hi, i am trading intraday ES going for 1 to 2pt, sometimes >2 with a stop 0.5 -0.75pt, mostly RR 1:2; my winrate is still too low for this kind of style i.e. around 35% so i am slightly negative; any suggestions as to how i could raise my winrate ? regs, paulus
your stop is too tight, that's why your win rate is so low,my stop is about 2 to 3 pts,and my profit is 3 to 4 pts,my win rate is 70 % plus.
It could also be that he is not letting his winners run enough. Paulus, take a look at your exits too. After each day make a note of what the best exit strategy would have been, for each trade. After 30 days you'll have a good idea on what the best exit strategy for your method is. Examples: "when it touched the xxx MA" "when it crossed the trendline drawn by xxxx" " (for a long) when the low exceeded the previous bar low on the xxxx chart"
There are three ways to increase your win rate: 1. Take quicker profits, 2. Use wider stops and 3. Have better entries. Your entry technique controls the other two to a large degree. Some entries are not likely to generate large profits, while others require very large stops. The key statistic of course is not win rate but profits. Often the two can vary inversely. You can achieve a high win rate at the expense of profits by taking very small profits, for example. In general however, I think daytrading demands a high win percentage. The reason is you don't have time to let your profits run. You will never get the huge winners a position trader can get. So you cannot afford too bad a win rate.
i think that indeed i have a problem with my entries i am also well aware of average win being more important than winrate but for my style 1-2pt's or > 2pt's profit with a 0.5 0.75pt stop, my winrate is definitely too low; so how to improve my entries .. ?
Can you post a few charts of your most recent trades via the same charts your using to make your trade decisions? (Charts of those problem trades your talking about) Doing such with help traders to better respond to your questions and provide more precise advice... which is what you want. NihabaAshi
i am sorry i cannot because i am using QT , so no back-up appreciate the effort; but to give you an idea : yesterday we had a couple of false breaks in the ES 980 sup zone; jumped in and got quickly stopped out; one of my problems is : where do i catch the BREAK ? safest is to wait for confimation but this does not always happen and profit potential is lower ? another problem : i still do not know how to use volume in conjunction with price (don't have any indicators except for ATR); this VOLUME problem seems like an important part lacking in my knowledge i.e. what to look for inside market, market depth; volume in charts etc (see recent thread that i've started) i really appreciate your effort ! paulus