I started a new thread in the trading forum to continue the discussion...This seems the wrong forum to type about trading strategies. :-\
Thanks Gotcha, http://prntscr.com/dcj76b I prefer all in on entering a trade. The link is view of what you asked for. 0 means price went the other way. Its not as detailed as it should be. The most heat, I see when entering a trade is around 10-14 ticks. I have been testing this for my entries to see whats the optimal stop loss for me entries. I personally prefer the all in and all out or all in and trail all contracts til stopped out. But I don't believe I have enough testing data to see if trailing out of contracts provide better results.
In my opinion, this is a preference you should revisit and perhaps rethink, in the light of the (factual) information in my post above, as you may be handicapping yourself, to some extent - and possibly even to a large extent. You might also be interested to see how the authors of some beginners' trading textbooks explain this issue ... and - if wanting to do that - might fairly easily find downloads available online of PDF copies of Van K. Tharp's Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, and Michael Harris's Profitability & Systematic Trading. I think (hope?) these authors' perspectives on the subject, and their undoubted ability (especially in Tharp's case) to explain it more clearly than I can, might help you. It might, possibly, even leave you asking yourself "What the hell was I thinking, before?!". Personally, if wanting to compare outcomes, I'd advise you strongly against just comparing "all in, all out" with "all in, scale out", in case that turns out to be (as we say over here) comparing a Skoda with a Lada and walking past the Mercedes to do so.
Thank you Xela for your advice and comments. I will review you book because my brain is wired (or maybe my experiences) to trade systematically and in probabilities. for instances, i am a fan of risk vs reward trading, this i why I favor all in all out. But I have also been testing and documenting all in and all out trailing to catch those runners. I have never scale in before but interested in the books you recommended.
Sure. I think it's really a matter of semantics. I think if we could peek over the shoulders of most professionals, they regard, view and trade risk in a similar way. And that's really all that matters, imho. A better question might be - after a trade has been entered and your stop is at breakeven, what do you do? Wait until the first trade closes, then enter another? Or enter another trade immediately?
I'm a bit confused by the way you are doing your stats, but that's ok cause only you need to understand it. But here is what I do see. You say if its zero, it means it went the other way, hence not in your intended direction, and hence this would be a losing trade hitting some sort of stop, correct? I count 10 zero's, so 10 losing trades, and 6 trades with numbers, so does this mean 6 winning trades? This means a win rate of 37.5%, which is low, but of course it all depends on the R:R ratio. (I say low from the point of view that if trading 3 contracts, the stopout is on all 3, but if you scale out, the big win might only be on 1 left) Now if those numbers mean this is the number of ticks that price went against you before finally going in your favor, it looks like it always went at least 10 ticks against you. If this is correct, then why on earth would you enter all 3 contracts at one price? Based on this example, it seems like either most trades don't work, since 63% fail, or, the other 37% go against you at least 10 ticks before being winner. In this scenario, if you only entered 1st contract at whatever price, and then entered another at -5 ticks, and another at -10 ticks, you would already be much further ahead than simply entering all at once, and it wouldn't even matter if the trade was a winner or a loser, you would be saving money by scaling in. Of those trades that don't work, the one's with a zero, I wonder how much they sometimes go into your favor before ultimately failing. Surely they don't fail on the first tick. You did say though that the data is not all that detailed so that's ok. But based on what I see, your win rate is not that great, which is fine, but since you're losing 63% of your trades, you better be at least making 3 times more profit than whatever your stop ultimately ends up being, and this should be on all contracts, not just 1, since you're already having many stopouts. I realize you're trying to scale out for profits, so not using a fixed profit target, but roughly how many ticks are you shooting for, and what kinds of stops are you taking on these losing trades?
Gotcha, Thanks for the updates. I need to update my spreadsheet. Its a bit sloppy in that column. Sorry for confusion. I would like to setup a backtesting system for now. So this is my focus.
Thanks achilles, This is a good question. I enter on retraces, so I get stop out at breakeven, i will not reenter. I have been keeping data on stop market orders, and will test enter on retraces if stopped out on the stop market order.
Sure. But also think the other way too. If the position is in profit and the stop loss has been moved to break even, what is the next best course of action ? Enter no more trades, Sit on hands and let position play out? Or find more trades to enter AND ALSO sit on existing position and let play out ?
Thanks achiles28 I would like to sit on position and let it play out. I personally do not want to add positions. I want to enter all in and all out, or all out trail. This fits my personality and my time management because I also take trades while trying to work a 9 to 5 pm. So to take a trade and let it run fits my personality and environment. My only problem is I do not know what distance X to trail when in problem or how to test the strategy.