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@WilleeMac I always squirm in my seat when someone speaks in "pips" .... I'm a tick man. I use 1 tick "row height" for all my profiles, I've played around with other settings but kept coming back to 1. Of course you could use a bigger row size if you're having issues with the size of your profile on your screen while looking at longer term charts. But I'd be sure I understood how the software was calculating the values before I "trusted" the results.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
@eminitrdr Sorry to hear about the complications with your Bride, I hope all turns out fine. Trading can be difficult with emotionally charged issues effecting our focus, believe me I know. Trades like the one you posted is going to 'mark' you as a scalper if you're not careful.
I wanted to give you a cyber pat on the back for initiating this trade, the one you posted in the #4 Chat Box. For some reason, we think alike! I went balls out on that trade too and thought IF price did break '09 it would travel to the Upper VA and MAYBE the +2SD level. Price came up a little short of '24, I had some exit orders there and gave the market a few minutes to reach for them but bailed when the vision of the 'Dick for a Tick' poster entered my mind. I found this session tough to stay committed to the trade with all the news, but this 1.3000 level has been a playground all week. I also think it's a slippery slope, easy for price to fall into yesterday's VA and test some new lows for the day, only time will tell.
I've been trying to write this post all weekend, I've started and stopped a dozen times because I feel the topic has so many rabbit holes I'm finding it near impossible to stay on task. This is my best shot. I'll apologize now for wandering more than I usually do!
nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) is like the opinion shows on T.V. that are loosely disguised as news broadcasts, most everything is there and people tune into Blitzer, O'reily or Maddow cafeteria style because the show fits their individual belief system, but often with a little effort they find, "All that glitters is not gold." The point is most people believe what they want to believe (until it doesn't work for them anymore), it's more comfortable that way. I have the same opinion about traders, everybody trades what they're most comfortable with whether it's order flow, Fibonacci, Wyckoff, Gartley, moving averages, market profile, lunar cycles or candle stick patterns they believe in them. This allows traders to trade their belief systems. Of course we all have the option to mix and match studies and indicators and our choices are endless, but basically IMO, we all trade our belief systems.
nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) is like one of those buffets where you walk in and pay a fixed price then grab a plate off a warm stack 4 feet high and graze among table after table of anything your heart desires. Rarely do I try anything new, I eat what I'm comfortable with and usually end my experience by searching the half mile long desert table for a piece of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. When I look through the journals and posts on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) I find myself doing the same thing, I look at different charts with lines and arrows and often wonder how "this guy/gal" ended up using this system/method. What combination of gurus influenced this person to arrive at this destination, then I move on to the next table in the buffet. The point I'm driving at is there are countless ways to trade and nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) has detailed examples of hundreds if not thousands of them. But every trader and every method suffers losses and in my opinion the ability to manage those losses is what separates winning traders from losing traders. I believe the notion that the market rewards bad trading decisions is the ugly step-child of proper money management and skews the true statistics of the profitability of many trader's methods. Trying to come up with an example of bad trading is difficult since everyone has their own belief of what is right/good and what is wrong/bad when it comes to their own individual method. To circumvent this issue I'll use the movement of a protective stop to exit a losing trade. I'm going to assume most traders will eventually exit a losing trade at some point.
At some point is exactly what this post is about. Simply, if my best statistical analysis of my system's back/forward testing tells me I should exit my position when the adverse movement of price is fifty ticks against me, anytime I allow price to move against me more than fifty ticks would qualify as bad trading. So one day I enter a long, price goes up a shows me a profit of ten ticks then it begins to slide South. I hold the trade as the market rotates thirty points against me, then it slides to my predefined exit/stop. But today is different my stop is sitting on a squiggly line that I believe in and I give the trade a little more room, ten ticks. Then price falls within a few ticks of that level and I give it another five ticks of breathing room. Now the market is inching lower and I move my stop one more time, fifty ticks lower than my original level. At this point my stop is one hundred ticks from my entry and price is sixty five ticks against me. It's a good thing I moved my stop lower and gave the market plenty of breathing room because price shot up and took out the congestion area thirty ticks under my entry and trended the rest of the morning to a new high where I took profits one zillion ticks above my entry. We all know this trade, if you don't, this post ain't for you. This is what I'm talking about when I say the market rewards bad trading, an extreme example, but we all know there are many many more subtle ways the market rewards poor trading and poor trading decisions. The market rewards good trading and bad trading the same, the problem is if I don't enforce discipline on my bad trading no-one will and after being rewarded for bad trading two, three or four times the right thing to do becomes blurred and the system/method's rules can no longer be compared to results accurately.
Scale in, scale out, all in, all out, all in, scale out, scale in, all out or just stay out! I think the jury is still out on this one. I believe it's another one of those individual belief system issues, what works for me may not work for you. This debate continued with me until I decided what worked for me for a host of reasons, and I stuck with it. A one lot trader is obviously limited when it comes to managing trades and limiting risk but it is IMO the most important skill a trader needs to master. Once I enter a trade the only thing I have total control of is when to exit. Only I can decide how much money I will lose in any trade. Learning bad habits while trading one and two lots will become sudden death for most traders when given the opportunity to trade larger size. Trading size and managing the risk of multiple contracts is a skill of it's own. Like increasing the horsepower of a racing car from a Mini to a Corvette to a LMP to F1, it's still a racing car, but it is totally different. Could the Mini driver drive the F1 car, of course, could he get every ounce of performance out of it, I doubt it. So far every journal (I've seen) on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) relaying the progress of a Top Step Trader Combine abruptly ended when the daily maximum loss limit was triggered. It may not seem strange to you but it's amazing to me, the only aspect of trading that I have absolute total control over is the downfall of so many.
What's the answer? This is why I've struggled with this post, there is no answer. There's no one answer, there's an answer for you and another for me, one for her and another for him. Although the answer is based on an individual level of acceptance which is based on our individual trading system/methods which is based on our individual belief systems, the question remains the same, how do I manage my risk? Just as our systems differ our risk management parameters differ. I hope readers of this post take away this one fact which I hope has been made perfectly clear, we all need risk management criteria that works. A "cookie cutter" risk management system may be 'good enough' for a one or two lot breakeven trader but when traders start sizing up I suggest they exhaust all available resources before settling on the parameters of the most important aspect of their trading.
TST Combine
Why is the daily loss limit in the TST Combine claiming so many casualties, in my opinion it's because the loss limit is based on someone else's belief system, not the traders. IMO if someone was planning on pursuing an attempt at the combine they would be well served to start with the strictly enforced loss limit parameters and reverse engineer a method or "retro fit" their method to incorporate the limits. This is no small task, especially when most of the traders (I've seen) are unfamiliar with the perils of trading size. Simply said, the loss limit has to become part of their individualized trading system, not just a "fiscal cliff" aspiring traders run to when they feel suicide is the only "honorable" way out. Another notable observation (I've seen) is the laissez-faire attitude traders are bringing to the combines. When someone opens their combine thread on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) with a statement like, "I'm going to trade small at first" that tells me,
(1.) They're not taking this (generate a 10% return ($5,000) on a $50,000 account or a 10.6% return ($16,000) on a $150,000 account) serious enough to bring their A Game.
(2.) They don't have an A Game.
IMO, to generate a 10% return on any futures account in 20 days you better come out of the gate with everything you have.
How about this guy, did he bring his A Game to the NFL Combine?
I'll bet anything, before he laid on that bench he knew absolutely without a doubt he was leaving with that all time record.
A final note:
I hope this post is received with the same respect I have for every trader attempting the TST Combine, I honor them all, their commitment, their honesty and their humility. My purpose was to highlight the importance risk management plays for all traders, we do (manage risk), or we die. I also wanted to inform others to the extent of the challenge traders are taking when they sign on for a TST Combine, it is competing at a level only a few attain. Each individual who's posted their experience with TST on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) has certainly earned my respect and the respect of many others.
I really enjoy following your "old school" thread and I just finished reading through the chat log of you and eminitrdr conversing on 12/7...good stuff!!!!
I was wondering if I could be so bold as to ask for the videos you PM'd emini. I imagine it would be good stuff...like everything else you guys post.
I use 1 tick "row height" for all my profiles, I've played around with other settings but kept coming back to 1. Of course you could use a bigger row size if you're having issues with the size of your profile on your screen while looking at longer term charts. But I'd be sure I understood how the software was calculating the values before I "trusted" the results.
