In your backtesting and forward testing, did you keep stats on when you had the best profitable trading as far as where price was in past ten years? Was it in the middle of the range? Past 12 months for me been very good as many markets are in zones of past ten years for counter-trend trades. Am just waiting for the bottoms to fall out.
Relax. This drawdown is fully expected according to backtest. I know what risk I'm trading with, I still place real money on the system. Now go back to promoting price action lab somewhere...
Drawdown fully expected. Funny enough, 2011 was only 17% down. I should have started this journal 5 years ago.
Your main weakness, putanski, is that you're chasing price. It's not a trend following system just because it's buying when price is going up, and selling if it's going down; it's a trend following system if it's buying when price <b>starts</b> to go up and selling when price <b>starts</b> to go down. It's a common mistake to misclassify a breakout system for a trend follower when your system doesn't qualify because you're waiting for confirmations and chasing price without anticipating changes in real time as they happen, and not after they occur.