Here is another. Smooth out your equity curve , control your risk. This one is relatively flat but they are controlling their risk with no more than about 1% per trade max. they had 13 losers in a row at one point but they kept on doing the same thing. No random -160 -270 ect Just my .03 cents
+40 The stock just tanked today. I thought it would be a drop but not one this big. My loss of the day was again trying to get the second leg of a measured move. I'm done now. Get out while ahead. Today was a day were the bars didn't hug the EMA much at all. There are times one would think it went too far away from the EMA but yet kept going. Sort of a break even week I suppose. Bought 116.19 15:21 Sold 116.03 15:25 I should've thought about the day being so bearish. Important lesson is that measured moves don't always fulfill themselves on trend bear or bull days if one is going counter trend. Strange once one has their mind made up, it's hard to go in the other direction even if it's right in front of them. I saw the bearishness late but declined to get in. My loss. I seem to think one thing is going to happen but not think the other could happen too. Scalps Bought 118.88 Sold Short 116.45 Sold Short 116.46 Sold 119.13 Bought Cover 116.41 Bought Cover 116.43 Sold Short 116.52 Bought 116.16 Sold Short 115.79 Bought Cover 116.43 Sold 116.18 Bought Cover 115.77
You're right on controlling the losses. Today my stop saved me. In the past when I've been too complacent with stops, I used to manually exit. However, the problem is that one can't be consistent at it. Some I thought were good manual exits and some I let it run for too long. Wishing and hoping for a turn around. That's the problem. The trades where my gains are small are ones where my wait is too long and opt to get out. Fear is the problem. Sometimes I feel lucky to get out. Auto stops just end it there, no more debating while the market turns on me. My limit on my losing trades is 100 per trade. I will not allow it to go more than that. However the areas where the stops should be made make it tough. sometimes with long bars with a bigger range make the loss potential bigger. Those are probably not good set up bars.
riffraffpatrol's post on the very first page tells you everything you need to know about position sizing and risk. Print it out and study it thouroughly until you understand it and then implement it . I would suggest sim but I know you probably won't listen, everyone needs to learn their own lessons, sometimes the hard way which is sometimes the most effective way.
I didn't do the exact number crunching as pertained to the measured move and it was something I should've done. I was eye balling it. I thought it was trying again for it's measured move potential but it didn't happen. When I recalculated everything, it missed it by .01 which essentially says it made it. I didn't get in on one tick above the previous bar like I usually do. I was guessing that it would try again. Bad move.
You have some good points. The problem for me is that I can't seem to wait for it. Often I can't tell if it's going to be a all day trend or a trading range day. The guessing is what makes me lose. Sometimes I get stuck in thinking that the pattern has to fulfill itself and can't reverse my thinking if it goes the other way. Today was an example. Trying to guess the pattern is tough until later in the pattern. The strategies are different. Trading ranges provide more breakout type patterns than trends. They have the most pull backs. Sometimes while waiting I get into scalp mode and try to get a small scalp which is dangerous. I should just wait for something more concrete and clear. Go all in on those.
zr1trader is correct, listen to him and to the riffraffpatrol post. risk the same amount on each trade, if your stoploss is 100 your profit target should be at least 150, unless your winning rate is much better than 50%. This will help you to determine if your system is valid, has edge, after about 30 trades. But as I see your entries and exits, and reading your posts, my impression is that you have no system and rules yet. That is why you have random results, and frustration. Take zr1trader's advice , find those patterns make rules around them or find some other entry rules. Be specific with your entry/exit rules. If you continue what you are doing now, you will have (much) more pain until you either give it up, or change. ------------------------------------------------------ Your last chart, has 1 long entry. It failed because you bought into the reversal at the decreasing trend line (connect the previous two peaks with a line and you'll see). It happens, but you could have exited earlier when you had that big red candle closing below the moving averages, and than you missed a "perfect" short setup few bars later, when it pulled back to the ma's after the xover.
I really considered going short on the setup to the EMA like you said later on but I just couldn't change gears fast enough. I thought for the day that it's going to go down again later too but for some reason I just thought it had to reach its measured move which was tunnel vision. Gotta set aside the emotions. Good point on the decreasing trend line. I missed that one. I like your chart analysis. A lot of my exits/stops are based on the bars now (support & resistance). Long bars as I found out are not good good for signal bars. I was very fortunate that my loss was only -35 on that one. Ideally, -35 for a loser is ideal. There is a lot of movement with this stock so there does need to be some wiggle room. One can't just say I'm risking 20 only as a stop loss. A 20 risk will get anyone stopped out in the early morning.
You're totally missing the point. You need to get this... or you are going to be destined for failure. If $ 35 is your risk amount...fine. If $ 100... fine. If $ 250...fine. Make sure it doesnt exceed a max of 2% of your total capital to keep you in the game...however if your strategies are questionable as to success rate, .5-1% would be advised. Again-- regardless of what the final # is-- YOU NEED TO POSITION SIZE EACH AND EVERY TRADE SO YOU STAY CONSISTENT WITH THIS #! If u choose to trade a vehicle that is more volatile and needs more wiggle room...fine... this however DOES NOT CHANGE YOUR RISK AMOUNT! What will change however potentially is the quantity of shares traded...and this is determined by the distance from your entry point and the location on the chart you deem to be proven wrong. Do you or do you not understand this??? If you dont...you need to ask questions. If you understand it but choose to ignore it...you are a fool. Which is it?