As you rightly point out, it will depend on "how good" the trader is. However, the "how good" can be no more than an illusion that we conjure up in our minds to make sense of randomness. The whole point of the exercise is to see what the different approaches yield, and then discuss. Stop placement and Profit target are trader dependent, and will be determined by the type of illusion that the trader has dreamed up in his mind. The smaller the time frame the smaller the illusion, the greater the timeframe the greater the illusion. There will be a "sweet spot" that the trader has to identify by sound judgement based on some basic principles of finance, that are common to all financial markets. For this exercise, it is up to @A2x2 to decide what stop and profit target to use for the coin toss, but I would not go higher than the 5 min chart if I was him, and not as low as the 5 sec chart.
2016-11-21 Summary Daily P&L: +5.25 (1 trade, 1 winner) Trade Summary Trade 1: Positive market sentiment today so went long after the morning sell-off. [+5.25] Took some time off from posting as I was adjusting my trading plan / strategy. Will look to post consistently going forward.
2016-11-22 Summary Daily P&L: -$40.00 (5 trades, 1 winner, 1 loser, 3 break-evens) Trade Summary Trade 1: Started noticing the market shift downwards in the morning as it slowly broke out of the morning range. Decent entry however wasn't too certain about the trend so moved the profit-take to break-even, could have hit original profit-take for +$101 [+$6.00] Trade 2: Chased the entry.. almost got stopped out however the negative market sentiment saved me as the sold off and I broke-even. More patience on the entry and this could have been a very profitable trade. [+$6.00] Trade 3: Once again, very impatient with the entry during the lunch hour reversal, entered too soon. [-$160.00] Trade 4: Continued my short position at a much better entry once I got stopped out. This should have been the entry price for trade 3. Kept the stop-loss tight once I hit my mental profit-take, however had a wider than normal profit-take in case the market dropped rapidly. Got stopped out for profit of 5.25. [+$100.00] Trade 5: Market looks to be trending flat.. no clear signs of direction towards either side so I exited my short position at break-even. [+$6.00] Will be posting the dollar profit / loss going forward instead of the points as it's just easier.
Good call to sell at break-even for trade 5.. the lack of sell off after entry and ranging between intraday high and lows made it too unpredictable for this EOD rally.
Hi there ..shorts must be getting clobbered..better to buy pullbacks me thinks . A lot safer to be on the side of chaser
I tend to stay on one side throughout the trading unless a strong signal shows a reversal. Even though the market was up today the large morning sell off was strong indication I would get opportunities on the short side today. Just poor execution on my part. I did factor in that there was a good chance the market wouldn't turn negative today, so my profit targets were more conservative. Basically I watch how the market plays out for the first half hr to an hr to dictate signals on whether I will go long or short throughout the day.