Please explain to me FIRST: why a great trader like you lost 31% at the first place? How is it possible? I am certain you will make it back but I was a little surprised you would lose more than 10% at the first place. Keep up the good work like this week, you might get to millions soon. I believe so. Thank for posting and good luck.
What is it with you people that assume everyone has to have the same risk tolerance, and drawdown expectations, and risk per trader parameters, etc., etc., etc. Did you not read the thread title? How can you expect to have outsized gains without outsized drawdowns? Is it comfortable for you? It appears that it is not. So why is it surprising that it might be tolerable for someone else to have these kinds of risk tolerances. Sorry to intrude neke - but again I find this kind of input pure ignorance, and find myself exacerbated again.
he's aiming for a 1000% percent return, you think that can be done with <10% drawdown?!?! right good week neke
Weekly Update for week 22/50 ended 06/12/2010 Bitter week, down 39K (14%). Another giant step backward. Was having a flat week till Thurs afternoon. Thought I needed to show something for a week's effort and decided to take heavy size on SPY PUT as well as short BP when it seemed like the rally was fading away, hoping to reap some gains from small downside move. Grossly wrong, as both took off immediately afterwards. Closed BP short for a loss of 18K, and SPY puts for a loss of 12K. Stupid decision trying to pick pennies expecting to magnify it with leverage, while forgetting the downside. That set me up for another psychologically losing day on Fri as I threw away another 10K. Still fighting the battle of how to prevent complacence after a number of positive weeks. Thoroughly exhausted. I need a shower. Code: Opening Balance: 281,914 Net loss for the week 39,035 ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance: 242,879 Number of Trades 33 Number of Profitable Trades 16 Since Inception of Thread 01/10/2010 - 06/12/2010 Opening Balance: 410,000 Net loss(Less Margin Interest) 167,121 (Down 41%) ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance 242,879 Number of Trades 739 Number of Profitable Trades 388 SPYJUN192010109.0PUT 2010-06-10-14-08-32 2010-06-10-15-21-47 20000 53000 41000 -12275 SPY PUT BP 2010-06-10-14-06-23 2010-06-10-15-21-48 18000 588368 571200 -17206 SHORT
They tried to sell it off like every other rally, but the key was that there was substance behind the rally, and oversold energy sector from the previous day, people actually wanted some of those firms in their portfolio. In other words, it wasn`t going to sell off, they tried late in the day, and boom you had an explosive bar on the chart that broke the late day sell-off pattern, and then everybody knew that they were going to bust the shorts with putting in a higher high towards the close.
why do you take discretionary trades? I dare to judge that you do not have the mental composure to make a good discretionary trader. Your risk and money management sucks extremely big time. You should SERIOUS consider stopping this, you start to act like a gambler and addict. Go back and work on your automated trading strategies. Having worked for more than a decade in the business let me tell you I never came across someone who had no respect for risk and over-leveraged and made a later turnaround into a great risk manager. This is not something you learn also but something that is inside of all of us, either you got it or you dont. You dont, I risk to say. If you must take discretionary trades keep a very small portion of your main account to gamble and play around but dont risk your main account on a losing proposition. I think you could do some serious damage (not your own account but others in the marketplace) by improving on your automated trading and concentrating on this. My 2 cents and I am pretty sure you wont listen to me, but you may remember my post later on, because I am pretty sure if you continue to go down this road that you end up with a busted account. Good luck!!!
Agree completely. Neke - how about you add up all your auto gains/losses for the year and all your discretionary gains/losses for the year and put them in your weekly summary? I may be off, but I bet you're up 5k-10k/week auto trading so you must be down 10-15k/week discretionary. You've got an automatic cash machine that makes more than most ETers will ever see and you're pissing it away.
Hello Neke, First time posting here.... have been skimming through your post history this year and was just wondering-- Do you utilize any technical analysis indicators at all prior to your decision to execute a particular trade? It seems that from the majority of posts I skimmed through with your weekly updates, that a "gut feel" approach was utilized more often than not... (I could be wrong however... please correct if I am) I'm wondering in the case of the ugly BIDU trade earlier in the year if you have gone and backtested some common TA pattern indicators to see if your decision to go short would've been validated... or the opposite was the case. There has been a lot of talk throughout this thread about the proper use of risk management---but it seems it is along the lines of "don't average down"... "don't risk such a high % of capital to one trade"... "set tigher stop loss and/or max loss/trade", etc... but a huge part of risk management that is often overlooked is increasing your probabilities of being in the right trade in the first place-- distinguished specifically by TA... and increasing those probabilities even further with multiple confirmation TA techniques... Thoughts? Anyone?
An amateur thinks about how much he can make. A professional thinks about how much he can lose. Might make a good sticky note on your monitor.