Your drawdown is less which means your entries are better. The less drawdown the better; you may notice some of your better trades are when you catch a trend. This is where the pros step on the gas and get back all the knife cuts and commissions. Your drawdwown since the 18th looks good with your max at $520. Good trading.
Hi Krolyk, Better to seem ignorant (maybe to other people, certainly not to me) for 5 seconds than to remain ignorant a lifetime. MAE stands for Maximum Adverse Excursion. MFE stands for Maximum Favorable Excursion. Also, ETD stands for End of Trade Drawdown. MAE shows you how far the position moved against you at its maximum (if you have been stopped out, it should equal your loss). MFE shows you how far the position went in your favor, i.e. how much profit you would have had, had you exited at the top. If you take profits via targets, it will coincide with your profit for those trades. ETD shows you the difference betwen the best point in your trade and your exit. You can see the average for these stats in the summary tab, but you will probably find more valuable at this point to change the mode to "Currency" (from percentage) and to take a look at the tab "Trades" if you are numerically inclined or the tab "Graphs" if you prefer to see it visually. The overall idea of these stats is that you can see if there is some pattern in your trading that you can adjust for better profits. For instance, I tend to leave too much in profits at the table (because I try to let profits run... always... which in choppy markets is probably a bad idea) and that shows on the graphs. You could also use it (as an element of the bigger picture) to see if your stops were too wide by comparing the trades that have say a $50 MAE vs. those that have a $150 MAE and seeing how many of each turn a profit. Say that you see that all trades that move more than 87.50 against you actually are losers or you barely break even after taking the heat, then you could (just an example, I've no idea or your system, time frame, etc.) simply get out of all trades that move 100 against you (and save yourself those extra 50 that wouldn't keep you in any good trades). When you take a look at it with your own trades I'm sure you'll get the idea. Best trading, Jorge
Everyone who has been standing by waiting for that âI told you soâ moment, it has arrived. Blew all my gains over the last couple of weeks and then some today. First I was long on that sudden mid day selloff that no one seemed to be able to explain today, I was expecting a relatively flat lunchtime, just like everyday, where the S&P will typically only fluctuate a few dollars, and the next thing I knew it dropped $16 dollars, during lunchtime, busting through resistance level after resistance level. After going down about $3500 on that trade, I made $2000 of it back by the end of the day . Then I decided to try and recover some more in after hours trading. I went long on Appleâs earnings report which was positive, I thought it was a pretty good move at the time, since everyone was waiting for it all day, but for some reason the market tanked $12 to new lows after that. I havenât the slightest clue why, but it slaughtered me, and I lost thousands more after hours. I have never experienced a losing day before, and it sucks, almost more than I think I can handle. I havenât been able to sit still for a minute today, I canât stop thinking about it, and I am feeling very intimidated about trading again tomorrow after all my indicators failed me today over and over again. I was starting to think my system was pretty decent but it let me down big today. I obviously panicked and began over trading to try and make up my losses, a rookie thing to do, but I couldn't help it. Based on what I was averaging before, it will take weeks to make this up. Maybe this isnât for me. Date: 4/22/08 # of Trades: 116 Contracts Bought: 600 Contracts Bought Range: 4-18 Highest down: ($5452.50) Highest up: $300.00 Net Profit/Loss: $(5452.50)
Feels like crap hey? Every trader has done something similar one time or another. I don't want to say I told you so but now you know why everyone was harping on you earlier. Take this heartbreak as a huge lesson. You really need to rethink your strategy and money management. It was only a matter of when not if it would happen. Take a week off trading and try to rethink your strategy into something with a good R/R ratio.
Krolyk, Sorry about your loss. Nobody wanted you to lose, even though some people thought eventually you would. It doesn't matter what people told you. It doesn't matter what you told yourself. It doesn't matter what the market did. It doesn't even matter what you did. The only thing that matters is what you do now. You mentioned ad nauseam how you were willing to pay your tuition. Well you just paid $5452.50 for a first-hand lesson on money management. Whether you've learned something useful from it, it's entirely up to you. Only you can decide whether this is for you or not. My piece of advice, from rookie to rookie and for what it may be worth: take a break for the rest of the week, calm down and then decide what you want to do. Two things you may want to consider: 1) about $3,000 of your loss is due to commissions; 2) You could have never had more than four contracts on at any time with a $10,000 account. If you decide to come back, remember the first (and best) advice you got in this forum. I share your pain, mate, we all have been there. All the best, Jorge
Everybody has bad days. Even as a seasoned trader I still have them as well. You hear about hedge funds blowing up all the time and to make it that far you have to be good. Don't beat yourself up over it. Pick yourself up and at least you still have money left.
so this is an ES emini journal and your trying to do an after hours trading play on apple?? If your system is applied during RTH and you have losses at the close of the cash market, STOP TRADING. Don't worry about recovering losses, you will over trade and you will lose. Accept loses and focus on the system. Don't deviate from your trade plans. your doing well, just remember that trading is a business and it should be treated as such. Once you start gambling you might as well take your money to Vegas, as least the women are pretty.
darn, i'm still rooting for you krolyk. i took a drawdown slightly larger than that a few months ago so i empathize. no doubt you can battle back from a hit like that if you want to, just slow down a bit and take it one step at a time. maybe rethink your strategy so you can minimize your risks and thus calm your nerves.
"I was starting to think my system was pretty decent" K... An opinion about when and in what direction and how far the market is going to move is nothing more than a wild ass guess and probably less accurate than a coin toss in correctly determining what entry decisions, if any, you should make. And to then, when the maket doesn't share your opinion, average down as your losses mount in the belief that ultimately you will be proven right... is not a trading system but instead a non-lethal variation of Russian Roulette. You get all the adrenaline rush but unlike the real thing, you remain around to deal with mess you've made. If you crave thrills ride a real roller coaster or jump out of an airplane. However if you insist on making the choices that turn your trading day into an emotional roller coaster, then you can't get away with playing the role of helpless victim. " but it let me down big today." Whatever system you think you have is after all just an extension of you. You need to honestly reflect on the reason behind your desire to trade. It's beginning to look like it has little to do with making money.
Nobody can win everyday. I was down this month starting out, then made everything back and now am at profit. So that is 4 months in 08, that I am ending in a profit. I think one of your problems is you start trading in after hours. If you don't trade during a winning day, you should not be trading during a losing day. Also there is nothing wrong with averaging down if that is part of your system, but it looks like you throw out the rules after getting into a loss. There should be some point based on your system when you are supposed to take a loss and it should not be because the market closed while you were in a draw down. For example, you close a losing trade, then get back to looking for new setups, not make a losing trade worse for no reason. Did your system tell you that it was going to turn around or were you in hope mode....