my risk accordingly. In theory I just have to be in the top 51% to make money right ??since it is a zero sum game? I find it hard to believe that 90% lose their money. So the market has to find 9 new suckers for every 1 that is profitable?
My backtested bull strategy "automated" over the past year would have produced these results.... Win 157 Lose 285 Target 8 points Stop Loss 3 points $62800 Profit $42750 Loss Wouldve made $20050 per contract using this system. Is this a good turnout considering the market rallied hard in the last year? Trying to figure out whether my automated or discretionary strategy would work better. Can't tell because I haven't traded one specific discretionary strategy in the past year on the demo. I dabbled with a few different ones and probably used too much risk at a few different times , held onto trades I normally wouldn't have in real life ect.
Hi Blox There are some well qualified automated guys on here that do know how to test a strategy like yours. I guess the first thing they would say is you havnt factored commissions and slippage into your automated strategy. Also forward testing types as well as the backtesting you have done is very critical to evaluation. Again I only know the very basics and so am not much help mate. sorry. Do a search on it as there will be plenty of material you can dig your way through. all the best John
Blew up my account and now work at McDonald's . JK Haven't posted in a while because i've Been working on trading longer timeframes 30 min and 1 hr.... therefore I am forced to take less trades...I think this is a very good development for me. I will start posting my trades again soon .