Trading 1 contract: Trailing Stop or Profit Target

January 9th, 2020, 01:55 PM

Hello,

I trade the CL with one contract and still developing my strategy for intraday trading. I am not consistently profitable trader yet.

I developed two so far. One is trailing stop to trail a winner and the other is fixed target.

Question:

1. Do you recommend I start with exit positions at fixed targets versus trailing stop with one contract?

Thank you

January 9th, 2020, 02:17 PM

How much will you risk?

For CL, I've also 2 strategies, it always depends at what time and level.

1: 20 tick PT and 10 tick SL, if it moves 5 ticks in my favour, SL jumps to -5 ticks and stays there
2: 30 tick PT and 20 tick SL, it it moves 10 ticks in my favour, SL jumps to -5 ticks and trails by 15 ticks

if it moves fast close to the PT (which can happen with CL), I delete the PT and trail it manually

January 9th, 2020, 03:18 PM

tr8er

How much will you risk?

For CL, I've also 2 strategies, it always depends at what time and level.

1: 20 tick PT and 10 tick SL, if it moves 5 ticks in my favour, SL jumps to -5 ticks and stays there
2: 30 tick PT and 20 tick SL, it it moves 10 ticks in my favour, SL jumps to -5 ticks and trails by 15 ticks

if it moves fast close to the PT (which can happen with CL), I delete the PT and trail it manually

Hello tr8er,

Thanks for the response.

Your response sounds very logical and straightforward, and I can tell you been trading the CL.

I am trading the 3 minute chart and my stops range between 20-30 ticks for each method.

Fixed method:
1. Risk is always greater than reward for each trade. SL range between 15-30 ticks depends price action at the time. Profit target is always is 10 ticks. I have been thinking how to reduce risk. Maybe trade smaller time frame or start using limit orders and wait for retracement instead of buy and sell stop at end of bars.

Trailing method:
2. SL range between 15-30 ticks. +20 SL goes to breakeven. +30 SL goes to +10. Trail by +15 ticks afterwards.

I appreciate the advice and recommendation.

January 9th, 2020, 03:32 PM

Try to switch the R:R CL has nice moves

If you risk 15 to 30 ticks to make 10 ticks you need a lot of winning trades

January 9th, 2020, 03:44 PM

tr8er

Try to switch the R:R CL has nice moves

If you risk 15 to 30 ticks to make 10 ticks you need a lot of winning trades

Thank you tr8er,

I posted my trades so you see what I mean.
What do you mean by R:R?

Do you mean , for example, risk 20 ticks and reward 20 ticks?

Or does it mean whatever my risk is per trade (it varies for me), make my reward equal?

Thank you,

January 9th, 2020, 03:47 PM

tr8er

How much will you risk?

For CL, I've also 2 strategies, it always depends at what time and level.

1: 20 tick PT and 10 tick SL, if it moves 5 ticks in my favour, SL jumps to -5 ticks and stays there
2: 30 tick PT and 20 tick SL, it it moves 10 ticks in my favour, SL jumps to -5 ticks and trails by 15 ticks

if it moves fast close to the PT (which can happen with CL), I delete the PT and trail it manually

Thanks for the response.

How do you manage to keep such tight stops in CL 10-20 ticks?

January 10th, 2020, 03:30 AM

goodoboy

Thank you tr8er,

I posted my trades so you see what I mean.
What do you mean by R:R?

Do you mean , for example, risk 20 ticks and reward 20 ticks?

Or does it mean whatever my risk is per trade (it varies for me), make my reward equal?

Thank you,

Yes R:R is Risk:Reward 1:1 is good if you have a good win-rate, but 1:2 would be great (I know easier said as done

)

January 10th, 2020, 03:35 AM

goodoboy

Thanks for the response.

How do you manage to keep such tight stops in CL 10-20 ticks?

I mostly trade pullbacks in a trend (at least intraday trend), so 10-20 ticks works fine.

CL has nice moves, so it's better to trade less and let it run, best example are your 3 trades (posted above), let trade 1 run and you don't need trade 2 and 3

(but as already said, it is all so easy (after wards)

)

January 10th, 2020, 10:50 AM

tr8er

Yes R:R is Risk:Reward 1:1 is good if you have a good win-rate, but 1:2 would be great (I know easier said as done

)

Good morning tr8er,

Thanks for the reply.

A big mistake I made while journal my trades since March 2019 was NOT tracking the different R:R (1:1 through 1:3) per trade and evaluating the results. So this is a lesson learned on my part. I have been tracking results of my trailing method but not R:R per trade.

Had I track R:R = 1 and measured the win rate, I can know if this is consistently profitable or not with positive expectancy.

Trading 1 contract: Trailing Stop or Profit Target

Discussion in Psychology and Money Management

Trading 1 contract: Trailing Stop or Profit Target