Here's a look at the 2nd where I bailed out. I'm not sure exactly why I wanted out I just did.
My automated version is running with target of 19 and a stop at BE - 5. Both trades stopped out:
This is an example of why I prefer to trade manually with a bit of discretion. I admit discretion can be good or bad but with a lot of practice it improves.
I did a lot of trading on crude today, only one loser. Stung a bit at -27 ticks but I still finished the day positive over $1k (all real money):
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How do you decide your position sizing? I noticed a 5 lot ES trade which you seem to have scratched. What made you crank up the leverage? Does your style differ when you have cranked up leverage?
For ES, my position size is 2 contracts. I can scale in 2 more for a total of 4. And in very rare circumstances when I have a really great setup I can scale in 2 more for a total of 6. If I have doubts about the setup then I go with half position which is 1 contract.
The reason you saw 5 is because I entered 2 and then scaled 2 more, on the same setup. Then I saw a scalp setup that I'm testing so I took it with 1 contract, keeping it separate in my mind as if i had it on a separate DOM (which technically I should do but it's cumbersome to have too many DOMs I already have 3 - one for ES and two for crude).
For the scaling in, that only happens when I'm early with my original entry. In that case I'm very careful and instead of trying to make a lot of $ I just want to get out of half at breakeven. If it's moving well in my direction then I'll go for some profit with the remaining half and if I have doubts I'll scratch the second half.
My approach for crude is different and I'm still trying to work it out.
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Here's an OB trade from this morning, involving quite some discretion :
The trade triggered long by one tick then retraced 24 ticks, which would have stopped out my -21t stop; it then became profitable. I did not take the first trigger as it didn't look clear on the R8 chart (see first circle within rectangle). Price then went down to a higher low at the second circle and I entered into the M15 OB breakout for a total of 44t (now live after 2 weeks forward test in sim).
For me the two keys with discretion are (1) to define precisely within my trading plan how and where I will allow discretionary decisions and (2) being able to fully accept the many times I do not take a valid trade because all the pieces didn't fit for me. It's taken a lot of work to reach this point in psychological terms.
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