Having rough several months. From late May to now, My system has been losing. Account is still up from where I began in last October, but I am looking at 28k down from it's high. 3k below from previous Max DD which occurred in August.
When it was being profitable, 25k to 60k in a few month, I began to think words such as "financial freedom, Mercedes in garage, fat bank account, mortgages being paid off....but now, I think about where did I put those damn burger king coupons at? Isn't that funny how mind works? Just give it a little lead way and off it goes to extreme or is it just me....
Hope you guys don't mind me posting journals like this. I know that I am not contributing as much as others are in this forum but I am sharing real account history and my personal reaction to it. Like I said before in my previous posts, I will follow the rules that I have created and fight temptations with discipline.
Feels better a lot better sharing my thoughts. Thank you.
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thanks for your journal. I certainly would like to see you continue journaling as it is encouraging for someone like me struggling to commit to pulling the trigger on trading based on my own research.
I do have questions that may help you analyze your drawdown or help reevaluate your initial analysis.
1) is your system based on a some pattern made up of some price behavior or sequence of bars only?
2) is it based on price behavior where you have been modelling price trending, price volatility?
3) is it 1) in the context of 2)
4) how about position management ( scaling in etc...)
5) did you run the strategy and your development only on ES, or some other non-index symbols?
6) how about position sizing, risk management?
I believe that you must have had some rationale other than X number of samples showed certain performance metric against Y number of data points in a Z time period
Perhaps you had discussed this type of analysis at the start of your journal, but do not recall it...
Take care and hope you will have this figured out.
Tihfa
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1)No patterns but price behavior.
2)Volatility comes into system as a filter to take trades or not. System trades low and mid level volatility and stays out on very high volatility.
3)Yes. Volatility condition then price behavior.
4)no scaling in or out. All in and All out. When back tested, position managing such as bring stops to be once it moves X amount of ticks in favor, trailing, or half out with 2 points and have runners. They all failed to perform.
5)I have. CL, NQ and YM. Results are similar. NQ is better but did not go with NQ due to possible slippages. I want to trade 100 lots and only ES was thick enough to support my idea of potentially trade with 100 contracts. But not looking good at this time huh?
6)yes. It;s all planned out and I trade accordingly. But I do not use typical risk 2%. Say I am going to bet $1 per trade, commit $100 to be able to trade 100 times. There is no reducing bet size because 100 became 50.
For last 12 years, 52% probability with 1.2 win/lost and 1.36 profit factor. Currently it is at 48% probability. A mediocre system but it is the best I could come up with. I will continue to bet on my system. With or without confidence.
Thank you,
Kanepa.
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I wouldn’t be so quick to write off your emotional considerations as irrational. Lots of systems traders have, in hindsight, identified environments wherein their systems do not perform optimally (ie. high volatility, ranging environments, etc). When these elements occur, they shut down the systems,
There is definitely something wrong with a person who trusts implicitly in an untested system and does not qualify its ability to continue to produce in every environment. In your case, as a casual observer, I can’t tell if your self-proclaimed discipline is actually denial about your system’s real performance… but one way or the other YOU are the greatest resource that you have to fix the problem. Don’t discount your thoughts and emotions about your system simply because they are thoughts and emotions - your thinking and emoting combined with some ingenuity might help to avert disaster and continue to win.
The only reason I come to this forum is to read your thread, keep up the good work and keep tinkering.
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Hi, MarkB. Thank you for your comment. I appreciate you, @tihfa, @Sazon and many others who has helped me to do better.
Reason for me considering my emotion as irrational is there were no positive events that occurred if my decision was based on my emotion in trading. I do not view myself as a good trader. Can not read market well. Only thing I have and will try my best to do so is follow plan. Losing period is on going but I can not pull the plug on my system yet. When and if system reaches to my max risk point, then I will wave white flag and stop trading.
Of course! there are many things wrong with me. My proclaimed discipline might be denial of my system's performance. And further, my attempt to make profit using system was doomed from the get go.
MarkB. I do not know. I do not know what is going to happen. Discipline or denial, I will keep the system on because pulling the plug before it reaches maximum allowed loss was not part of original plan. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and kind words. Anytime, your thoughts are more than welcome and appreciated.
Thank you,
Kanepa.
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so I am thinking that the results you are seeing are basically following your modeled price behavior with some normal variability ( W to L ratio, W and L series distributions, P to L ratio, average P per trade, average L per trade etc, best profit P single trade, worst loss single trade...)
And if that is the case, then you should feel good about having modeled well the behavior. Then it is the question of improving your model whether that is the context, or delineating context into trending and sideways/congestion type behavior, and capitalizing on volatility ( not avoiding it by filtering it out... I think of volatility as strong narrow band directional moves in the time frame of choice or lower time frame where you may be executing...btw volatility is still price behavior attribute just as trending or ranging is etc...)
Otherwise if the actual price behavior is not following your modeled price behavior then you should look at individual components of your strategy starting with the context and understand the divergence....again i think you would want to capitalize on price transition from low volatility to high volatility move in the anticipated direction or try to get in on already volatile move taking place...
The other thing is if you study the trades in lower time frame you may be able to the scale in your entries such that you maximize your profitable trades and minimize the loser traders unless you are basically scalping with no opportunity to add to or reduce position size for the duration of the trade...
Good luck,
Tihfa
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Perhaps you are right. That is what I think as well. When system was not on(second system) it had very profitable year up until May. More than usual. so it might be on a correction mode. Time will tell.
As a newbie system trader, my feelings are mixed. both positive and negative. But the core of my belief and design a system around it still unchanged. I have spent some time past weekend to further test and study my system and changed a little. This I will update later.
One of main goal is reduce number of trades while not giving up too much of profit. The second system is very wild as it goes for home runs. But I am working hard to come up with a remedy to offset large swings in equity curve to less volatile but more steady growth.
While it is true that high volatile market's trading profit can be huge but I have not came up with something I can put money behind it. And those market condition tends to produces many losing trades in a row as well. And I have done some research on scaling in and out of position but not enough to put them in use in real time. Will continue to look at it when more time is allowed.
Appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.
kanepa.
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thanks for the thread. I see some good action there and saw you write that something regarding commissions are part of the game. I am ES only and use Tradovate for over 2 years now. I started with their intermediate plan, $99/month flat fee plus $0.19 cents per side(.38 rt). I am now using the -$199/month commission free trading so only $199.00 If you pay the entire year in advance, it is $179.00 per month unlimited. Like all, 2 weeks to test it gratis.
Thank you-
TraderEX.
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Looks messy? I am newbie but this is not my first message board. Had to leave another because of trolls after 2 months and 500 or so posts. Before I left, I read past ES stuff for the last 9 years. Hundreds, maybe thousands of posts.
My mind works just like yours with the number crunching and each step is a plan. So,
this is the most AWESOME ES journal to date.
I am sorry things turned on you. I have some suggestions about your plan since I tried this type of scaling but on a smaller scale, 1 to 5. I will finish reading and enter one post for efficiency
Thank you so much for sharing through the good and bad.
EX
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I have what i would consider more math experience than most. I was proficient through Calc II. i think it is important that the offer er of information should state a qualification or state this is an opinion. This is mathemaTICS FROM A TEXT.(ALSO A PLAY tics FROM MATH KNOWLEDGE.) BOOK.
i WROTE YOU A 1 HR LONG MESSAGE LAST NIGHT AND LOST IT AS i AM NEW TO THE SIGHT AND HIT THE WRONG BUTTON. i'LL TRY ANSWER IN SMALL PIECES BY TOPIC.
1 System Assume 50% winnng rate(make for easy understanding)
you should expect a some point in the future, 100 wins and 100 losses(50%). When considering your loss potential, to go broke you would have to lose so many more than won, those chances are very slim. correct money management of course so we will assume a constant amount of contracts, # doesn't matter.
probability distribution 50% next will be winner and 50 next will be loser (thats 50% win rate)
2 or more systems same assumptions for both as above meaning both have 50% win rates.
probability distribution 25% both will win(50% x 50%)= 25% you have double your run up potential by 2 now 50% chance one will win and the other will lose(pay fees) 25% chance that both will lose. You have double your drawdown potential at this point. If you are not aware that this is the case, now your premises are wrong and therefore your conclusions must be wrong unless by chance you guessed right. At this point you are not in control. if you had double your margin account or halved your cars you would have returned to equilibrium. Moreover, you increasing leverage when margin moves up was not accompanied by decreasing margin when margin moves down. That imbalance increases volatility.
So, when you increased to 2 systems and operated them at the same, adding in your money mismanagement, you were probably 4 to 5 times riskier than your one system approach. Totally doomed to fail. You're still around because the first system produced a war chest. I see you handle criticism well and therefore I was able to be blunt.
Your thread is awesome with honesty; a rare quality. There's an unnoticed richness there I believe. If you want more comments I will. If this is left field or offensive then all my other comments will be and why waste your time.
Hope this helps-
EX
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Thank you for your time on reviewing my journal and writing your thoughts and advice. It is a shame that 1 hr message did not make it to here.
I think I understand your point on probability. Hope I am right on this, not a math guy, but when I introduced new system in to existing one, I thought instead of 1 hand flipping a coin, now I have two hands flipping coins. Therefore, I expected more volatility to come in my way but not in this scale of mass.
However, those two systems are hardly in market together. They are design to enter in different conditions so they do not conflict with one another often. Also they do accompany each other well. If one was losing, the other system would win and etc. BUT, since I have designed that way, I have never looked at a potential of them having losing periods together. That was a number one problem. And number two was introducing new system into real trading too soon. Not going through proper testing periods. The new system had a much more unusual profitable months right before I introduced it to real market.
Very true on how I am still around because I got lucky in earlier game. My money management is a perhaps a poor one and I do understand that I am trying to catch a falling knife. But poor plan is still a plan and I am following it.
I will give more thoughts on this matter and see if I can re-adjust.
Your thoughts and comments are very welcome and I thank you for them. You told me exactly how you saw it. It did not look offensive at all.
Account hit 20k balance today after another losing trades. They are keep coming in. I do not know how to express it other than I am here to break one of my rules. I was going to keep on trading 10 cars until the end but looking at 2k balance remaining per unit risk made me breaking the rule.
Feels like a coward. I said I will trade this thing until the end but when I am actually very near by it, I caved. I wanted to give it a more room to move....a perhaps a better chance to survive because I believe this could make a come back. I did not say it will....it could..
Sometimes I think to myself. Man, you are chasing this thing more than 20 years now, don't you deserve a break? Yeah..I do. For the amount of effort, time and money, I sure do deserve a nice break. But guess what, me has a right to deserve a break means not a damn thing in this game.
My next update will be posted on the day of market taking me out or system reaches 44250 to add a unit. Thank you so much for your help guys and see you on my next update.
here are some numbers.
Balance: 20k
Risk per unit: 4400(Per trade risk: 200)
Margin: 600
Total per unit: 5,000.
4 Units of risk(4 contracts)
Goal to reach 8850 per unit including margin.(8850 X 4 = 35,400) will add a unit at 44250
2017
24,941 to 32597 +7656 +30%
2018 so far
32,597 to 30,689(current bal+10,000 withdraw) -1908 -5.8%
My total out of pocket risk
Initial deposit: 25,000
Withdraw :-10,000
Margin(600X4):-2400
Total Risk :12600
The following user says Thank You to kanepa for this post:
I see we are watching each other and that's what we are here for.
Your response to my comment was accurate. When they both were in together, you need to have twice the margin to cover the swing size of the draw back. the other thing about not testing long enough, that is for you to decide for sure. With the increasing leverage at levels and and not decreasing as you draw back, just be aware that you have probably again double your risk so now 4 times the margin account to account for historical drawback potential as you put it. With that increased risk, your chances of going bust are 3 times as great and always the exact opposite positive will be true, increased 3 times profit swing.
You sir, have no idea how close to that 100k when both systems were being used at the same time. Just a little longer on that run of yours and BINGO. I like constant increases. For ex, 1,2,3,4,5,6 not then 11 at predetermined levels. I back down the same way for the same levels, 6,5,4,3,2,1 because equall number of 10 in a row wins and 10 in a row losers in a 50/50 probability distribution. It's a Marathon here and at your pace, easily 250k with that 22 in a row hot streak you posted. Or 22 in a row and busted. Always bipolar meaning whatever effects your results, loss or profit has the same multiplier.
Now, because you are humble enough to not project a know it all attitude. You now have the knowledge to do any combination of your systems. What is true here is that any system of worth just requires executional discipline and accuracy. Every wining trader is not identical to any other. Create an edge, you had one. Had you not sped up so incredibly from the opening 24k, it would be history by now and sunny beaches. At the 24k level and one system, that was your original historical risk factor. I think is was six contracts at the peak. So six times the original risk and then times a factor of 4 when you were in with 2 systems the few times, so 24x was the increased amount of margin you need to cover historical draw downs. Again, 100k was knocking on the door from 65k.
Now add in the volatility of the market...you did an exceptional job not busting with such a small margin account for the drawdown potential.. You did not see the worst, it was still hiding.
Now consider the fact that in a winning streak, you play above your 53% play. The only way to average back to 53% is have a series of losers. Doesn't have to be a losing streak, just more than winners. If you are running 10 points above 53%, say 63%, obvious you have lose to get back to the historical 53%. Only way averages and percentages work, a mathematical law.
You see what I do and only have 4k to play with and withdraw every week. Only a matter time if I continue exactly as I do to scale and riches. Based on my finances, hopefully after the holidays I can build my margin and go for pot of gold. You see today's post and other things get in our way, ie gambling itch I have. All problems to profitability were not my trading models, the "other" things I had to conquer. It was very hard to get the discipline and you see I blew up today. I NEVER am in a trade 5 minutes let alone over and hour. I had to turn the computer off and just leave my sell stop. My stop loss was 3k away and busted When the stop is hit, I hear from the other room, ORDER FILLED> I was sick as
dog with anxiety. I lose that account and no money for EX, it's my income and I need it not want it.
Driving and moving to Las Vegas. Son is going to UNLV. First stop is always, philly cheese steaks bro.
Keep up the good fight. Vegas people are not East Coast, live there before.
EX
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Don't be ridiculous. The correct word here would be fool. A fool would not adjust his plan. You are not a fool. An egomaniac would not adjust his plan. You are making correct decisions in this arena. The mistake you made was thinking you had to live up to your original claims for us or else.
You are 4k(-16%) from your starting point. Take a deep breath and realize that you gained tremendous experience here. Live trading experience; invaluable to the process to profitability. All the guys here kicked in and gave sound advice. Getting closer to that break you can't seem to get. It's called experience and skill building. this experience for you appears to be exceptional as a training tool.
I started my first journal ever, because your of post. Thank you. Going to make me a better trader too.
looking forward to that cheese steak.
EX
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Nothing have worked in 20 years of trading. There was times that made decent money in short period of time but ended up blowing the accounts. Why? I acted out of emotion often. Revenge trades, FOMO trades and other stupid trades. Also did not have a positive and back tested methodology to follow. Even when I had a solid method, Many times broke the rules because I caved into whatever the emotional state I was in. I am sure many of you out there can relate.
That is why I was stubborn and unwilling to change the system. It was my last attempt to make it in this game and discipline to follow original plan, does not matter how uncomfortable I was, was my buggiest goal in trading. Perhaps more important than making money.
There was mistakes in beginning but I have managed to trade without my emotion interrupting my system. And also finding myself more comfortable watching as trade unfolds. This is a huge gain for me. Not acting on emotions. They say you need three things if you want to succeed as a trader. 1.Method 2. discipline 3.patience. Before, I knew the words but now, I understand them. I dont know how to explain this but It has more meaning to it than before.
Account is hoovering around 20k. I am still up from my beginning balance of 25k because I withdraw 10k early this year. I am still trading and account update will be posted when my goal is met. 44250.00
Enjoy your journal and thank you for your advice.
Kanepa.
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After some system analyzing and making adjustments, I have decided to send in 13,500 to add more units of risk. I have reduced number of trades by 50% of secondary system and giving up 30% of profit. The other half represent 70% of profit. shook off less quality trades.
Here are numbers.
Balance: 36800
Risk per unit: 4200(Per trade risk: 200)
Margin: 600
Total per unit: 4,800.
8 Units of risk
first Goal is to meet total risk+margin to 6800.00 It will bring account to 54,400
Second goal is to meet total risk+margin to 8850.00 It will bring account to 70,800
Third goal is crossing over 100 k mark.
If it works out. it should take 2-5 years to meet 100 k goal line.
My total out of pocket risk
Initial deposit: 25,000
Withdraw :-10,000
additional deposit: 13,500
Margin(600X8):-4800
Total Risk :23,700
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No additional filter was introduced into the system. As I like to keep it simple, I was be able to filter out using existing indicators that I had on my system. No settings or periods of studies were changed. Left is before and right is after.
Changes were made to long side. Long trades are about 70% of total trades of my system.
Yes. I have been forward testing it and trading it in SIM real time as well. Also yes on the back test. Going back 12 years, 6 years at a time and 3 years at a time to see it was not curve-fitted.
Doing all these...I still have to be lucky to be profitable...Because I have no clue what market will bring tomorrow, next week or next year.
Thank you,
Kanepa.
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System is still trading and it is holding the low as for now. About 5k loss from the top. Max allowed risk is about 8k so I am 3k away from stopping my system.(per unit)
I found myself being very uncomfortable watching trades. Wishing market to go up when long and down when short. I did not like that. Thought I have made a progress as a trader. Also did not enjoy that gambler side of me getting excited about uncertain outcome and getting high on the process. I began to wonder where was the trigger for this problem.
I accepted risk. I played many times that account reaching max risk level and pulling the plug of my system. I know anything can happen with market. With low probability system like mine, losers are sure to come and often in a row and already witnessed many of them. Then where?
It was my unfounded expectation of system turning around and becoming profitable again. As system plunged down to new low, I thought the bottom was in and now it has to go up. Therefore, expecting winning trades to come in and start to make money. But it did not happen. Rather, system is slowing down on losing money. So as current result did not meet my expectation, I began to feel frustrated. And that lead to the uncomfortable feelings on trades.
Solution was reviewing trades, checking back tests results daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. There was times which system did not make money, or very little in 24 months. Watching and re visiting those results helped me to eliminate this false expectation.
Thank you.
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System is still trading but not near the first target of crossing over 54400.
On Friday, system had a record profitable day. $9000.00 before comm. It was long and market kept on going lower and it was 1 tick away from stopping out. Then market began to turn and up we went. Held it till closing to squeeze every last bit of the rally. But November's result is down slightly. about -900.00
Market will do it's thing. Sometimes it will stop me out and take off. Leaving me in dust. Or just like Friday's trade, it will come very near the stop loss point then take off with me in it.
What I am trying to tell myself is that do not expect anything. Just accept it and move along with it. Which has been improving....think about it. If you are long at 2700 and placed stop at 2695. Market hit your stop at exactly 2695 and that turn to be the low of that move and shoot up to 2720. What would you feel? It will more likely put you in position to make FOMO or revenge trading.
To prevent those emotional traps, it helps to going over back testing trades but as I am viewing what has been done before in chart, it still does not fully prepare you on how to handle extreme situations like above. However, somewhat prepared IS so much better than zero preparation. After two mistakes I have made(trade manually) near at the beginning, I have not altered or bypassed system.
So, do recognize emotional state when stressful trades happens but leave it as they are. Do not bring actions because of them. Just concentrate and follow plans.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.
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Left in dust. I talked about it last post and it did happen today. System shorted 2595 area and stopped out with 4point loss. Market went up about 4 points higher then the down trend began. If the position held, it could have been a 40 point per contract day.
It hurts me a little but not as bad. I believe I will get this kind of home run soon or later. Just have to keep on trading.
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MAE can be tricky depending on which time period(losing or winning streak) I am looking at. but with system's backtest MAE average being about 10 ticks, is not inline with my current real time trading MAE of 22 ticks. However, Real time data is just about 14 month worth and back test is from 13 years. So I do believe that real time MAE will catch up to back test MAE in future.
Part of system takes profit on target and other part of system will let the profit run. They are different strategies.
Correct on short average being 1:5 and they are 30% profitable. About 10% of the back tested data produced 1:10 result. However, So far, real trading numbers showing 42% probability and 1.52 R/R.
System trades .43 per day. Which is not a lot. I need more time to see if they will be in line with back tested results..Perhaps 5 years or so. If I can survive that long.
Thank you..maybe in 2019.
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Well, here it is. Numbers are little off comparing trading performances VS account balance data but as trading performance does not include fees(data, routing), the correct number would be comparing beginning and ending balance.
Total deposit to account was 3500(10k withdraw and 13500 deposit) for 2018. After all, I am looking at -3785.12 or 11% loss for the year.
Here is trade performance
And the GOOD times followed by BAAAD times
System started the draw down from May. Which I introduced new system. But the original system started to draw down as well. Current system looks very different than what I initiated with but it appears to be bottomed out in November. I can not say that for sure but time will tell..
in 2 years. I have survived and showing net gain of around $4000. Hope I get to survive 2019 and maybe produce a profitable year. Will be posting thoughts and notes later.
Happy New Year to all.
Kanepa.
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It has been a long time since last trade.(12/17/18) First trade for 19 was a winner. As my system do not trade on high volatility market condition there was no trades since 12/17 till now. Still long way to climb up to $54,400. Curently is at $34,291.68
I might have to withdraw large sum from the account. I am in negotiation in starting up a new business and might require pulling in most of cash into this deal.....it it works out. But until then, I will keep on trading.
Thank you,
Kanepa.
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As I mentioned in earlier post, I have withdrew all the funds from trading account. As far as this year goes, just a few trades to break even. Did not think it was wise thing to keep on trading while I might be needing those funds very soon.
Estimated come back time would be the last quarter of 2019.
Stay safe and best wishes to all,
Kanepa.
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HI, All. The business take over did not went well. Seller got greedy and demanded side deals and other benefits which was not in contract. I made a final decision to walk away from the deal. At this moment, I am pursuing opening up small restaurant/take out place and it's getting ready to be open in December.
Walker system.(not original. applied a few different filters to reduce draw down)
I will risk max DD of 7,000. Right now the system's DD is at 4500 ish. Will be adding 3000(2,500 plus 500 for margin=3000) per contract to see if it can ever made back to full 7500(D+500 Margin) balance per contract.
Plan to send in 18,000 to trade 6 contracts. There are two possible outcome.
1. System loose to Max allowed DD at -7,000 and throw in a towel. (18,000-(2,500 X 6)=15,000 of loss.
2. System gains to full D(7,500 X 6=45,000) Gain of 27,000
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Hope so! I have done what I could have using my limited time and skill level. Let's wait and see how market behaves. Either it will be A)Account gains to balance of 45,000 or B)Account loses to balance of 3,000.
I am planing on sharing account balance every month.
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There were 5 trades in December. 2 profitable and 3 stop losses. Gain of just above $100
There was it again. Hoping to win every trades, hoping for market to turn direction into my current position. Which was quickly identified as stupid emotion and was be able to focus on current task. Which is Do NOTHING!
Happy New Year!
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January. 6 trades. 3 profitable and 3 stop losses. Netting close to 1k for the month. As market became more volatile, system is staying away from trading.
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unprofitable month. 8 shorts. 1 profit and 7 stop losses. System is design to stay away from wild condition. Be careful out there and see you next month.
After a few attempt to catch the volatile down swing, I am left with around 13.5k fund to work with.
I have successfully made system relying less on fixed number of studies. It is now more flexible and adaptive. Still, it did not deviate too much from the original concept. Another big update is the system is now Long only.
First Target: A gain of $6500.00 to balance of 20k. Will update more in detail once..or if I make it to that level.
3,500 per contract to trade. I am about $500 shy from total funds needed(3500X4=14,000) But will begin the system trading as of today.
Two potential out comes.
1. lose 12k then system shuts off
2. Gain 6,500 to bring account balance to 20k. Max risk and Margin requirements will increase and planed risk/money management will be appiled.
Thoughts.
This system produces about 75 trades a year(past 15 years) There were 2 down years out of 15. Expect to be slow so be patience and follow the plan.
The system is hitting(back test result) is hitting all time high in profit. There might be a correction...or strings of losing trades can come in to normalize distribution of win and loss trades so hang in there.
s2
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First trade out of the gate is a losing trade. Stop was triggered, it was 1 tick away from the bottom then went up to profit target without my position.
Whenever these kind of trade occurs, I could not help notice my negative feelings. "market took me out by 1 tick and resumed rallying, reaching profit target without my position" "They are out to get me" But the truth is NO ONE cares about my positions. Never did and never will. I created excuses to deal with a losing trade by creating fake reasoning to make myself to feel better. It is unconscious behavior to protect myself but it is not a healthy one. Shifting blame to other direction can make me much more emotional because that hostility is not aimed at me.
So, I know the truth. All results are born from myself and I have to simply own all of it. Reading past journals and going over past trades helps me to stay in focus and calm. I am dealing with 54% probability and little better than 1.1 win/loss ratio system. Many more ups and downs are sure to come. So buckle up and lets enjoy the ride.
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Will stop looking for better version of my current strategy. I run a small restaurant which opened up in February of this year and it has been very wild. A lot of hours and now running it with bare minimum help makes me work hours a week which I do not even want to count. But whenever I have a time, early morning and late night, I sneak into my office and play with parameters or studies to see if I can make my system better. Need to stop that and catch more sleep..
Will continue to trade. See you in June or major update....whichever comes sooner.
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What percentage of gain on R.O.R do you guys find acceptable per year? Do you use sp500 for benchmark? I understand it could be vary depending on instruments and style of trading but was curious what you guys think. Thank you for your input!
As I initiated system to trade while it was near all time high in back trading, draw backs were expected and anticipated. Not much to report other than small changes has been made and will continue to trade. First goal of reaching 20k is still my first target......or go broke. Only those two possible outcome and market is in control. Only thing I can do is wait..Happy 4th.
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It was a bit uncomfortable to watch system performing so poorly at beginning. And who knows if it is not going to be more rough down the road. But I am glad the system has built a little wiggle room for that. First target of 20k, $2500 to go.
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A week to go for July and we are very close to hitting first target of 20k. It could happen soon or even if it does not, good to see account is up and to handle more draw downs if they were to come first. A profitable trade today netting 2,434.48
727
start(May 2020): 13550 current:19,123 +5,573
Equity Curve is breaking above all time high since new trading began in May.
727ec
As a small business owner, I have to work 6.5 days per week. Monday off is for me to go out and getting supplies for restaurant and doing paper work. So I get one evening off from work. With this busy schedules, there is not really anytime for do things for my pleasure or relax. But I do not hate it. As matter of fact, I sometimes enjoy it because it is a necessary sacrifice I have to make to reach certain financial goals, better quality life later and of course, paying bills.
To be able to work like that, my physical condition is important as well. While I can not work out everyday, I do once a week, full body work out for about 1 hour on Monday morning to keep myself in shape.
Anyway, I while I was getting supplies today, I decided to get some present for myself to celebrate when account reaches certain level. I realize that reaching goals can be soon, much later or never, wanted to prepare my award in case it does. Not only they are award for reaching dollar amount, it is also for following plan and staying disciplined.
Untitled design (30)
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What a journal! And what a journey! I'm truly impressed by your grit. You've thrown together multiple algorithms and traded them on stacks bigger than some people's yearly income. You've seen massive upswings and huge drawdowns. And all through this you've kept reporting your numbers.
Have you thought about how you could add more certainty about you performance? Or things that could do to check if your live results match what you would have expected from backtesting?
A simple example would be as follows.
Say you made 100 trades in backtesting. You take the profit and loss of all those trades and calculate two things: average profit and standard deviation.
Now say you have 40 trades in live. You do the same thing, calculate average profit of all trades and the standard deviation.
Now, if the avg and std deviation of backtesting and live trading are similar, you can use this as an indicator that your strategies are not over optimized / curve fit.
There are more ways to validate live performance, but this is a quick one that can be done in a few minutes.
At this time I only have small sample of real time trading to compare std deviations from back test and real trading. But once it reaches close to 50~100 of real time trades, I will begin to compare them. It may take a while since my strategy trades about 100 times a year. Appreciate you letting me know!
July and begining of August was profitable month. Brought account to 22k level. Smashing my first target of 20k.
At start, it was a bit of gamble I was using historic max DD as my total risk. Now I can give it a little more room to play. About 170% of max dd is in for my risk.
May 2020
Account: 13,554.20
Max risk: 3,000
Margin: 500
3,500 per contract
August
Account: 22143.18
Max risk:5,000
Margin: 500
5,500 per contract
Need to head out. more on new position sizing later. Thanks.
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I have considered adding more capital into trading account but finally decided against it. New business started Feb of this year. Then Cov19 hit. As a small restaurant, It is surviving by cutting costs and me playing multiple roles. Times like this, I believe it would be a wise move to save reserved cash. At beginning, I had a plan to run it myself then slowly hire necessary personals and step out if it's daily operations to concentrate on other aspect of business and look for other business opportunities but as we all seen it, The Cov19 hit us hard. Resulting me to work more than 70 hours a week. Although I may not feel rewarding working that many hours for business to just survive, I will continue to do what is necessary and beyond. Better days are coming.
May 2020
Account: 13,554.20
Max risk: 3,000
Margin: 500
3,500 per contract
August
Account: 22143.18
Max risk:5,000
Margin: 500
5,500 per contract
-Position sizing.
Now to account 50k:
I wanted to increase contracts for a gain 150% of total risk(150% of 5500=8250) but do not feel like counting to small dollars. So to make it simple, Will add 1 car for 8k gain and reduce 1 car for 5k loss.
Account over 50k:
Gain of 10k(increased by 2k) to add a car. Loss of 5k to reduce a car.
Account over 100k:
Gain of 12k(increased by 2k) to add a car. Loss of 5k to reduce a car.
Next step:
Account at 30k, add a car.
Account at 17k, reduce a car.
Thanks.
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Equity is off from it's high but we are staying in green. I am pleased to be able to increase total risk amount from 3k to 5k per car using profits.
a4
Total trade of 48. Not enough to do std deviation or other meaningful test. Will do so when it reaches 100. Win rate is lower than back test and win/loss ratio is higher. I believe it will bring itself to normal in time.
a3
I will send in about 5k once account breaks above 25k. This will be returned back when account breaks above 50k level. Same position sizing and still working on 30k to add and 17k to reduce a car.
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"I will send in about 5k once account breaks above 25k. This will be returned back when account breaks above 50k level. Same position sizing and still working on 30k to add and 17k to reduce a car." This happened sooner than I ecpected.
ab
start(May 2020): 13550 current:24857.82 +11,307.82
Plus Ninja trader is sending me a $126 as a form of refund. That will bring account to 24,983.82
That is good enough for me. Sending 5k to boost account. will be trading 1 more car from today.
eq
9/1 profitable trade took equity to new high.
Next step.
Account at 38,000 add a car.
Account at 25,000 reduce a car.
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Two days off!! LOL Yup I decided to close restaurant for 2 days for labor day to get much needed recovery time from physical and mental work. I gave my employees paid time off too.
Here is the system I was originally trading in November 2017. walker
See how it made a nice run in 2017 and early 2018 the started deteriorate? and this is even worse. This is the second system I introduced to trading.
runner
Both system has profitable 15 years or so until they started to go down. I want to tell myself that at any given day, any system can start to perform poorly. So not to get too attached on one single system or rely heavily on them. Algorithm trading is not out there to hurt me nor help me. It has no emotions and it does not care. Much like the market. As a operator of such systems, I am the only one who gets emotional reactions depending on results. And I am trying to eliminate them as much as possible.
I came a long way. I no longer have desire to put any manual trades over system and deals with losing trades, winning trades, and trades that stops out and market turns and reaches profit target area much better. But I am not at free of problems. This I will talk about it later.
No slippage was applied so it does look better. So far, out of around 50 trades, there was 4 trades had 1tick negative slippage and 1 tick positive and 1 trade disappeared from back test. Which, I think, is acceptable range of error.
System was tweaked a bit in June and July. It was changes of exiting trades and one of long parameter. No new indicators was introduced. That is why we see a bit difference in results. This is real trading and back test result from same period.
Real trading has less profit factor, more trades, almost identical percent profitable and less avg win/loss ratio. Will be doing same comparison around Christmas time since that will allow me to get another 2 days off.
5k check has been sent.
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start(May 2020): 13550
Additinal deposit: 5,000
current:24,594.22
result 2020: +6044.22
oct20bal
October trades.
oct20
Equity curve from May 2020. still in positive territory.
oct20eq
Target remains same as last month.
Next target.
account at 33,000, add a car
account at 20,000, reduce a car.
I will be updating when account is adding or reducing contracts or major updates. Monthly report seems unnecessary as current system if very low frequency trading.
Thoughts.
I have experienced with emotions with ups and downs but this would be the first time dealing with emotions when account is going nowhere. ups and downs, losing and winning to just produce similar account balance as it was three month ago. This is different frustration than when account balance is going down. Best way to describe would be disponing and bored at the same time. It seems to be bothering me more than when I had losing streaks but it could be true because it is happening now. Anway, no changes. Will continue to trade.
Thinking about waking up 1 hour earlier everyday to do more testing and researching. Restaurant work is physically demanding. Need to come up with a way to balance schedules so I do not tired myself out. Besides working out full body for 1 hour for 1 day a week, I added 10min work out in the morning. Slow squats and shoulder workout. Been two weeks and liking result.
Till next update. Thanks!
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Thankful to @TopGunNote 's post about Allen Carr's book about stop smoking, I had a pleasure to read the book myself. After while, I found it a little odd that Carr used mainly women as his case study and not a single male case was mentioned early in his book. More than half into his book, I realized something was off. Reading about pregnancy and women networking better than male got me to turn the book to it's cover and there it was "ALLEN CARR'S EASY WAY FOR WOMEN TO STOP SMOKING"
Although I had finished the book, I could not stop smoking right away. I believed that order for me to stop smoking, a correct instruction was a must have.... It was a weak smoker in me trying to prolong my smoking a little further. So, correct book was bought and read. Actually, read it about 3 to 5 times and after a few or trial and errors, as of 630 PM November 29th, I became a non smoker. 4 th day to be exact and feeling mostly positive and happy. Voice is clear, resting heart rate is at 70s etc. I have been a smoker for about 30 years and now I have very little to no desire to smoke.
Thank you TGN and Allen Carr. If you are a smoker, I do recommend his book.
Will update account soon.
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With just 2 more trading days left for this year, I would like to share a good news. We are profitable for this year. 2020's total investment was $18,550.00 and it returned $8,350.38 to total account balance of 26,900.38(After data fees)
Here is trading performance and account equity graph:
2 3
Target remains same as September.
Next target.
account at 33,000, add a car
account at 20,000, reduce a car.
Statistics are still further away from what back test results was showing covering about 14 years, but I find it worth for me to continuing betting in 2021 with same system because sim trades are almost identical with real trading results. To be exact, there was 1 real time losing trade which disappeared from later back testing result, total of 12 negative tick slippage and 3 positive ones out of 88 total trades.
Restaurant update: Tons of stuff to do but I am thankful it is surviving. Many extra hours for me but I do not mind.
Smoking update: tomorrow would be the 30 day anniversary of me becoming a non smoker.
Thank you, Hope you all have wonderful Holidays and Happy NEW YEAR!!
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4 trades so far. 3 stop outs and 1 profit. 1 trade had 3 tick negative slippage.
2020 was very interesting year. Life got very hard so fast. While adjusting with long restaurant hours, pandemic also arrived to make everything else difficult. But I have survived and achieved a few goals I had for myself in 2020.
*Survive(business)
*work out
*become a happy non smoker
*hit certain number in sales with restaurant.
*Do Dragonflag with proper form.
Goals for 2021
*hit certain number in sales with restaurant.(work on new menu, promotion and other ways to increase sales)
*Continue to work out everyday but Sunday. 15 minute in the morning for Tuesday to Saturday. Heavy work out on Monday morning for about 1 hour.
*payoff car note.
*continue to be a happy non smoker.
*Continue to let the system trade. Do not interfere and only react by the plan.
*front lever hold for 60 second.
*bicep curl with 100lb.
*Save certain amount for buying a gift for wife(Christmas).
*Find 1 profitable strategy.
Can't even hold front lever for a nano second now but I began the training.
On system trading, I might have to re visit old strategies and test it out on different markets. Almost everyday I come up with ideas and write on journal and test it on Monday with results that I would not trade in real market. So far, I only tested on ES because of liquidity but might extend to other markets with decent volume. I have not tested new ideas that I had last few weeks. I think I am getting tired of keep finding my ideas not tradable.
Well. Here we go 2021. Good luck and stay healthy.
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Since New high on August of last year, it is not going anywhere. Last couple trades were ahead by more than 10 points but market tumbled down and made them losers. I was angry. I was disappointed. I was tempted to just take a points and lock in those profit but I did not. Backrest showed trailing stops and set profit targets did not work. I know the backtest results can not be 100% trusted but what else is out there for me to rely on?
System's max recovery time is at 411 days. It will have a down year or two. Let's be patience and follow the plan.
Next target.
account at 33,000, add a car
account at 20,000, reduce a car.
*Two month since I became a happy non smoker.
*other than 2 days when my lower back did not feel good, I exercised about 15min per day and 1 hour on Monday. 15min work outs are super sets with minimum rest to training cardio and strength.
Front lever update.
When I said 60sec hold for front lever, I had no idea it was almost record setting time. Many aim for 10, 15 seconds of hold time. Well...keeping 60 second as my goal. For February, do dragonflag hold and lat pull to gain more core strength.
See you later.
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I should not feel frustrated. How many systems or traders go bust on daily basis? Give in to fear or hope? I sure have been there and made so many stupid mistakes resulting busted accounts. Rather than frustration, I should be congratulating myself on how well I have followed my plan.
I got angry looking at myself sobbing and getting disappointed on how my account is not making a stellar performance. The main thing I asked, at beginning of this journal, was to develop enough mental strength to follow my own rules. Even if I lose again. I wanted to lose following my own damn rules. Not jumping up and down making emotion based gamble trades. And I have accomplished the goal. I can follow my rules now. I have done a great job hanging in and react accordingly. And also, will do great job in future following my rules. Good job, me!
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I can allocate my energies more efficiently to do positive tasks since a lot of them are saved by not having to punch monitors, slam desk with fist, slam keyboard, dropping f bomds and blame everything else but me.
Snow day. Restaurant closed. Most of day spent on watching market, back test some of ideas, shoveling snow. and watching trade. System traded today. It was a the most profitable trade in 2021 and since inception, it comes in 5th.
unnamed (1)1
Best way to stay disciplined and following plan is seeing many of these in real time. Well, You gotta have an edge. A tested edge which might disappear tomorrow but thats another subject for later. Having tested edge and risk/profit management plan is a must to have. Without that, no amount of self discipline will save me from agony. And matter of fact, more discipline you are, more pain you have to endure if an edge is missing from trading plan. I still have trouble seeing these kind of trades, but I do not interfere with system.
unnamed
thiswillhappen
Watching those trades helped me gain mental muscles to take it on a chin and be OK with it. It is not pleasing to look at but there are other trades like this. Might have to wait awhile but it sure will come.
needthistoo
I still like to see winning trades than losing ones.
So, keep at it with current system. Keep testing other ideas and markets. Keep working out. Keep working hard at restaurant. will update balance on February's report.
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Profitable month. Still in same 4 units of risk since 9/20/2020. account need to break above 33k to add 1 unit.
Targets:
account at 33,000, add a unit
account at 20,000, reduce a unit.
*Three months since I became a happy non smoker.
*exercised about 15min per day and 1 hour on Monday.(Off Sunday)
Front lever update.
Can not do 1 second yet. Adding dragon flag hold into work out. aiming for good 30 second hold for 2 sets. Practice 3 times a week in the morning in March.
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Account at 32,521.02
478.98 away from target to add a unit. So close..so close.
Targets:
account at 33,000, add a unit
account at 20,000, reduce a unit.
32521 is as good as 33k. Add a unit. OR target is a target. Rules are rules. Wait till the conditions are met. I know what I am going to do but what would you do?
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In case of you are wondering. Nope. I did not add on a contract. @lightsun47 Thank you!
Balance as of April 1st 2021
4121balance
start(May 2020)total deposit: 18,550.00
current balance:30,029.34
result: +10,678.38
-2021
Balance 1/1/2021: 26900.38
current balance:30,029.34
result: +3128.96
Cumulative chart
4121cumulativenet
March Trading
march21trading
March of 2021 had two trades stopping out then market turned to original position. Which lead me to do another optimizing test on stops using different periods and amount. Well the current setting is the best 1, 2 and 3 years. I knew that it was the case but could not help to run another analysis just to put my mind at rest.
As I am gaining more experience in algo trading, I am becoming more conservatives towards to risk. You would think it would be opposite. Making money so far so I should deposit more and trade more contracts. I thought I would done the same but no....I am more skeptical about my system than when I first started. Curve fitted or not, a back tested profitable strategies is exactly what it is. It WAS profitable until now. But from now? well..I need to continually keep betting BELIEVING that strategy will work. I am not sure why I am not as optimistic as I was at starting but that's how I think of it now. I will be very cautious on deposit anymore cash into trading account.
*Four months since I became a happy non smoker.
*exercised about 15min per day and 1 hour on Monday.(Off Sunday)missed 2 days in march.
*Front lever update.
Finally! 3 full seconds! 57 more seconds to go! I had strength of core, back and leg. It was combining all together was difficult. for this, my goal is have 10 seconds of good form by July.
Thanks, see you next month.
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Upper point of action set on 9/14/20 has been reached. Adding 1 more unit of risk(contract) to 5 contracts from 4.
Point of action.(8k to add, 5k to reduce)
Upper level: At 41k, add 1 unit. total of 6
Lower level: At 28k, reduce 1 unit. Total of 4
RECAP.
5/11/20
system started with 13.5k. Target was 20k. Total risk pool was 3k per contract. trading 4, we wanted to increase maximum risk per contract.
8/7/20
20k reached. Increased per contract risk to 5k from 3k. Upper point of action was 30k to increase 1 to 5 total and 17k to reduce 1 to 3 total.
9/2/20
25k has reached. sending in 5k to boost account to 30k. increased unit of risk to 5 from 4.
Point of action:38k to increase, 25k to decrease.
9/14/20
25k touched. reduced by 1. trading 4 from 5.
Point of action:33k add 1 to 5. 20k, reduce 1 to 3.
4/10/21
33k touched. Increase by 1. trading 5 from 4.
Point of action: 41k, add 1 to 6. 28k, reduce 1 to 4
Summarized what has been happening in last 11 month. previous post image is sim trade account. Real account had 4 longs. Always turn them on for tick for tick comparison. Trade produced about 20 points per contract. I do not know which point of action will be touched first and when it will be happening but I know what to do when it happens. @41k, add. @28k, reduce.
EX
