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Guys, I've made a big error... I noticed my PnL was looking too good to be true and figured out I didn't have Tradervue set up for commissions and fees. I've gone through and corrected all trades in February to reflect these numbers. Here are the accurate graphs:
Gross (pre-expenses):
Net w/ commissions, etc:
As you can see, it has made a substantial difference; I went from profitable to just under break even. The big difficulty with the M6E contract is the high cost of commissions relative to the tick value; for me, it's $2.04 RT--M6E $1.25 tick value. If you use a lot of contracts to get to where you need to be, it'll suck you dry.
I've been considering making the switch to 6E when I re-fund my account and go back live. This has solidified my decision. I'll finish out the month on M6E and make the switch in March.
Apologies for the oversight.
Edit: after thinking about it more, I'm going to make the switch immediately. There are other shortcomings with tracking the 6E and trading the Micro in Sierra that just make it not worth the effort.
If that's the case @Rrrracer why not just trade spot fx. It seems to me commissions drive you to trade larger than you'd like. Spot allows you to trade any size for any trade.
@Pa Dax, I like futures and have no qualms with my current trade size, only the ROI that M6E offers. I did switch over to 6E for last night's trading.
Skipped the Asian session and took a nice three hour nap, only traded the Euro ETH. Was pretty much feeling it all night, some of my best trading yet (until the very end).
The good news: Final tally +143 ticks, a personal best.
The bad news: Gave up -95 ticks in profits with my losses, a substantial chunk at the end when I should have stopped or at least reformulated my theory. Directional bias kicked in again.
Note: I was going to report my P&L in ticks instead of dollars since the switch to 6E changed the $$ return by a factor of five, but that method doesn't include commissions, so... I'm open to suggestions? I could attach it both ways? The one attached today is showing P&L in ticks.
As to reporting, obviously, it's your choice, but I find that when I don't keep track of commissions, I end up fooling myself. They can be big enough to swing your results from good to bad, and you do have to pay them....
Probably both would be better than ticks alone, if you want to keep some continuity with the old M6E numbers, but commissions are part of the game.
In NT there is an option to include commissions in the tick results. it just rounds the tick PnL to nearest integer I think, after commissions. Nothing similar in SC?
Thanks @bobwest, I discovered that recently a few posts back!
SC doesn't have that capability as far as I know, and I've been using Tradervue anyway. I'll look deeper into TV to see if it has that functionality... otherwise I'll just post both.
My dumb robot had the right idea today shorting near the top, but aweful execution. As dumb bot continues to do dumb things, I am now sitting on a stockpile of ideas for improvement. I haven't decided for sure but I may take it offline for a couple days to focus on making those changes.
Just an aside: I really miss pure discretionary trading a lot. Participating in this thread the past few months, and continuing to observe successful intraday discretionary traders, has made me more convinced that Time was working against me in my effort to join their ranks. More specifically, the amount of time I was able to commit (just a couple sleepy-eyed early-morning hours per day) was not enough to get me over the hump. While I'm under these constraints I will continue to work on this automated approach, but also wait for an unknown future date when I have more free time to take on the challenge of discretionary day trading.
I'm thinking of using this market to get my feet wet creating and following a plan and rules.
What kind of R:R do you guys go for intraday? I'm thinking of testing a strategy w/ mostly 1 to 1.5 R:R.... 2 lots, 10, 15 or 20 tick stop w/ first target 1:1 in relation to stop, second target 1:2 in relation to stop (for total 1:1.5 on the whole trade).
I think it depends John. In strong trends I would go for profits 1:2 or 1:3. In trading ranges, especially tight ones it's probably closer to what you mention. 1:1.5 means you have to be right 2 out of 3 times to make money - check if your strategy delivers that. Ideally in a trend, you want to swing longer, take profits at new highs if the trend gets weaker and raise your stop to the nearest lower high (bear) or below a lower low (bull). But again, it all depends on your strategy.
