That's I'm sure one of the biggest problems I have had at least recently. And I have noticed some 'pro' traders on here place their stops 1 tick above or below their entry bar... This would have definitely saved me a lot of money recently. Another issue is with my edge, which tends to be more long term.. obviously not for small accounts. I just got finished reading over various posts from NoDoji. She purportedly possesses a trading method that has resulted in her not ever having a losing day. Of course most traders can only dream of this.... However, after doing hours of testing similar to the few examples she's provided, I can see that no matter the time frame, no matter the asset, there is a method that involves simple lines and a moving average if you'd like that can very possibly yield this result. I think what most people struggle with is the subjectivity of the lines (1a). However, in the tests I've done for the last several hours, I don't see there being much of a difference in the way that you draw the lines. You must realize the purpose of the lines: they are simply a guide that help you enter low risk trades with high probability of making a good bet. I am doing some really hardcore subjective testing on methods that she has explained pretty thoroughly. I'm reading Al Brooks' book in addition. I want to make a couple notes which I found funny about NoD. She uses a 5 and 1 min charts, however, the book that she so seemingly learned everything from states several times not to use a 1 min chart for several reasons. First, a 5 min bar chart contains all information a 1 min bar chart does if you know how to read it. Second, it's hard to react in such a small time frame. Being such an anal-yst is difficult, because I have found contradictions in the book and the statements, but it's not important. The important thing is becoming a profitable trader...
Perhaps this is the reason NOD is using a 1min to narrow and zero in further entry/exit prices, thus your observation above...
I really got a good laugh out of the trader that places his stop 1 tick below his entry. Fucking hilarious. You will lose all day until you don't if you do this. Get a real system, then think about whether you are just gambling or losing in this market. I don't believe 95% of traders lose, because the latest survey and analysis showed over 69% of trades are profitable, meaning the experienced stay and skew stats this way so much so that the obvious fact is probably less than 95% of traders lose. This number has been perpetuated by ignorant people, because if that were really the case there'd be a lot less traders. There's no shortage of opinions, but the fxcm statistic where roughly 70% of trades made making winning trades smacks in the face of ignorantly assuming 95% of traders lose. Those without a system will fail, and those that get lucky are just that. Even if you don't think their methodologies work, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and I personally have found 3 ways to do sorice Physics Trend Following, Pairs Trading, and Statistical Arbitrage. Most people know within 10 trades if they are going to make money, and I don't count those as failures for the ones who stop there. Masterm doesn't have a system, or he would have talked about it by now.
Winning systems will have apd's around 0.3, win/loss ratios of 1.-1.3, profit factors of 1.3 if daytrading, 2 for swing/other, and calmars around 2.
Continued testing... Looking for 1 price pattern. My God... I am seeing something that seems too good to be true.... Am I hallucinating? I'm being careful not to cherry pick trades or draw lines that I couldn't see as price develops. I will post stats and charts tomorrow. Going to go through as much data I have for the most liquid markets and see what I get.
I have not read the thread so I don't know what exactly are your doing, but in general you want your strategy to have positive expectation without stop-losses or take-profits. In fact, these should be relatively rare, otherwise you will end up paying a lot of transaction costs and not really generating much returns. Could you computerize your strategy and back-test it? Or is it purely visual?
Average profit to drawdown. In Multicharts/Tradestation, the sum of the profits divided by the absolute value of the sum of the drawdowns.
I was hallucinating, even though there are seemingly repeatable patterns, they are very subjective... Without something concrete I don't think it will work in a foward test. Still doing tests.. @ $16k (-33%)