MightyMouse

Sick, are you trading 6A futures?

Isn't it safe to say that every strategy will not work if the individual employing the strategy does not know how to trade? And, the market will "neutralize" any mechanical trading system after a period of time?

Thales, I have been involved in similar discussions and it ends up with a bunch of name calling and I don't have the energy for it, nor do I want to dirty your tread with it. I have already discussed the need to pay taxes on returns and debated my poor use of "one" when I rightfully should have used "I". However, I trust that you know that the answer to that question depends on a lot of variables that are different for every single trader. I use the word reckless to categorize the behavior that might cause you to blow up your account in a very short period of time. MM

We pay taxes on everything we make every year in the USA. There is no avoiding it unless you are very poor. It is crystal clear to me that there are lots of ways to accomplish things. but thanks anyway for your advice and I hope that you and your mind accomplish all that you set out to accomplish and have a good time doing it.

I am 100% sure that there are traders that are 100 times better than me at trading, the thing is that I am not 100% sure that there are traders who are 100 times better than you and if I was 100% sure that there were traders who are 100 times better than you, I wouldn't care to point it out. At a 30% tax bracket it would take a 37% annually compounded rate of return to have an account worth +- $ 1,000,000 at the end of 20 years if you started with $10,000 today. I did not mean to imply that I thought I could do that in 20 years because I know for a fact that I can’t unless I get incredibly lucky. I simply threw 20 years out there as a large number. And, I apologize for crushing dreams if your dream is to make that type of return. More power to you. Make sure you pay taxes in your dreams too because they will get taken out every year.

Thales, 1. I need to have at least enough equity in an account to be able to hold overnight in a futures account because of the way I trade and preferably enough to be able to add a contract and hold overnight. 2. I wouldn't try to race to a million with, say, 10k in an account. I do not have that kind of "play money" and one would need to get reckless to try to make a million with a $10k account in anything less than a 20 year period. So, simply the trader with the highest balance at the end of the period would work just fine for me. If that person makes it to a million, he would clearly be the winner. 3. My thinking is that if everyone were to trade the same contract or instrument, then it would be more similar to a no limit Hold'em tourney where everyone gets the same chips to start and plays exactly the same game instead of everyone running into a casino and playing which ever game they please. 4. Auditing rules? I am not sure. But could it be sponsored by a broker and we each had an account with that broker? That might work. Lastly, I am not suggesting that I do not like what you guys are doing. Simply, that I cannot participate because I do not trade the way I would have to trade to participate and also I can't dedicate the time to trading for fun similarly to the way others have expressed. Good luck to all those who are participating. MM

Brownsfan, The odds are that you could enter the race and win simply by not trading. Please do not take this as a negative post regarding the trading abililities of those involved, since I really believe there are skilled traders participating; instead, it is a comment regarding the difficulty of the task at hand.

Interesting thread. I am sure that this will be a close race. I will not be participating since I will get nowhere with a $3000 account. Unless, there was a quickest blow up category. I have proved to myself time and time again that I can't scalp, and there is no need to prove it again. In the future, I would consider doing this if we could do it with a larger account size and other rule modifications, such as everyone trade the same instrument, different account auditing rules, etc. Good luck to all.

Well, people who do it, do not think there is discretion involved, in spite of the fact that systems need to constantly be tweaked.

When will you sell it for $500,000? When you are certain that it doesn't work anymore? Who is going to want it then? You should sell it now!

Out of curiosity, how does it jump a stop loss? Or, why would it jump a stop loss?

In the beginning somewhere I think I said that I need 25K a contract to support a 2% stop per contract which means like $500 or so in risk everytime I click go. Actually from reading some of the threads on TL I can see why you guys think I might be scalping with a $500 stop on 1 contract. But, I would never risk so much to make so little unless I was a 100% winner.

It is part of the reason why I don't scalp. I tried for a fairly long time and, simply, I suck at it. I feel like the small stack at the final table of a poker tournament. So I stay away. It's certainly fun, but I am doing this to make money.

I do keep notes and ledgers of everything i do and I rarely day trade. Unless, I am very fortunate to hit my target in a short period of time or very unfortunate and get stopped out right away. Otherwise, I'm in a trade for about 24 hours to about 5 days but there is no set time. I use a wide stop, but I look for large targets.

Risking 2 to make 1 ( as above) with 60% winners and commissions of 4.72 is about a -$12 (guessing at it but I am pretty close) expectancy per contract traded. It simply tells me that this is a lot harder than most people think.

Blowfish, I call any extra movement the market makes that costs you money or that you do not benefit from slippage. If you get into the market and want to get out break even, in most cases the market has to move up a tick for you to do so. If you ever accidentally enter a position and are praying to get out even instead of taking the 1 tick or more loss, you should know what i am talking about. That is part of what I call slippage, in addition to trading 6j, getting your stop hit and realizing that you were filled 5 ticks below. Slippage, as I use the term, is part of the reason why results do not meet expectations when trading live. It is especially important in smaller trading areas since a tick could be 1/8, 1/5, 1/4, or etc of your profit. Regards, MM

Blowfish, Risking 8 to make 8 at 60% with a tick of slippage, nets you about 3 bucks a contract. That is if you strickly follow your 8 to make 8 plan. So, taking 10 trades, you will make $30 a day and not 150. $30 is better than losing. When you enter buy limit and sell limit orders, you are giving a tick on at least 1 side of the transaction. If you are trading small areas, you'll be giving a tick on both sides of the transaction. To get stopped out, price only has to travel 8 ticks against you To make 8 price, generally, has to travel 9 ticks. I have had slippage on es stops too. They happen a lot more often in 6j, 6a, zb, etc.

That is exactly why accounts get drained: taking too large a risk, with too little a reward and a poor expectancy.

I do not achieve 60% accuracy in average on my trades thus far its that simple. I do use large stops, but also large targets. Achieving 60% is pretty tough to do if you are targeting more than a 1:1 R/R. If you have learned how to pull a point out of the market everyday per contract traded then you're on your way to the riches you seek. That would be about 1000 a month per contract traded. If you can figure out how to pull a tick out of the markets everyday, you'll be on your way too. The lure of such simplicity has drained many accounts.

It's a matter of style/preference. I can't take a trade with a stop a few ticks away which if you want to employ that trading strategy you mentioned, you need to do larger larger size and tight stops and you need to be very accurate If you are risking 4 ticks to make 5 ticks, taking into account commissions and 1 tick of slippage, at 60%, you'll net about 28 cents a contract. So, that means you need to trade about 1000 contracts to earn that 250 a day. At 50% the strategy is a loser. If you risk 8 to make 10, then your net after commissions and a tick of slippage is $17.78 per contract at 60%. So you need to trade somewhere around 15 contracts to earn $250 a day. At 50% that strategy is a loser. I am calculating these with a $4.72 per contract in commissions and $12.5 per tick. I am not that accurate so my trades are considerably different and require more capital per contract to trade.

Basically, I am underfunded. And it is very difficult to grow an account as fast as I want to when volatility slows down.

It depends on how you trade. If you are taking trades that have $350-$750 of risk per trade and you want to keep the risk at about +-2% of your trading capital then you need about $25,000 of trading capital for every contract you trade.You don't need to have it all in an account, but that is the amount of trading capital that you'll need to trade 1 contract. You can do the math for any other size risk you take.

Well if it produces results of only 20% a week you'll be at a million in about a year or so, give or take a few weeks. Personally, I am not sure if I can wait that long.

ktartarotti, 8 pages into this thread and it seems that no one has provided you with an answer to the your original question. I am making money consistently since the fall and at this point I am not sure that I can really refer to my profitablility as a permanent condition. If it is, I am still not making anything close to what I need to make a living. Even when I project ahead to where my account is large enough to retire from my other business interests, I will still need a healthy cushion to meet monthly expenses if trading profits becomes my sole source of revenue. You need money to make money trading. The amount of money you are going to need to make enough money to make a living is based on the type of trading you do and the lifestyle you live. Regards, MM

Do you always start with 1 contract?