The point of this journal is to help focus on the losing days, winning days are easy to deal with. My trading system, if followed correctly, gives me on average 48 losing days a year. I day trade, so these are closed out losses at the end of the day. I do not get signals to trade every day. I have had 19 Losing days so far in 2017, up to the middle of May: -5530 -3130 -756 -4379 -265 -2732 -4187 -2058 -4974 -103 -2807 -2766 -3243 -4107 -3778 -5209 -3513 -8699 -4668 All the above losses are in GBP so add 25% to each loss to convert to USD. I will continue to update this journal after each losing day. The latest losing streak is 2 days long (-8699 and -4668), this streak is still ongoing.
I currently trade between 10 to 30 e-minis on each trade, depends on market volatility. I take 0, 1, 2 or 3 trades per day. Sometimes they all lose. All are day trades, i aim to cut losers with disciplined use of stops. I never hold over night.
You joined in March 2009...and eight years later...you're still having issues with losing days I mean we all obviously have losing days, but it should be a relative non-issue by now. ...if it's still an issue...you're a slow learner. I personally wouldn't call winning days "easy to deal with"...they are just as stressful too...in their own, unique way. March 2009, excellent month or moment by the way -- the depths and reborn month of the financial crisis.
You can learn a profitable trading method. That doesn't take 8 years (Although there is always scope for improvement and more learning). But you cannot learn Discipline. For most people Discipline is something you have to constantly work at. Every trading day, every month, every year, year after year. "No matter how experienced a trader is the possibility of his making losing plays is always present" -- ROASO
All depends of your definition "profitable trading". I learned to play football in 1 day. In fact I did not have to learn anything because kicking a ball is not difficult. That's how your statement sounds to me. There is a huge difference between "profitable" and "profitable", depending of who is telling this. It took me years to go from "profitable" to "real profitable". Yes you can learn it. The human brain will always choose for the less painful option when making decisions. You should make losing more painful then skipping trades. Then your brain will "help" you by choosing the less painful option. The only thing required is that the losses are reasonable, nobody can learn discipline with 75% losing trades. I first learned to make as much as possible winning trades (rather not losing) to avoid the psychological problem of getting blocked. When I saw that I could many times enter "for free" it was easier to get in trades. The second step was increasing the profits.
Why do you want to focus on losing days without disclosing the dates of the losses, position size, number of trades, what you're trading and so on ??? Essentially, you said you have an average of 48 losing days per year and you've already reached 19. Seriously, what do you want to know or know about others ??? The math is easy...you have about 29 more losing trading days to reach the 48 threshold. Oddly, you put this in the "journal" section without discussing the critical variables needed for a useful trade journal. What other statistics do you keep ???
I have never traded "e-minis" on the pound, why not do full ? Have you done back tests to see what your MAE and MFE are on winning trades? Controlling risk for me is always learning from profitable trades, I learn very little from losing trades except for degree of losing days.
Sorry, I didn't see your latest message posts. 10 - 30 Eminis on each trade. Is it possible for you to state the average position size of each losing trade and the number of trades on each losing trading day ??? Usually someone using that type of size implies they're profitable or they're preparing to lower their average position size because of consistent losses. I'm just trying to understand your "risk management" and "position size management" (different sizes per trade or per day)...how it all correlates to your daily trading plan. Will be tough to understand because you're only discussing losing trades.
You have mis understood. I have GBP base currency in my IB account which i use to aggregate daily P and L made across different futures markets (European and US futures etc). I will trade more contracts but use closer stops when the market is low vol. Like at the moment the VIX is very low and the daily ranges are muted. When things liven up i will reduce number of lots traded but increase stop distance. I position size to a fixed risk % of my account so $ risk and and position size also change as account size changes.