Max drawdown was $-1,170 when account value was approximately $20,500. Max drawdown approximately 5.7%. Return approximately 54% over 6 months.
That's excellent of course. What of the next 6 months when the market changes gears? Can you keep doing it? What about when you're running $500k instead of 30k? For me I'm happy to do 20-30% annual with 10-20% Max drawdown but with reasonable consistency. The larger account you get the less you worry about doing 100% returns and the more you worry about risks you take. There are a lot of things I don't do that would make good money because it's not all weather and not worth the risk. We've been in a bull market since 2009 and when it turns you don't want to lose it all because it only worked in a bull and risks were too high. In my experience anything that can make 100% in a year can lose 100% in a quarter. So I shoot for smaller ball. That way if things go wrong I'm still in the game.
You do notice that the real professional traders and the really profitable traders on ET do not even bother to answer your post. Give me one good reason to tell people in an anonymous forum how profitable you are?
Exactly. Many traders lies his result on purpose. For example, tell us 1) your seed cash amount 2) length of trading with SINGLE trading logic 3) annual compounded return rate. If you tell me, such as "I spent 5 years with MY OWN trading logic, with paying 10% brokerage annually. Before-cost my logic exhibit annual 30%. Therefore my logic showed annual 20% compounded." For the next 50 years, if your logic keep the same record of return, then your initial cash of 100K is expected to become 100*1.2^50 = 910043.8K=910M.
This might be the BEST words for record. Tell us that, over the last 1 or 5 years after paying tax+commission, my record showed average annual 20%, consistently between 15% and 25%. Another way to show return is Buffet's method, as shown at http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2015ltr.pdf for the last 50 years. Here, it is clear way to show his record if his record is true.
not sure of what the point of being in the forums is for then? Just to gain from others but not share?
Can I keep doing it? I guess that is yet to be seen. Running 500k? I'm using SPX options so I think yes its able to scale (possibly not at 8 figures but I am not sure what the possible limitations would be, but confident I could run 500k). I am in the process of adding to the account over next few months and when I do I plan on scaling back contract size by 25%. It may only work in bull markets, but it shows good back test results from mid 2008 to 2016. As far as losing 100% in a quarter, trust me I have been there many many times, six account blow ups to be exact over my first 15 years. Over the last 8-9 years I have learned to properly manage risk.
Two reasons. One to prove it can be done to help motivate others that are struggling. Second to bring out the other profitable traders and separate the real from the fake (I am very frustrated with the fake!)by asking them to post results. You mention "really profitable traders on ET", who are they? and how do you know they are profitable? Maybe I should know but I am pretty new to the forum.