Additional :- ( I know you don't need help, but trying to shorten a few likely steps that will come ) 1. Why do you need to put 6K at risk, if your Max Draw down is 1K, Margin Requirement + 1K would be wiser, so Min account opening fee, ie 2K ?? 2. The reason for 1, when it's real $$'s, you'll find yourself after a few losses, not wanting to stomach another especially after all the others hit SL then reversed on you, you'll move the SL, average down, then repeat a few times, this works at times sooner or later you'll take a huge draw down. #1 limits your ability to average down, limiting your losses. 3. No.2 is the reason most fail, including me ( finally got on top of it ), try at all cost to avoid doing #2. Solution for me is/was :- Reduced my Margin and trading at 80% of the Margin, so I literally can't average down, hence keep account as small as possible. No ability to average down, also forces me to keep my losses small. Don't fall for this trap and lets hope your not most
February 20, 2015 dejavú Markets offered just limited number of opportunities for my trading approach. T1 First trade was dejavú from yesterday. I also picked the bottom of the market (NQ this time) just few ticks from lowest low. Unfortunately after my order was filled, there was too much chaos in the markets and the situation didn't provide me with clear edge anymore so I manualy closed the position at BE+2 according to my trade management rules. T2 After the YM breaked up from the consolidation I saw unwillingness to return and test lower levels. I entered long and found out I hit the mouse button twice resulting in two waiting limit orders. I was filled before I could cancel one of them. So I had to manage both which scared me at the beginning. I closed the first contract at BE+1 and took the primary momentum with the second one at +8.
Combination effect... Bad headache Market too slow. 4 SL hits in a row, they add up. Not long ago, bad day would be a 30% hair cut, not 5% so all fine
Learned a few new tricks from the losses, tweaking method to improve in slow markets and make me not react to noise with little chance of follow through. Tis all good
Weekly results: 8th week of 2015 return of the sniper I hope you enjoy my modest picture As you can guess from the pic I am very satisfied with my performance for this week. Let me clear some things first. I was trading just 4 days this week because of the bank holliday in US on monday. Besides that I also decided to start with live trading beginning from Thursday. So I traded Tuesday and Wednesday on SIM account and Thursday and Friday on LIVE account. Because of that I will publish 2 statistics - one for SIM trading and the second one for LIVE trading and I will manualy count the numbers together. SIM LIVE stats and equity Conclusion I am very happy not just because of the outcome but also because I took all the trades exactly as I was supposed to (maybe except the T2 on Tuesday). I entered at very good prices, most of the time picking the tops and bottoms of the market which exposed me to very limited risk. It is easily visible from the statistics. Maximum trade drawdown during SIM trades was just 3 ticks for all 4 trades, meaning not a single trade was in higher open loss than $15. During the LIVE trading, maximum drawdown was 6 ticks which is still great. Most of the trades have been without any or just with a single tick heat. This is why I call it sniper daytrading. When executed correctly my approach allows me to enter the trades with extremely limited risk resulting in great RRR (risk-reward-ratio). Another good sign is that I was not overtrading which is one of my weaknesses. Overall I took just 7 trades, which leaves us with 1.4 trades per day. Only value which I am not satisfied with is the average winning trade during the LIVE trading. $24.63 is too low, I am trying to reamain above $30 level when trading. This is something I need to work on next week. I have to give the market more space. Cumulated statistics Total net P/L: $212.76 (after commissions) Total commissions: $32.24 Total trades: 7 Winning trades: 7 Win%: 100% I will enjoy this winner feeling for a day or two and then I will forget about this week because new week starts on monday and the last thing I need is to be cocky or arrogant while trading. That usually results in big losses.
February 23, 2015 dead market walking The markets have been totally dead today. T1 I took single trade at 9:16. All the other markets have been climbing except the NQ. However, I took the long too soon. I realised my mistake right after I took the position but I also saw that the market is going to turn. Therefore I widened my stop loss a little and kept waiting. I was 13 ticks in heat which is a lot for me. I am used to 0-6 ticks of heat when I am right. So when the market provided me with the opportunity to exit the position on BE+1 I gladly took it. +1 I saw one more setup later on but I didn't want to risk anymore in such a dead market. Tomorrow is another day, hopefully with more opportunities. Results