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Hello all,
first of all my apologies if in anyway I shouldn't be posting this and I hope I am not violating any forum rules.
I started trading couple years ago and slowly have been doing ok until past couple days. Likely I should'nt have been trading during holiday season as my analysis has been disillusioning (or I need to go back to school/paper trading). I want to share I am currently (12/29/15) holding ESH16 SHORT @ 2039.50 and ZB/USH16 LONG @156 2/32. My SL somehow never kicked about which I have no clue why, and I am in deep ponder if I should continue to hold these positions (which I can if needed)....or exit and make peace. Any experienced worthwhile input will be absolutely immensely appreciated. Sorry again if I should not have posted here. Posts/PM anything will be great. I am just looking for some informal opinion/input and of course in no way it will be considered "financial advice". I own full responsibility for my actions!!!
Thanks a bunch to this wonderful bunch!
TB
(since its about es emini and zb/us 30 yr t -bonds I am posting under both categories)
Regrading the ES, if i were in this situation i would try and put a stop above the last session high and maybe, with a little luck you might get a little retracement in the globex session that you could trail. Same for the bonds, but in the opposite direction obviously. If you're only a contract or two into this, its not life changing at this stage, might take you a few weeks to get it back though. If you don't cut them then it could get worse.
No need to apologize (except to yourself). And: You are not alone with you experience which is quite common
at a certain point of a "trading career".
If 2 positions - at a time when basically nothing happens in the market - endanger or ruin a history of "doing ok",
chances are that the position size is/was way too big for the account's risk bearing capacity. Besides it is pretty
obvious when SLs don't kick in, esp in these slowly moving holidays markets so that there are ample chances to
kill the positions by hand with little slippage - quite different from times when there are major news.
As @xiaosi suggested it would be wise to use a retrace (if there's one) to exit. But he's also correct when he names
that "with a little luck" because a retrace that one must hope for is nothing but luck. After the exit and a little rest it
is time to work on the reasons for the breakdown.
Thanks Xiaosi for the suggestions. Do very much appreciate. I am out and given the scenario, probably couldn't have done better.
Choke35..."my apologies" were in case I was violating any forum rules. Anyways, thanks for the choke!, even though as I said I own full responsibility for my actions!!! Regardless, Thanks!
You may want to take this as an opportunity to review how stops are set up on your platform. I could be the case that the stop didn't trigger because it's only set to enforce during "RTH" (regular trading hours) instead of "ETH" (extended trading hours). It would also be you have a stop limit instead of stop market, and the limit settings are preventing a trigger from going off.
Finally, this may also be a good time to deepen your market knowledge by understanding how to hedge positions properly with options if you are wrong.
As for the positions itself, it's hard to say, but this is also then a pretty good opportunity to evaluate your risk management metrics. How much of a loss does 1% equal? 5%? 10%? What type of expectancy of profitability on a trade do you need to justify risking 5% on a single trade? Etc.
I personally like to follow the age old rule that if I'm starting to lose sleep at night wondering what the position is doing, then I'm trading with too much size and risk and need to lighten up (or only day trade instead of managing investment or swing positions).
Thanks MacroNinja, all your comments are very helpful. Appreciate it very much. I will be working on clarifying all the questions I have, and to be honest some of these that you mention I do need to understand further. Thanks again for pointing these out to me!