This is a recipe for disaster. You should be aiming for 3 to 1 reward to risk at a minimum. That way, you get rid of all the over-analyzing and can afford to be wrong.
No---If it makes sense to take some of the position off, it makes sense to take it all off. You'll need the trades that are winners to run fully to more than offset the times when you are wrong.
Actually they are. Here is what one needs to know. Limit losses to less than 2% of TLNW on anyone trade/idea. Let the winners run when right. Don't over-analyze with things like volume and break-even stops. When price is rising, buy. When price is dropping, sell.
Yes it's that easy, until you put risk management ie SL's then having to time an entry in such a way that it gets to and allows you to take a profit, before the SL hits. Without this your doomed, with this, it's back to being not easy!! Letting the winners run easy right, but then they often become losers, so yet again, not easy! Drop the sage advice, if it was that easy you'd be profitable, but your not go think on that.
You guys are starting to ruin snipers thread. Therefore, maybe its best you two move your conversation to private message. Debating about how a profitable trader should be trading is kind'uv ridiculous.
That is because they saw some losses, so they assume it is about the method. Though sniper is pointing out , and pointed out, it is discipline issues.
I'm the leave him alone camp here trying to shoot down that annoyance, but he keeps going and going. Damn know it all trolls.
Markets will tend to be easy for the traders that use a a very simple approach to them. Buy when price is rising, Sell when price is dropping. Set stop loss based upon TLNW and outside market noise. Let winners run. Under-capitalized traders will have some difficulty with this as they will want to over-analyze information to get to a 100% accuracy and win rate, when it is not necessary. Therefore, I can understand why markets seem difficult to a lot of folks. It's because of this need to be 100% right for account size etc. ---Learn to be wrong and be ok with it. You'll do much better.
March 3, 2015 still some mistakes We had quite volatile day finally, but I still managed to make few mistakes. I also had some bad luck when I was not filled in the first trade, but that is part of this business I guess. Point A I was waiting for the market to come to this point for couple of minutes. I entered long 4 ticks from higher low but I didn't get fill. Moment of my entry: T1 Nice entry, just 2 ticks from local low but my greed kicked in and I didn't take 12 ticks profit because I was convinced I just catched the bottom of the market. At least I got out after the market returned to my entry point at BE+1 BTW. look how the market reacted to my preplanned support level (green rectangle). T2 Still convinced that the market will move up, I entered long. Didn't work as expected so I killed the position at -4 T3 This was my best trade of today. Again just 3 ticks from the bottom, I learned from my last mistake (T1) and didn't take any chances when I saw the market struggling with the 4446.00 price level. This time it went much higher, but so is the trading. +8 There is acutally good lesson to be learned from this. If I took quick profit from both T1 and T3 I would be up $100. Second option was to aim higher but again WITH BOTH trades. T1 would end up as it did at BE, but I would cash $100 from T3. So either way I would make more money. THE KEY IS THE CONSISTENCY HERE. If you are not consistent, you usually end up earning less. So as you can see, I still make some mistakes which I grew up from on SIM account but on the other hand I feel tiny improvements every day. This is much more important for me than actual dollar gain.
Buy1Sell2: Thank you for your comments, but please understand that trading has many different forms. We all can use totally different (sometimes opposite) tactics and still make money. I don't expect you to understand my approach - it takes a lot of pracitce to understand what is going on when you read tape. But once you understand it, you will never go back to charts. Chart patterns are just illusion we created to simplify the market so we can react in time. But the market doesn't care about patterns, nor does it actually care about 2min, 5min, 30min timeframe. This is just how WE separate the market auctions so it is simplier for us. If you see the chart move 1 tick higher or lower - you are working with HISTORICAL information. I see what is going on in the market BEFORE it moves 1 tick higher and I KNOW why it did move. I am no expert in trading but look where I jump in the trades - I am able to usually jump in few (1-4 ticks) from the bottom. Do you think I would be able to do that just by reading chart? Now, don't get me wrong. Tape is not the only way how to trade. You can definately trade ONLY by using charts. I did it myself before. And I was also 3:1 RRR advocate myself. I read all the books and those advices just keep repeating themselves there. Steenberger, Douglas, Williams, Elder etc. You probably won't be able to name a book I didn't read. And you know what? 90% of advices there are useless, the rest 10% is extremely obvious to all inteligent people. And if you think that only your method is the best one, I suggest you read Schwager's Market Wizards. You will see that those extremely successful traders contradict each other and still all of them make millions. Very eye opening. You are welcome to stay and comment in my thread as long as you want as long as you accept the fact that I will trade the way I like. Cheers