sstheo...we are not arguing...we are all traders trading with you...your doing fine...this is not your first rodeo...remember that. es
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/micro-e-mini-madness-2-per-day.335221/page-51#post-4946703 I think this is the post you are referring to when you said I broke my rules. My max stop is set at 40 ticks on the MNQ and MYM. This is $20 for each of these instruments. Perhaps you were thinking I said 20 ticks and not 40? Here is the originally stated list of rules for my account: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/micro-e-mini-madness-2-per-day.335221/page-12#post-4917170
I am not sure where the "luck" comes in, except every time I (or any trader) enter a trade it is a matter of probabilities. Is "luck" where preparation meets probability? Or perhaps I am lucky each time I get a profit, because as we all know that sometimes (often?) trades simply go against us, no matter how confident we are in the outcome. Maybe you are saying that I haven't been clear enough in explaining my methods, so it just looks like luck instead of the "momentum scalping" that I am doing along with "the dream of getting a few bigger trades in from time to time." I will try to be more articulate about my trade entry decisions. I am a humble trader because I know that tomorrow I may be "Tweet to death." But I can tell you that I am pretty happy with how things have gone so far. I averaged 2% per day for the first 30 trading days. And then my numbers slipped. But I think I can get back. My many years of trading have prepared me to be able to stay alive in this account longer than usual. I even withdrew $500. I have finally learned to keep the risk reasonable and wait for better entries. I will continue to try to be just as lucky. The future looks bright.
2% per day certainly has its limits as you have well expressed. I aim to get to $10k on this micro account. The 2% per day is a distant second objective. If I can get to $10k without blowing up, then I will have succeeded. I will then move on to the E-minis. With 2% per day I would certainly make a boatload of cash with the E-minis, but mentally I can see that I may become more risk adverse once I am on the E-minis on my own live account. But I would really like to take that $10k to $100k, the same way I am trying to take this $1k to $10k. The magic in this whole experiment is the GRADUAL strengthening of my proper reaction to the fear and greed demonstrated in the markets. By going up 1 micro contract at a time, I am expecting that I will be much better prepared and more profitable eventually than someone who starts with $10k (or $100k) and expects to grow it quickly without blowing up.
I see on my post I goofed a bit when I mentioned 33 points on the NQ chart, but clearly that is ticks, not points. At any rate, I converted the ticks/points to a dollar value. Since you said for the new account you would tighten up the stop to $100, I then went looking for trades where it would have been more than $100 (if you traded the mini contract and not the micro). On the NQ, that is only 5 points obviously, or 20 ticks. So if for this experiment your max loss was set to 40 ticks, but for the new account you were going to use 20 ticks, that meant the stats gained from testing weren't going to reflect the way you were going to trade. So all I was getting at was that your experiment had you average 2% per day, but going forward, the trading was going to use a different set of parameters, which would invalidate the stats you collected.
That makes sense, thanks. While I am using a 40 tick max loss on this micro account, I see I need to really finalize the max loss for the Leeloo account, assuming I get funded soon. You correctly extrapolated saying I would be changing things from my micro to the E-mini's if I make the stop 50% smaller. While a fixed loss is really easy, I am considering an ATR stop loss. This would be adjusted daily based on the previous day's action. It would be something like 20% of the previous day's range. It could be 15 or 25, or 30. I can't imagine more than 30%. Again, this would be the max emergency loss, and I will still do my best to get out sooner if I think "the reason for getting in the trade" has disappeared.
You will get funded soon if you stop mucking about and keep on with what you are doing. Hmm, that could be dangerous? For example, look at the couple days before Friday, and then look at Friday. Friday ATR was quite different from the previous few days, no?
Once again, none of this you have used for your live trading. Dude, your live trading results are stellar, and impossible really to maintain in my opinion. Every version of a stop has pros and cons. I like fixed stops cause it makes the math easy for stats, no thinking involved, gets you out of the trade, and you move on. ATR based stops can work better for times when volatility changes, but here, the stops might almost be too big. 20% of a 100 point NQ range is 20 points or $400 dollars! If you plan to trade like you were before, these won't be quick trades. A price action type stop, like above or below a major swing point is even better in my opinion, but now you have to worry about where you got into the trade cause the swing point might be far away. All of these will take more testing. So that brings me to this question. What is wrong with what you were doing? We saw only a small sample of your trades, but are there any skeletons lurking there? It looks like all you were doing was developing a feel for the market and putting on a trade. Nothing wrong with this, so why not just continue? What is it that you are trying to improve and why are you trying to change? We are all trying to tell you that 2% per day is extraordinary, and yet you seem to want more. This will be your downfall. I suggest you go one more month doing exactly what you were doing. If you can replicate last month, then go one more month. And so on and so forth. This is trading. The daily, weekly, monthly grind. Making 30 to 40 ticks average per day is stellar performance. Don't fuck with it, but see if you can maintain it.
Don't I KNOW IT about the "tweets to death". The tweets have humbled me and have turned my trading style on my head and so I am trying to adjust. There is no fear or greed in the markets. The fear and greed is only in your head. It is YOUR fear and greed that you sense. The market is your world, but your mind interprets that world. Don't change a thing. Don't rush things!