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Thanks for the info Mike, I'll take a look at it. Although, I'm not real happy with NinjaTrader. It seems very buggy and glitchy for such an expensive app(yes I know that pricey≠good). I think I'm going to try eSignal OnDemand. Esignal wasn't worth $175 a month for Forex, now that it's $50 I think it might be a better deal...
Do you know if eSignal has a similar calculation?
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
More scaling into the trade. 1.05% profit with .06 max drawdown. Would have closed it if it got to .075 which would have been a close below 1.3694. Would have been looking for shorts if that had happened.
If you entered at random, with a 5:2 risk reward ratio, you'd achieve a 71.4% win rate but you would only break even.
If you are taking the same risk and only achieving an additional 8.6% win rate, you have very little room for error. If you then account for spreads, the picture looks slightly worse.
When you say your win rate is a "hell of a lot better than 50%" - from what you have described thus far, this is not actually the case.
Did this earlier in the evening. Decided to stay away from the beast and move to something a little more tame, E/U. I suppose I could have had a tight stop and reversed after the first position went tits up, but on GY the spread is so big that you end up losing your ass more often than not on smaller TFs by reversing more than is necessary. I just scale in over time and wait for it to do what it will do.
Added 2 more positions at the top after volume confirmed it was time for a rest. Should have put limits at the top though, not at 75% on the candle, I got impatient. I knew that descending upper TL meant something though...
Got out for .025% profit with .055% max drawdown. Theres that ratio we love again Mike! LOL Was planning on staying in for the long ride south, but was a little tired and wanted to move to something with a little less pip-velocity so I can keep my DD ratio lower!
I appreciate your directness and your viewpoint but I think you misunderstood. I wasn't saying that my win rate was better than 50%(actually it is around 75-85%) What I was saying was that taking 5% Max Drawdown is a hell of a lot better than the 50-80% I would let trades go against me before I learned. I had the problem of trading great all week with great gain and then losing it all+ on one trade because I wasn't willing to cut the one that just didn't work out. I fixed that problem.
Just to be clear, I don't make a habit of risking so much on a trade. Like I said, usually .5-1% Max. Only a very small portion of my positions are *closed* at this level of drawdown(important statistic). I have learned to absolutely limit my loss to around that figure because that is what I can comfortably expect to make back in a reasonable amount of time. I don't consider it a major loss, it is what I am willing to risk(occasionally) for the opportunity to profit. If I have to risk 10% to consistently make 1%, I'll do it over risking 1% to lose 2%. The bottom line is the bottom line.
I use low leverage, that allows me to get in (based on my analysis) and dynamically manage the trade as time goes on. I found that for me, calling out a single number and saying that was it and then taking my stop when it was 1-2% negative was not a profitable system for me. My system is profitable for me, I'm just working on my patience to hone entries/exits. Every trade is different, the goal is to achieve discretion without emotion, try not to be to rigid about what you think is going to happen and don't give too much heed to the pips you can't manage to take(or the ones you did).
It's easy to say I should have done this or that (or if, if, if) looking at a chart after, it's all so crystal clear, but on the trade, it's clear as mud most of the time. That's why I like to give trades time to develop (as long as they stay within the box I want them in) and cut them if they go too bad. And I try not to "should" on myself!
I'm good at building a position that is going against me and taking profit on the reversal. I'm trying to do more of the adding to positions that are in profit, but for some reason, I've not been able to be profitable with that strategy. Work in progress.
As regards scaling in - I think timeframe and target size has a lot to do with it. If you were trading a $40 stock with a $5 target over 4 months, scaling in would be easy. If you are trading the ES with a 2 point target over 30 minutes - not so easy.
In a long, if you scale in as you are profitable, then your average price increases and the price at which you start to lose money moves up too. I guess if you were trading the DAX with it's big intraday moves, then it would be a bit easier to manage. Crude has some big moves but they can be over with so fast that you might not have time to scale in. Scaling out is easier as you can have your scale out orders added automatically.
I'd be interested to see how you develop a scaling in technique.
Yeah, I trade short term (100t chart with 15, 60 & 240m for trend analysis) and I don't use targets per se. I use low enough leverage to just get in and see what happens. I add to the position based on the few technical things I use (basically trendlines, s/r & sometimes volume) and see what happens. Of course I have a solid opinion of what is going to happen and adjust my risk so that if that opinion is violated, no biggie. It only happens every once in a while anyway.
I have many thousands of hours of chart time and I know how my instruments behave pretty well. If they don't play like I think they should, I take my ball and go home and I generally do it way before they have the opportunity to give me a black eye.
I know, I HATE that. I did that tonight on a GY trade and it sucks seeing a trade that was +10p and you add and after some pa, you are negative. Of course when it goes back, you're in profit double(I was tonight). Actually not double in this case because I had only used my planned leverage and wasn't taking any extra risk.
I trade about 5 currency pairs and I'm generally familiar with what works for me and what does not on those instruments. I don't bother with anything else. Although I have traded other instruments to see if I could be successful and I was, but I didn't put much time or thought into it. I'm trading private capital for some family & friends and if I trade anything but spot forex, I have to get a Series 3+ and give FINRA 700 bones a year. Doesn't sound like a deal to me.
I'm getting pretty close to being happy with my scaling in technique, and I think my 2 issues are patience to wait a bit just a little longer to enter/add and my mind trading in one timeframe, but my fingers in another.
I don't want to start lagging and get gunshy, but I notice that I do tend to pull the trigger a little fast. But I have adjusted my style and mm to accommodate for that.
I don't know if I could quantify my system other than saying that I buy when I think it's going up and sell when I think it's going down and protect with mm. I'm not very good with rigidity and rules. That's why it took me soooo long to learn the one about stops.
I took two trades tonight. The first one, GY I just couldn't see any reason whatsoever to short, so took half a position to start and added after it went up. Didn't like the dip back down, but knew we'd be resuming the trend(and it was nowhere near my sl). .6% profit .4 max drawdown.
The second, a GU short was good for a quickie. If I wasn't tired, I would have stayed on for the ride to the lower tl, but I took my .35% with .45% max drawdown. This session, all trades were closed in profit and I gained .95% with .45% max drawdown. I'm happy with that.
Ok, so this was a perfect example of my position building technique.
I don't know why, but I seem to always be partial to shorts. I guess because usually the downward moves have the most velocity.
Anyway, I started adding shorts because when pa moves this far a retrace is more probable than possible. PA is climbing, but at a very slow rate. My max drawdown hit close to 4.5%. I was waiting for the retrace. We got some, but when price rejected that descending tl at 5:40, it was clear that shorts were out for the moment. So I reversed for a 2.4% loss.
These charts don't show it, but most of the time I actually do have a physical stop order placed on the chart that I adjust dynamically and use as my worst case handler in addition to my mental stop. It is usually either very close to price or far away. I would have closed this trade at 5% loss, if it had made it there.
Things started going better for me(way to follow the trend, idiot!) and I took half off at 7:00, re-added my position as time went by and closed in profit on the spike. This trade made me 1.2% net with 4.5% max drawdown. The mental stop I took was at 2.4% loss. Since market open yesterday, I am up 2.34% on my account. I know my style/technique is flawed and wrong(at times), I'm good with that. I didn't make a bunch, but I didn't lose a bunch either. That's what I'm talking about. :-)
