Iagine You had the perfect plan. After executing some trades You have success. But then You suddenly doubt it will work any longer. So what Do You do ? ttrader
Learn to accept the risk of the losses (that occur in any trading plan) and trade either with that plan or a different plan or go find a regular job is what I'd have to do. If you doubt your plan, papertrade against it for awhile. If it doesn't kick your a$$, then look to either tune it or scrap it.
ttrader, There's no such thing as a perfect plan. However...there is a thing called executing your plan to perfection. Also...when you say...some trades... that implies a trader hasn't used it too long... maybe no more than a few days. Then you say...suddenly doubt... implies you have not used your plan long enough to develop confidence in it to remove most doubts. What should you do? Nothing. Trade your plan for a few months or longer...execute it as best as possible...take good notes...trading journal... then review everything at a specific designated period of time in the future... for example...first weekend in December 2003. Something else to think about...because you already have doubts in a plan you haven't used long enough eventhough your having success with it... it will be natural to become undiscipline and not follow your plan as intended when you start getting losses. When/if such happens...stop trading with real money for awhile and use your trading plan on a realtime simulator until you regain discipline and/or confidence in your plan. How long should you use that realtime simulator? Until you regain discipline and/or confidence in your plan. NihabaAshi
When you stumble upon a new strategy that works the first thing you will do is doubt that it's for real. Just trade it, keep plugging away. I've been using the same strategy for over a year and I still feel like it will stop working any day...the doubt never ends.
I think it's Elder who talks about "business risk" vs "loss"... If you have a plan that is able to produce a positive expectancy, you should have no problem following it, knowing that small losses (ie - "business risk") are part of the plan.
reduce the position size until it doesn't hurt for a trade to go bad. if you have to reduce the size to zero to get that feeling, the plan is risking too much for your personal trading psychology. and then trade the plan.
Why can't You have doubts about a perfect plan ? If You think over it doubts are ESSENTIAL (!) if You really want to believe in a 'perfect' plan ! You cannot PROE the 'perfectness' of a plan, so the only thing yu can do is to BELIVE it is ! But ratio is always intertwuining so you doubt (at least soeties), .... ttrader