The hard road to consistency

"I...put more focus on money management and ways to reduce disciplinary mistakes."

And THAT is why you are successful. Great job.

 

Thanks riffraff!

 

sell 187K 2768 stop 72 target end of new york session

 

stop moved to 71

 

stop moved to 68

 

stop hit

 

bought some more at 2771 which for me was Sunday night. Hard to buy on those moves up, very counter intuitive, and like a lot of them, made me look smart for a few brief moments.

but that is part of the plan

and it's the same for me, stick to the plan

that's the hard road to consistency

 

my first year as a bracket trader was a losing one. On Dec 31 I figured it out, and almost to the penny I broke even, and almost to the penny my losses were all due to commissions and spreads.

And keep in mind, I had been a successful full time trader for thirteen years until I went broke on just one trade.

So this time around I was very cautious and conservative, just like you.

So the next year, the thing that turned me profitable was just simply eliminating the target. I figured, as long as I am not stopped out it's all cool. All the profits made that year were just from a few lucky trades that went farther than anybody in their right mind could have guessed would happen.

That's why I say that bracket trading is a tough row to hoe.

My strategy for bailing is not really something that would help you at this point.

Dec 31 is coming up here pretty soon. With your discipline, I am quite confident you will still be alive. At that point, you might want to run the numbers for 2012, and see if those targets are really as friendly as they pretend to be.

and believe me, I have experimented around with every R:R imaginable, at one time I was a pretty accomplished scalper, and the risk to reward was supoosedly 10 to 1 if not 14 to 1. And sometimes those stops were not honored. That's how I became a position trader. But that's another story.

 

good call, I wonder if 2800 resistance will hold....

 

Thanks for the comment. What was your % of profitable trades when you were trading bracket strategy ? I bet it was very low

I am always looking for potential improvements but removing the target is like trading a completely different method.
Currently I don't want to change my strategy substantially. I will probably change my mind when I start losing money

However I introduced a new setup with potentially unlimited reward and a very small risk. It doesn't happen very often though.