Ramp up size of ES, NQ

Very conservative... and also very wise

 

consider the risk of ruin, or disaster stop (something happens outside the market, terrorism, major news or you lose connection and ability to exit).
because even if you have stops in place and a major news event happens, your stop will blow and big time at that.
that's the major loss you need to focus on. it's rare, but when it happens it can end your trading career.
therefore calculate your number of contracts using this disaster loss. choose the maximum number of contracts you can accept that loss with.

regarding the psychological aspect of increasing :
remove those $ P/L from your screen.
think in terms of ticks only. then size won't matter (since you chose a size that won't ruin you).
if you are profitable with 2, you will be with 5. just make sure you don't look at the dollars.

 

How about starting with 2 and scaling in an additional 2? (Or what ever you are comfortable with) This may help to minimize your drawdown if you are wrong in the trade, and allow you to confidently add to your position as the market heads in your direction.

Obviously, if you are just scalping for a couple points, it may be better to put it all on the line at once, but if you are looking to catch an intermediate move during the day, it may help you manage the trade a bit easier.

 

I used that technique yesterday. Very good advice. Didn't keep an eye on the realtime p/l, which allowed my to concentrate on trade execution; thereby relieving a lot of stress.

I still have to perfect it though.

 

It is more a short term solution than a long term one.
Eventually you will need to be able to handle say a series
of drawdown days and the losses will show up on your
statement.

Once you are comfortable with the current size, maybe
you can try turning the real-time PL back on.

 

As for today realtime p/l is turned off until 4 pm; then, I'll assess the results.

 

I think the point with my suggestion is this :
during trading you don't want to be bothered by $ P/L.
you know if you are making money or not anyway. but execution does not need to know about $.

when you receive your statements etc.. it's ok to see the $..

fear or evaluating strategy is not something you do when in the middle of a trade (or even during the trading day) imho.
I do that after the day, and rarely. the idea is not to change plan everyday I think.

trading was easier once I removed the $PL from my mind. specially when trading big size.
I and other traders I know never care about the $ amount. we either care about the % vs hedgefund or ticks vs strategy.

of course, one should do what works for him. if it does not work for you, change it. if it does, don't change a thing.

 

Transition from being a 2 lot trader to a 3 or 4 lot trader is smoother than at first thought. Traded a couple of times yesterday with 4 lots. My comfort level grew the more profitable trades that were made. This transition is happening at the same time that my trading system is on a “hot streak”.

My system that is normally about 55% (since January) is in a time frame (last 8 days) where it is 70%. Without pressing my luck though, I’ll back off to 2 contracts for the rest of the week.

I’m finding that it’s more comfortable to increase size after a string of profitable trades.