Last year I entered with a terrible strategy. In fact it wasn't much of a strategy at all. I was rude to people who tried to help and I'm sorry for that and that will motivate me this year to KEEP TO MY STRATEGY.
My strategy is an entry based on Bollinger band breakouts system with wide initial stops and targets. Once in a trade I manage the trailing of the stop unless or until it hits the target. The basic idea is the classic trading tenant "cut your losses short and let your winners run."
I have found I am terrible at waiting for entries so I have coded rules for entries and manage trailing stop position manually .
How are you trading so many times in one day? I’m currently doing 1 - 3 trades in a day and I’m out. That many trades and I would feel whip sawed to death.
How do you feel at the end of a session like that?
The following user says Thank You to jmp470 for this post:
Hello. Yes it looks like that but Im working on reducing that.
The reason is I've coded my entries and I have a filter that knocks me out of trade if goes too fast in opposite direction Im entrering.
So I can have 5 trades on ONE bar before it breaks out or cancels. Thats why my trades are high. Its a trade off. I like cutting losses short. Even if I haven't really given it chance because once I do I like to let it ride.
A good portion of all those trades were a filter I have that exits positions if they exceed a certain limit against the position in a short period of time. I tried reducing the sensitivity but that didn't work, at least without eliminating it, so Im cutting the frequency by capping it. Will see.
So far I've been using a trailing stop method. Because I know from testing it, it seems superior to use a static stop. I decided to give it a try.
Live it was a disaster. Seem to hit stop everytime. Could be an unnecessarily bad streak but cant trade what your not comfortable trading so going back to trailing stop even if not optimal in the long run.
I have started a few journals here on futures.io and the main reason I always stop is because I change the way I trade. Slightly here and there and over time it ends up being quite different.
I struggle with starting a new journal now as I usually give up after my strategy seems to change all the time.
Well I like looking back and seeing my progress. Also it gives me perspective on the trajectory I've been on through time.
So I'm continuing this journal for two reasons...
1) I'm one hundred percent LIVE again.
2) Ive realized in the last few months of retrospection and study that I'm an "Always-In" day trader.
Number two has cause me so much grief over the years as I can't figure out why I'm always fighting myself.
Its because I don't believe we can predict the markets.
I don't believe we can pick tops and bottoms consistently.
I don't believe there will EVER be a perfect exit. (I don't mean the lucky ones... although I'll take them )
It also DOES NOT MEAN that I'm ALWAYS in the market. I just means I want to find the dominant trend and find the first way to get on and NOT get out until a change direction. And change direction then and manage trade from there.
I do get whipsawed alot, but... when I hit those trends they do pay for themselves and the losses many times over.
I guess you could say Im breaking even in my trading as I haven't had to add too my account in a long time and thats a plus for me. It goes up it comes down it goes up it comes down. But its not consistently going down.
)