RN, Can you elaborate on this dry run practice you speak of regarding the visualization/sim trading? I remember Jas brought this up to my attention a couple months back and I recall doing these exercises back in 2008. Perhaps I did not practice them long enough to realize any measurable results. Do you simply sit at your desk, close your eyes, and visualize yourself going through the process of your past winning trades? How has visualization helped you... does it increase your confidence? Discipline? Emotional control? Thanks.
No need to fear size when you are playing a game that works like this: -You don't know if a trade is going to win or lose. -You do know over the last 20 trades you have made money. (If you didn't make money on the past 20 trades, I'd fear trading 1 lots - I went back to paper trading because there is no sense in risking $ if you can't make money in 20 trades). Also don't violate the rule of risking more than 1-5% of your account. This gives you more/less room for error.
Mirror image of last week's results. One day mini melt down and the rest of the week was rather tame. Coming into wednesday we had a massive gap up and I knew in the back of my mind we would have limited opportunties if support holds and we don't sell off. NQ gapping up 2.5% and aapl open up something like 9 or 10%, buyers are not going to be that eager to buy after that kind of open. On top of that, I really hate fomc days. Traders sit out for most of the day until fomc gets released which means further choppiness and range bound action. These are market tendencies that I know to anticipate ahead of time, but that day I felt this need to "make money" because prior day I had lost some. It sounds very immature on my part, but that is the sad truth about wednesday. Goes to show that I still have a ton of room for improvement. Today is just more continuation of the up trend. Wait for the sell off and enter long when sellers show signs of losing their grip. Then add along the way. That was basic premise for today. US economic reports, unless they are really really bad, don't mean shit anymore. This will probably be the theme for next week as well unless something catastrophic happens. Will post results as soon as I close this last contract long.
Question: what does your intraday P&L look like on your winning days? Does it ever dip to -$500 or even -$1000 before you end up closing out at +$300 to +$500?
My max daily drawdown from mon-fri is as follows: -39, -303, -1232, -251, -173 If I can avoid a mini melt down next week I might just make some money lol.
Then the solution is clear: you just have to commit to pulling the plug at -$350 max, maybe -$400. There is a point where the P&L shows that we're out of sync. I was afraid that the swings were larger intraday, but they're not. You would have been up money on the week if you had stopped on Wed at negative $350. The question now is can you convince yourself to draw a stop out on the day or will you continue to believe that you can make it back after that level is reached. We trade our beliefs.
Yes I need a max daily draw where I shut it off when hit. That will be my focus next week. It will likely be 3 full losses and I'm out for the day. Thanks.