Trading With No Stops And No Targets

Turveyd · Oct 18, 2017

Truth_ said:
The OP posted about FUTURES and FOREX not options. My response in the sentence that you took out of context was with respect to SPOT FOREX. My very next sentence was “Your broker will forcibly close all your positions to protect themselves.” Perhaps that could be an indication that I was not discussing options (that was sarcasm).

If you go to Vegas and put a bet on 22 Black your risk is limited to that wager, not your entire bankroll. I did not explain that situation, or options, since the OP never raised them.

With SPOT FOREX, which is typically highly leveraged in North American retail (30:1 region) and far higher in other regions, your entire account is at risk on every trade. Some form of mitigation against that risk is the only sane way to trade.

Thank-you for pointing out the need to expand my standard disclaimer on every post. I must clarify what instruments the post relates to, the no hurt feelings, and of course the go fuck yourself if you are such an idiot that you cannot understand context and you need to parse every word in an attempt to sound clever that only makes you look like a damn fool. Bit of a run on sentence that last one.

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DISCLAIMER

This post only relates to the following instruments: LEVERAGED SPOT FOREX

I apologize in advance if this post has hurt your feelings. It is simply a brief review of my thoughts on the topic; based on what I actually do, not discuss in the abstract on the interwebs. I do not advocate it for anyone else, it is simply presented as an alternative view to having some jack-off stealing your money. You should in all probability do something else and completely ignore everything I have said. All other views are considered superior and no doubt the possessors of those alternate views have larger genitalia and should be proud of their natural endowments.

For those with an absolutely fixed mindset that I am wrong. Congratulations, well done, you win. I try to keep a flexible thought process and if you have data and references to support your position I will look them over at some point. Please provide an exact reference rather telling me to do a search. Do not expect a reply or a rebuttal, since you are so clearly correct, you have no need to hear from me further. But just in case I will utter those words rarely seen on the internet,”Yes, you are right, your brilliant comment has caused me to change my mind.” After all, that is what you are really seeking, so there it is, I truly hope it has brought you joy and contentment.

In case there are concerns that I am in a conflict of interest; I do not mentor, I do not want to mentor, I am not remotely qualified to mentor, I sell nothing regarding trading, I do not recommend any specific trade. In real life I am far too abrasive and short tempered to be a mentor. I have PTSD and there is a significant chance I would harm you.

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But that's completely incorrect if your trading in Marbles against Coconuts!

Nice, disclaimer to explain everything to everyone gets annoying!!

Overnight · Oct 18, 2017

Turveyd said:
But that's completely incorrect if your trading in Marbles against Coconuts!

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Hey, where'd you get the coconut?

murray t turtle · Oct 18, 2017

thedaytrader said:
It's really a good question ......
But it really depends on your trading style and strategy because if you have the luck to know how to test your strategies you will see that often in a trend follower strategy stop loss worsen your performance.
And also have some targets (is better to have trailing profits for example).
Personally I always put a daily stop loss in my discretionary trading, especially if I'm scalping ....
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%%
Good points , not that luck has anything to do with trends.
Most would consider out@ end of a day[3;00 central-chicago time ]a stop, even though some do after hours trade.LOL
I like trailing stops; but on trend trade i almost never day trade.[Delayed edit, my anti luck comment was not a prediction]

wmitzlaff · Aug 29, 2018

Meanwhile, here are the trading results in my $10K paper account since this initial post back in October 2017. I will continue this in my paper account until I am trading this in my live mini account which will be in about a year from now.

I currently trade this exact strategy in a live micro account. I will post an annual trade report when I finish the first year, about six months from now.

11,791 pips settled.

Look at my $100K mt5 (Standard leverage) sim account mobile screenshot

I am up $61K on the year. Look at the consistent closing...$1.1K, $1.3K, 1.5 and on and on...

Exact same strategy

smallfil · Aug 29, 2018

wmitzlaff said:
Have you ever traded with no stop and no target? Open a position and wait for the market to roll over and pay you. Sounds crazy right? Well, this is what I did in my simulation account for over a year and a half. My annual gains were roughly 360%. I used the Thinkorswim platform with 50k in the futures account and 10k in the forex account. I would open a position based on any simple strategy and sometimes I just randomly opened a long or short just to test the method. If the market went against my position I would buy or sell more accordingly (Scale in). I traded roughly 10 futures products including all the popular markets except for the /ES (never a fan). I traded roughly 20 forex pairs whilst usually holding 6-10 open positions every night. I do the same with futures. I simply hold onto these positions until they are in the positive reading of $120 or better.
I typically close positions over $120. I am not greedy at all. When you have multiple positions open every day and night you will most likely close 2-5 positions in the green DAILY. Not once did I experience a leverage problem in either my 10K (Forex) account or my 50K (Futures) account. The most lots I ever opened for one currency was 15. This means that the market went against my position 1,500 pips and I still made money on that pair. It took three weeks to roll over but what do I care. I am steady closing other positions in the green...daily.
Point being, 10K is enough to trade in this fashion in forex. The futures can be broken down to trade in a 10K fashion as well, you just can't open as many positions because of the larger margin size for futures. I recommend 30-50k for futures multiple market trading. To give you an idea about my monthly profits in futures...I closed $3500 in crude oil (/CL) alone, September 2017 results.
I average 3k a month in forex, trading in this fashion. Another awesome fact about trading like this is that you do not have to sit in front of the screen. You can keep your day job while saving for your 10K account (if you don't already have one). Trading in the simulator, watching profits roll in daily will keep you motivated as well. Try to trade all year and see nothing but red, you will not last, you will drown in that red river of losses.
Going through the process of closing positive trades daily, watching your account swell like never before, no stop outs...ever...could very well change your mind and attitude towards the markets. Regardless if it is paper money. I challenge someone to try it, especially if you are struggling to pull "Daily" profits. You literally have nothing to loose when using paper money and will most likely find it to be good fun and possibly life changing. Like it was for me.
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It is called "buy and hold". I call it "buy and hope." If you have 50 years of life left in you, go right ahead and do it! Like winning millions in a casino and still not content, continues to let it ride on red or black as the case maybe, on roulette. Had CSCO in 1999/2000 (do not remember the exact date. I had 200 shares @$100. That is $20,000.00, lost a good chunk of that! I sold out eventually at around $50.00. Now, 18 years later on 08/29/18, CSCO is at $47.45. That is 18 years later and you would have lost 53% of your monies and you are still waiting just to breakeven? How wonderful is that?

smallfil · Aug 29, 2018

wmitzlaff said:
Meanwhile, here are the trading results in my $10K paper account since this initial post back in October 2017. I will continue this in my paper account until I am trading this in my live mini account which will be in about a year from now.

I currently trade this exact strategy in a live micro account. I will post an annual trade report when I finish the first year, about six months from now.

11,791 pips settled.

View attachment 190523

Look at my $100K mt5 (Standard leverage) sim account mobile screenshot

I am up $61K on the year. Look at the consistent closing...$1.1K, $1.3K, 1.5 and on and on...

Exact same strategy

View attachment 190524
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Paper trading and "real life" trading are not the same thing. When your monies are actually, at risk, your decisions will change. Trust me. I have been trading long enough. Greed and Fear will come over you! You will get in at the absolute worst time and get out at the absolute worst time because your emotions will now take over!

murray t turtle · Aug 29, 2018

smallfil said:
It is called "buy and hold". I call it "buy and hope." If you have 50 years of life left in you, go right ahead and do it! Had CSCO in 1999/2000 (do not remember the exact date. I had 200 shares @$100. That is $20,000.00, lost a good chunk of that! I sold out eventually at around $50.00. Now, 18 years later on 08/29/18, CSCO is at $47.45. That is 18 years later and you would have lost 53% of your monies and you are still waiting just to breakeven? How wonderful is that?
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%% BUY + HOLD with no stops, works real well;
with stuff like QQQ. But for single stocks, need something more, in case one picks Bear Stearns in a bear market + it never gets as hi as CSCO. And sim trading with leverage is not much help @ all; but paper trading could help with patterns/levels. My comments are limited to stock market, cash or some leverage......................................................................................

1a2b3cppp · Aug 29, 2018

Truth_ said:
No matter how much lipstick you put on that pig, I’m still not having coitus with her!

As many have already said, 1 post, starts a thread, and it is complete bollocks.

I was going to just pass, but I thought there are probably some new traders that are just lurking, no account, but the title of this thread may lure them in since they are getting stopped out for a loss on a regular basis. It is for you that I take time from my life to write this; not the OP. There is so much crap in post 1 it will take some time and sections to dig through and it will still not cover everything, such is the extent of the complete @#!$ he posted.

STOP LOSSES
Every single trade has a stop loss. If you didn’t explicitly set one, then it is the value of your entire account. Your broker will forcibly close all your positions to protect themselves. You have a de facto stop loss on each and every trade.

For myself I place a stop loss on every trade that is to protect my account against a black swan. For example, Little Rocket Man lands one in downtown Tokyo and I'm short JPY. These are large stops and I have yet to have one get hit. By luck, and luck alone, I have not been on the wrong side of events such as the SNB pulling the peg on the CHF. I do watch the news calendar carefully and daily. Not to predict an event, but to note the time of an announcement, and perhaps stay on the sidelines. I have a separate stop loss for the trade.

While some people call this a mental stop loss, that implies a fixed priced that you have not committed too, that is not exactly what I do. My stop loss on the trade is not fixed. It varies with the market. When the thesis, or concept of my trade idea has been proven wrong by the movement of the price, I exit the trade. No emotion, exit the trade and re-evaluate the situation. Did I miss some piece of data, did I miscalculate the probability? More frequently, I had all the data, I did everything correct, but the market moved in a different manner. That is to be expected, nothing to cause an emotional reaction. Close out and move on.

Your trading must be in a manner that no single loss, or more realistically, no series of 20+ net losses mixed with some wins, destroys your account.

RISK OF RUIN
This is a vast topic unto itself. The very short version is that there is a mathematical formula that accurately predicts whether or not you will lose your entire account before making your first live trade. Learn about this, understand every detail of it, get good data, get a large sample size of data, then perform the calculation. There are many other posts on this topic and webpages dedicated to it.

"Every battle is won or lost before it begins."
Sun Tzu

MARTINGALE
The original and very old idea, is that by doubling a wager after every loss, a person playing Roulette would eventually win. It is a terribly flawed idea, it does not work, a complete loss of your account is the eventual outcome. Some historical evidence shows the idea being used in the 1750’s in various casinos.

A man named Henry Martingale owned a casino in London in the late 1700’s and he encouraged all his patrons to use this concept. If the casino owner is encouraging a particular method of play, it is most likely to his advantage and not the punters. The same applies today if your forex broker is running a B book. Every trade you lose, your broker wins, so they give you lots of advice on indicators and reading the tea leaves of the squiggly lines. All designed with an edge for the casino (your fx broker) to win more from you.

The OP is using a form of Martingale. He adds to his losers without any limits. He wrote about placing 15 orders to cover 1,500 pips. First, 15 orders to cover losers is not a strategy, that is pure “Hold and Hope”. The moment you find yourself in a situation of “Hold and Hope” you are gambling, not trading, you will lose in the long run.

"Losers average losers"
Paul Tudor Jones

The OP claims to hold positions indefinitely until the market turns. Equity indices have a long term upward bias so that can work in that limited scope (assuming you have not shorted the S&P at the bottom of a crash, because then you are truly bent over and taking one for the team). In terms of forex, it is an entirely different situation. The market can swing for months or years will beyond 1,500 pips. Hold a position for 5 years while paying daily interest to your broker, you will be broken, you will lose. What happens when the move is 5,000 pips, planning on placing 50 losings trades and then hoping the world economies change in your direction?

While not explicitly saying it, 15 trades for 1,500 pips leads me to believe that the OP is trading a grid strategy at 100 pip intervals. The concept is mean reversion. That by constantly buying the market will somehow average out over time. Frequently it does, so this strategy often pays out a profit and lures you into trusting it. The problem is sometimes there is a news event, a change in policy on interest by a central bank, and nothing is going back to the mean, it is off on a massive trend, and your account will be closed out by your broker for a complete loss of everything. Or of course you can add more money to your account and hold for 5 years losing money every day in interest payments.

There needs to be an understanding of the difference between adding to a position on a pull back (I do this regularly) and adding and praying by adding to a reversal, over and over. Go and learn about pull backs versus reversals. It is a critical component of long term fx trading.

There are no shortcuts to serious profitable trading. There are thousands of traders over decades that have tried all these garbage systems. I certainly went through them in my learning phases (but I just looked at past data on charts, spent a weekend playing with the idea, saw that they will ultimately fail, no money traded, not even a demo account, just saw the obvious for myself). If any one of the many stupid ideas worked, then by now everyone would trade in that manner, and we would all be full of ourselves with how smart we are.

The OP says that he trades 20 forex pairs. BOLLOCKS. I consistently make money in spot FX, I trade 2 pairs (they are not correlated, one is a major, the other is a minor cross). At 20 pairs he is either trading extremely correlated pairs so that his risk profile is distorted and he is not aware of it, or he is trading exotics which is a whole other story of excess risk and issues, or perhaps he is just a liar.

He states that he closes positions with $120 profit. So despite that title saying that he trades without a target, he in fact trades with a target. Consider his theory of placing 15 trades for a win of $120. If you do not see the folly in this you need to learn more. How much more profitable it is to cut the loss early, recognize the reversal, trade in that new trend direction and make $12,000 (if he can make up numbers I might as well too).

I could go on and on about the false and misleading information the OP has posted; but I have things to do, like walk the dogs along the lake. I invite the lurker, the new trader, register an account, and ask a question, I for one will try to answer in a respectful manner to assist your learning. If you see responses that are offensive, or lacking good information, then just put that person on ignore.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and common sense.”
Buddha

The catch to that is common sense is not so common, and reason needs to be developed.

edits: spelling, grammar, removal of vulgar
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Will it count as a pullback if it goes against you before that makes a profit?

So if you add, price goes against you, and you add more, does that look like a pullback?

ironchef · Aug 29, 2018

wmitzlaff said:
Meanwhile, here are the trading results in my $10K paper account since this initial post back in October 2017. I will continue this in my paper account until I am trading this in my live mini account which will be in about a year from now.

I currently trade this exact strategy in a live micro account. I will post an annual trade report when I finish the first year, about six months from now.

11,791 pips settled.

View attachment 190523

Look at my $100K mt5 (Standard leverage) sim account mobile screenshot

I am up $61K on the year. Look at the consistent closing...$1.1K, $1.3K, 1.5 and on and on...

Exact same strategy

View attachment 190524
More...

Good job!

ironchef · Aug 29, 2018

murray t turtle said:
%% BUY + HOLD with no stops, works real well;
with stuff like QQQ. But for single stocks, need something more, in case one picks Bear Stearns in a bear market + it never gets as hi as CSCO. And sim trading with leverage is not much help @ all; but paper trading could help with patterns/levels. My comments are limited to stock market, cash or some leverage......................................................................................
More...

Good advice.