Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I have a very analytical mind. I'm a mechanical engineer with a master's degree from Stanford. I'm used to solving puzzles and getting the right answer. Sometimes I get married to the idea that prices are going to go up or down because I'm "smarter than the market" and I have correctly solved the PA puzzle. Obviously, when I allow myself to get in this frame mind, it usually doesn't work out well. Obviously I am never smarter than the market. So, I need to work on checking my ego. Check myself before I wreck myself. :-)
I agree completely. I usually add on to a loser when I'm in that frame of mind where my ego has taken over and I think I'm smarter than the market. I almost always get put in my place though.
Yes, I agree the emotions are different when real money is on the line. I will use real money again but for now I've set myself the goal of making $3000 in my demo account by trading 1 contract only. The learning period is increased, for sure. I'm treating it as an exercise in patience.
This is kind of a grey area. I believe there are many ways to do this profitably. One way is what you're suggesting - a small risk to reward ratio, which doesn't require a high win/loss ratio. I'm trying a style I learned from Mack at priceactiontradingsystem.com. I risk 8 ticks and my reward is only 4 ticks. But these parameters also make it easier to be right, which can lead to an 80-90% win/loss ratio. I believe it is possible but it takes considerable time and practice to develop the necessary skills. Also, right now I'm just learning to scalp (close the trade at +4 ticks). Eventually I'll trade multiple contracts and keep some of them as runners after I scalp out the majority of them. That will increase my reward to risk ratio.
I struggled a bit with the PA today. I screwed up a few times with counter trend trades trying to find a bottom to the big down trend this afternoon. With my trade parameters it's really hard to come back from more than 1 or 2 losses. I really tried and I was able to get quite a bit of my money back but not all of it. No doubling up on a loser today so that was good. In the end I just wasn't patient enough to wait for good short entries once prices were very clearly trending down.
Major comeback today! I started the session with 3 big losses but then I was able to put together a string of 11 wins. The PA was a little tricky today, too, so I'm pretty happy to post a win.
Again, I am trading 3 contracts in my demo account but I'm only counting the 1 contract loss or win (scalp) towards my daily P/L. The reason I'm trading 3 contracts is to get some experience with holding a runner contract after scalping out 2 contracts. Most of the time the market is coming back and getting my runner at b/e +1. A few times today it came back and stopped out my runner only to take off again several points my way. I'm not sure if I should manage the runner a little differently. I don't want it to come all the way back and stop out for a loss, wiping out my profits from the scalp. But on the other hand I could have gotten a lot of extra profits today if I had given my runner just a little more room.
What I've been doing is taking my scalp at +4 ticks (limit order), then if prices touch +5 ticks I move my stop to b/e +1. I think tomorrow I'll try the same thing only I'll move my stop to b/e only. If it comes back I'll lose commissions ($3.52) instead of winning lunch money ($8.98) but I think it'll be worth it if I can get just 1 or 2 more runners (3 points or more).
I can definitely understand the confusion! I'll try to explain what I'm doing more clearly.
The orders I am executing (in a demo account) are for 3 contracts. I try to scalp out 2 of them at +4 ticks, then manage the 3rd as a runner. I'm doing this for the sake of practice and experience with multi-contract trading.
At the same time, I've set a goal for myself. I want to make $3000 in my demo account trading just a single contract. This is my milepost for when I will allow myself to deposit real money into my account and try real trading again. I based my goal on single contract trading because I only want to trade a single contract when I first start trading for real money again.
So, for the purpose of my $3000 goal, I do the math as if every trade was only 1 contract. In other words, I'm only counting the scalps, win or lose. The result for yesterday was 14 single contract trades, 11 wins, 3 losses, net profit $109 including commissions.
As far as runners, I'm just experimenting with how to manage them. The reason I want to try moving my stop to breakeven only (as opposed to breakeven +1) was because I had a few runners yesterday that would have survived and turned out really well.
I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. I had a pretty good day today. There were plenty of trades that setup today even though I missed a few of them. You have to love this volatility!
I made a mistake going short at the bottom of a steep down channel, for my only significant loss today. I had one other loss when I entered and exited at the same price, losing just commissions. Other than that I had several good 4-tick scalps and a few 1-tick or 2-tick winners. These happen when I second guess my entry and exit the trade with a tick or 2 of profit. It's not ideal, of course, but sometimes I'm right to exit with just a tick or 2 of profit instead of an 8-tick loss.
