This is a problem I've struggled with for years and I can't figure out how to fix it.
I'm based in Australia, for half the year, London opens at 7pm, US equities at 1:30am.
The other half of the year, London opens at 5pm, US equities opens at 11:30pm.
I generally trade London session for the first 3-4 hours and just MCL.
I would describe my trading style as intraday swings. I tend to go for 2R targets at a minimum, roughly 30-40 ticks. I have a daily loss limit of 3R (I've been playing around with -2R too).
The problem I have is that I can hit my daily loss limit within an hour, but on days I have winners, I usually don't have more than 1 winner. My average winner's hold time during Globex is 39mins and the average losers is just over 10mins. So I hold winners roughly 4 times longer than losers. This sounds great, except I'm not holding trend winners, they're just regular mean reversion type trades. I plan scenarios out and these can take hours to eventuate.
When I look at my stats for RTH, I hold winners roughly twice as long as my losers at 10mins vs 5mins. The average RTH session gives me significantly more opportunities to take multiple winners.
This means that the average Globex winning day, doesn't make up for a daily loss limit day.
I've been trying to figure out how to fix this problem. The easiest fix seems to be just trade RTH, however this comes at a significant cost to sleep and health as I still work a 9-5.
Another option would be to add on another market to add more opportunities. Another could be to switch to even shorter term trading. Another option would be to rejig the risk:reward to skew higher win-rate to potentially shorten the trade duration.
I'd love some feedback or suggestions on this.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on futures io?
creamyyy, when you trade do you seat in front of the screen or you using set and forget strategy? Another important question is are you trading your own funds or you are trying to get qualified for the funding with evaluation companies?
If you are qualifying then you only limited to the products the company is providing.
If you have a solid strategy and it can be copied across to other products, perhaps it is one of the option for you.
Given that you are limited to the time you can spend in front of the screen the other option is move to shorter term trading like scalping. I am referring to reading the DOM.
That way you can kill two birds with a single shot. Your risk:reward will be adjusted and you can only spend 3-4 hours in front of the screen.
Disadvantage of reading the DOM is the learning curve.
During the European-session the FDAX is a great instrument, but keep in mind sometimes it is a beast and it is expensive, but there is also a mini FDAX or a micro FDAX available. But you could also trade the ES (what I do during the European session) and watch what the FDAX is doing, because everything follows it, but forget to trade the FDAX during the Asian session. You said that you trade Crude Oil during the European session, this is also a very good instrument during this time. Trade well
+1 for Batman's comment. HSI (and its mini) are wonderful movers. HHI and the techs index if you want something more staid during the same period.
Dax is an interestingly volatile choice. Something you might consider is the STOXX 50 which I used to trade as ESTX50 on IB until I got sick of evening trading. Smoother and similar hours.
