Re enter BE+1 2nd trade after it is stopped but signal is still unchanged.
what should I use as re entry condition, like enter next bar in same direction after it is stopped out?
thks

emini_Holy_Grail 

Re enter BE+1 2nd trade after it is stopped but signal is still unchanged. what should I use as re entry condition, like enter next bar in same direction after it is stopped out? thks

If the signal is still valid, why are you out of the trade at BE+1?

Mike

well. when order is submitted, with 2nd trade as BE +1 after moved to 4 ticks,
so when 4 ticks is triggered, BE+1 is active now, if price swings the other way and BE+1 gets hit, which dont see the signal.
or I am not clear about this

emini_Holy_Grail 

well. when order is submitted, with 2nd trade as BE +1 after moved to 4 ticks, so when 4 ticks is triggered, BE+1 is active now, if price swings the other way and BE+1 gets hit, which dont see the signal. or I am not clear about this

Yes I understand.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time --- but why go breakeven here?

Here is my opinion. If 1 second after you are out of the trade at BE+1 the signal is still good, then why are you out?

Breakeven +1 is usually something that people do because they have a psychological problem dealing with losses. Been there. IMO, it has no place in trading. Market cares nothing about BE+1. It makes no "sense". Set your stop based on price action and get out of the trade when things are going well. But I am a discretionary trader and this is my style.

The problem with BE+1 is you'll be busted out of a trade for no reason other than you wanted BE+1. Then the trade will continue on and you've missed a nice winner. There is a saying out there "You can't go broke taking profits". I admit, embarrassingly, I used to say it too! I was wrong. In fact, this is exactly how many traders do go broke! Their fear of loss is so strong they end up getting out of trades with tiny profits, never giving themselves a chance to have a good trade.

You can do whatever you want. It's all about what suits your style and your psychology and mentality. I'm just talking about what works and doesn't work for me. Do yourself a favor and at the end of the day, week, or month, add up all your trades and calculate your expectancy. Also pay close attention to MAE and MFE for each trade. These stats don't lie, they will tell you whether or not BE+1 is helping or hurting you.

Mike

BMike
really appreciate for giving explanation for it. I was thinking about it as it helps during chop when it doesn't even make few ticks like CL this AM session. my sim hit 3 SLs in 20mins on a 4 range due to chop. I am working on choosing and filtering trades that may help to build up some good sim stats

I don't think there is a right answer. Just like when I say there is no black/white in trading, just a bunch of grey.

I do know some traders that take 20 trades a day and on 15 of them they'll break even or have tiny tiny losses, but on the other 5 they hit home runs. That just isn't my style, so the important thing is to find something that works for you, but try to have math on your side -- that is where expectancy is king to tell you if you are spinning your wheels or making some progress Expectancy allows you to not place so much emphasis on the net profit of any one trade, or your overall win percentage. It's about the combination of wins to losses, and how much money you win and lose on average. No matter what your style, if you have negative expectancy you're losing money.

Mike

HG,

What type of trade are you taking with the BE?

Context within your signals is very important. Classifying the strength of a trend/context of market moves is the best way to decide if BE is appropirate or not. If a trend is gaining steam/strong using BE would be counter productive in most cases. A simple swing order would suffice here with a good ATM strat/ a trail stop that is dynamic and adjusts with market conditions (ie let your runners run as long as possible). If a trend is starting to weaken the uncertainy becomes higher. As such, using BE would be more appropriate here. Really low volatility environments are best for BE as well. A lot of counter trend trades (especially divergence) are better when paired with this type of thinking as well.

The other side of this is exit criteria. It's best to analyze your MM in combination with your exits. When you apply the 'same' MM or exit to 2 completely different trade types the whole system will fall apart and it will be much harder to replicate/verify your results on an ongoing basis.

Utilizing MAE/MFE/ETD, W/L and comparing max loss to average loss for your different trade types will help you to realize which MM/exit critera performs the best in different contexts. Win % is irrelevant when starting to match this criteria with signals (in backtesting for ideas that is). BE+1 on every trade will never allow you to see how all of these components work together with respect to the metrics above.

Hopefully something above is helpful....just my .02.

Turning Point - Thks for your suggestions on where BE should be used.
I was trying to find a way to cut loss SL during choppy periods and BE works very well during chop period like today and yesterday on CL at mkt open. a full SL on 3 trades/day will be quite big against BE. of course this also take away chance to hit target but few of them do hit targets as my sim has seen in few weeks.

I normally use three lots. If the first target is hit I go to BE on at least one of my remainder lots. Or if I see something I don't like I go to BE.

Mike,
Just curious. Do you ever go to BE on the runner lots?

Andrew