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Well, I take it as a sign that I need to get better at reading the price action and make fewer mistakes. That's why I continue to trade strictly on the simulator. However, I was pleased to finish the week in the green.
Also, consider I am only trading 1 contract. With the ES I could have easily been trading 10 contracts or even more. So, at 10 contracts I made more than $3000 in a week. I don't know about you but that would be plenty of income for my needs!
-bbdsan
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I agree, it is a lot of commissions. At this point in my trading I'm focussed on attaining a positive expectancy. And for at least that one week on the simulator, I was able to do it. I'll remain on the simulator, honing my craft. My ability to read the price action is improving, along with my win/loss ratio. Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm only trading 1 contract. Like you said, it's on a small scale. But as I become more confident, I'll increase my size. It's very easy to increase my size to 10 contracts or even bigger in the ES if I want to, as I'm sure you know well.
It's been a while since I posted any charts so here are a few from my most recent day on the simulator. These are 2000 tick bars with a 21-bar EMA.
This first chart is zoomed out, showing almost the entire day (I was finished before 10 am):
In the chart below you can see my first 3 trades. The first long was a second entry long (SEL) after the break of the up-channel. I didn't count the break related to news (NFP). The second long was based on a failed second entry short (FSES). Prices then made a new high and started down. The third trade was a second entry short (SES).
In the next chart below you can see my next 6 trades. The first long was a SEL off the EMA. After that strong move up I thought there would be another big leg up. It failed almost immediately so I got out for a 3-tick loss. The second trade was a mistake. It wasn't a clear entry, I just thought prices would continue down that channel. That was an 8-tick loss. Next there was a bearish bar down from a double top and I got a quick short scalp. The fourth trade was a FSEL. It took a while but I eventually got my 4-tick scalp. The fifth and sixth trades were both shorts, a SES and a FSEL. I took 2 ticks on one and 6 ticks on the other when I exited.
The final chart below shows my last 2 trades of the session. A very quick easy SES and finally a FSEL.
A pretty good day and I was finished early, too. Gotta like that!
Doesn't really matter how many contracts you are trading, You are not generating enough profit for the number of trades you are making. Not wanting to sound harsh but only trying to lead you to a better path. This one, in live trading will eat you alive. You are only sim trading now, trading live will be a different matter. And even if you could still sustain in a live market evironment, you will not survive with those kind of numbers. You need to ask yourself the question, "how many "big money scalper" have you heard of? All I am saying is that if you are wanting to truely become a better trader you may need to re-evaluate what you are doing now.
Firstly, thank you for your comments and suggestions. I'm really enjoying the interchange!
I'm confused when you say, "You are not generating enough profit for the number of trades you are making." My goal in trading is to generate a profit. I have no number-of-trades requirement. My understanding of system expectancy is that it's a function of win/loss ratio and risk/reward ratio and you measure it over a series of trades. Thus, when I tested my system over 55 trades and finished with a profit of $311, I demonstrated a positive expectancy. Even with my current, relatively low experience level with price action trading, I could trade like this week after week and make money.
If you are saying that trading replay data on a simulator is not the same as trading live data, I agree and disagree. I disagree in the sense that mechanically, it is exactly the same. The timing, the uncertainty, and the price movement are *exactly* the same. You're seeing the real data exactly as it played out, tick by tick, second by second. Unless you cheat and look at the day's chart ahead of time, the simulation is perfectly realistic. On the other hand, I would agree with you that psychologically it will "feel" different when it's real money on the line. That will be a discussion for later when I take the plunge into live trading.
If your point is that I need to improve my system expectancy, I would say not necessarily. While I do in fact want to improve my ability to read the price action and increase my win/loss ratio (which is why I'm still practicing on the simulator), my $5.65 per contract per trade is actually good enough. Even if my "batting average" never gets any better than that, I can still make money trading. In fact, a lot of money if I'm trading 10 contracts or more.
The question in my mind right now is, can I perform consistently? Day in and day out, can I achieve the win/loss ratio necessary to produce $5.65 per contract per trade? To answer that question, I need more data. I only really have 112 simulator trades under my belt. I'm not sure what the magic number is but I know that 112 is not enough. However, I do feel confident that I can do much better than $5.65. Given that my scalp target is always 4 ticks, the maximum is about $46 per contract per trade so obviously there's a lot of room for improvement. I'm happy that I have already demonstrated a major improvement from one week to the next. I lost $60 in 57 trades for the week of 3/24, then I made $311 in 55 trades for the week of 3/31.
Anyway, the journey continues. Thanks again for contributing to it.
that's not per contract, though. bbdsan could do that - altough it'd take him approx. 250 contracts per trade
Not saying that 5 bucks per contract should be considered "enough" for a consistent edge in trading - nor saying that you aren't doing significantly better but got to be fair as to not misleading bbdsan with absolute numbers...
From the stats I remember you're probably somewhere in the 5 to 6 ticks per contracts area, aren't you, Mike?
I appreciate Mike jumping in, and as i stated, it doesn't matter how many contracts you are trading, $5/contract/trade will lead to disaster in the end. There are a lot of answers I could share with you about your current system in terms of it's weaknesses. But I think it's best that you figure some of them out for yourself. But I will ask you this question... What kind of long term success do you think you will have with commissions eating up %50 of your profits. The markets takes enough away, you don't need transaction cost taking the other. And let me point out again that those profits are in sim trading. There is a lot more to trading a system than just the win/loss ratio.
You made the statement that you don't think you need to improve your system expectancy, I had to smile on that one. Not sure how long you have been trading, but with those numbers you will not survive.
All I am trying to do is open your mind without giving you all the answers, but at the same time letting you know when you are headed down the wrong path. Mike has also given you a hint as well.
And just to share a little additional info for you, I am doing a price action system as well, basically a trend following system. With the ratios that I use it can remain profitable with a winning percentage as low as 30%, however, the actually win rate is about 50 to 55%. All of this in intra day trading, no positions held over night. And without giving you exact numbers if I had 55 trades with 38 winning position and 17 loser, where you made $311 with 1 contract, I would have been well over $5000 trading 1 contract. I would have taken me longer to make 55 trades because I am only taking 2 to 5 trades a day. Which brings me to another point. Sometime the best trade to take is "no trade at all". So though your winning percentage is better, you aren't making any money.
