Excellent trading advice. Simply, to treat each trading day the same or each trade the same with the same risk management, same position size et cetera is like saying the market is the same every trading day. The market is not the same every trading day. Therefore, to trade the market each day with the same fixed generic trade managment is problematic. Mark
I agree 100% too. The market determines where the stop needs to be, not what we're willing to risk or what our pain thresholds happen to be. This has nothing to do with account size either. If you want to employ something like the much ballyhooed 1% rule, it needs to be based on risk capital available. All account size does is provide the necessary margin for the markets you want to trade simultaneously.
MGB , a lot of the responses you have gotten are for day trading,, is this what you do? if you plan on position and swing trading then you need much more than $5000 account. Good risk management is not risk more than 1 or 2% on a trade so you maybee need to analyze your style and each trade independently,, for example in a volatile market like we have right now a fixed 2 point stop is going to hurt your odds of success, so if you decide beforehand on a trade that 20 points is your stop loss (maybe below an important s/r level) then thats about $1000 risk per contract meaning that you would need between $50k -$100k to trade this. Obviously adjust your % risk as to what you feel you can tolerate, but remember you want to stay in the game a long time. best wishes
per every $5,000 in account...trade 10 lots "all in/all out" of emini's at $300 daytrade margin...would use $3,000 of said account...
2-3 k per contract is fine, if your only day trading, imo. you have to define risk parameters, no matter how much capital per contract, small losses, thats all. its a smart way to trade . big money, does not take the place of self-control in using knowledge and discipline which is the key to survival..
Good gracious. I must be very conservative then. I like to have a much bigger buffer. CajunSniper / Puretick.com Administrator-Trader