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System that won't wipe you out while waiting out market
One important key is to have a system that won't wipe you out while you wait for market to come into line with your strategy. My BOT can go for months and months just breaking even and then get on these amazing runs. A real key is during times when market is flat or not cooperating because of chop my system will virtually take no trades. If it is taking some trades during those times often I go back and forth but come out somewhere around even. Key is minimal losses while I wait for the runs to come. They will come but if a system has stacked up huge losses will never profit.
Point being thinking about Money Management and Psychology can you deal with months of going no where. One of most difficult aspects of trading is patience and fighting wanting to make something happen. Staying close to even is boring but a very good thing. I have found patience usually pays off.
"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
So I am wondering since you trade CL and CL usually has decent size swings every day, if your system is not taking many trades sometimes months at a time, then you must be targeting very large moves? Is this correct?
Otherwise it would seem odd a BOT would not trade more frequently with something like CL. I'm just thinking out loud here as I've read most everything you've written on the forum and I've noticed you don't post charts and if I remember right, you don't use charts nor have you really talked much about how you trade other than to mention that auto trading is what saved you from ruin.
I think others as well as myself would like to hear more about how you actually trade, not necessarily all the details but the general method and ideas....
Even though I am pretty well satisfied with what I trade and why, I am still interested in what others more successful than I can bring to my knowledge base.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
I agree with Panda Warrior always interested in other 'successful' traders ideas thoughts and systems to improve or adjust what i am doing. A mentor once told me that a quality machine needs to be 'tuned' from time to time to keep it running perfectly. The market is constantly changing so therefore whilst radical change is not the key we do have to stay on the pulse. v Would luv to hear more?
Panda my targets are between 40 and 50 ticks which as you know on CL is not really large move but not small either. My average time from entry to exit is only 10 minutes. I only trade intraday. I trade trend only although I do have some counter trend setups that I am not using right now because I do not have them coded but am working on it. Although I may not use counter trend on CL because it trends so well.
I fairly recently went to trading short only on CL. My long setup was profitable but short only I get much less draw down. I am sensitive to draw down because my system will scale rather aggressively using fixed ratio. So it was worth it to remove longs at least on CL. 80 to 90% of my profits come from scaling.
My system emphasizes quality trades over quantity. In other words I would rather take less trades but the right setup and scale that right setup.
"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
Panda also it is not my 50 tick targets that cut down on the number of trades. Since it is CL tends to hit target very fast. It is how I filter my setups that cuts down on number of trades. I can change parameters to get my system to take more but more is not always better as a parameter change can skew my whole system.
I have found to a degree less is more at least with this particular strategy. High quality, highly probable with decent size targets and low draw downs coupled with a good system to scale.
I designed this whole system around being able to scale in an aggressive way. It is important that I limit number of trades to be able to do so. If my system took to many trades being aggressive with size could become a problem as draw downs could become more acute. I really prefer a controlled environment to trade in as it keeps me out of trouble.
"The day I became a winning trader was the day it became boring. Daily losses no longer bother me and daily wins no longer excited me. Took years of pain and busting a few accounts before finally got my mind right. I survived the darkness within and now just chillax and let my black box do the work."
