jonbig04

I ended friday at -5 Today was rough at -7.5. Very proud of my trading today, just was a tough day all around. I caught small moves, but they were just too small as was the nature of today. I thought very highly of my short on NQ at 1193 at 10am or so. Didn't work.

it was stop or target. he has since seen his errors and has transferred to a more sane R/R.

lol! I was referring more to myself. Yes there is a huge difference, but I have prepared for it since day one...so that there won't be/is not. So in my case I can say there is no difference. But that is only because I made the preparations.

Thanks Jason. That bastard sabotaged me lol (jk). My trading has been crappy lately due to extenuating circumstances in my life I really dont want to get into, but I think everythings going to be normal. I missed 2 large trades I should have taken. Oh well. -2.5 for yesterday, not much to say and +20 for today.

Frustration is mounting. I'm beginning to feel like I can't trade at all. Bah. Both trades today were on ES, which I'm beginning to like more and more. First was a long at 861 at 9:56. No big deal here thing just didn't work. The next one however still has me bummed. I shorted at exactly 11:00. On the face of it, it sounds goof because at around that same time ES fell a blistering 38 points, my target was 10 or so. Anyways, the truth is that drop actually started at 11:02. My short was entered and stopped literally 5 seconds later, 2 minutes after that the bottom dropped out. I don't understand how I could short 2 minutes before a 4+ percentage drop in the S&P and still get stopped. Well heres what happened, I really don't understand this and maybe some of you could shed some light on what is actually going on. I watched vol etc and place a limit sell at 857.5. At first it looked as though I was going to miss fill, but then a buying frenzy pushed it up, triggered my sell and not 2 seconds later triggered my stop and continued up 5 or so points BEFORE dropping. This all happened within the space of 2-4 minutes. I don't buy for one second that the sell off began at 11:02, that insane buying that stopped me out was just before the huge sell off and was enough to move ES 5 points. Who does this? Who has the power to hold off a drop like this for 2 minutes by pushing up the ES that fast? They really screwed me today, but I just wish I knew how/why/who could do this. I don't think its a conspiracy or anything, but I know that the action that stopped me out just before the drop wasn't a coincidence. BTW I could be SIM, or could be trading multiple live contracts, I've decided that there is no difference

Yea today was the worst, the market moves just enough to fake me. I hate that.

Market really bugged me today. Anyways, I tried a long on NQ at around 1276 at 11:45. Look as though trend may continue up, but it came back down and stopped me. Then I tried a short on ES at 867 at 14:08. I let my hopes get up wit this one and I shouldn't have. My target was +10, and I think we got to +7 or so before the whole thing turned around at the end of the day and stopped me. BTW I convert all my points to NQ points. -5 for the day.

-2.5 on friday. +10 net for the week. Could be worse.

Thats my opinion too, his large stops make his accuracy possible, just like my large reward makes my inaccuracy profitable. But equating a large stop loss with holding on to your winners seems strange to me.

Haha, well that's a whole different discussion. Anyways, there has to be a reason most successful traders don't use an inverse r/r right? Mathematically you can take it into any extreme you like. Doing it though, day in, and day out may be different...for most traders it seems to be.

Mathematically, yes I see the points. Inverse isn't any different. Practically, though I don't think so. Of all the profitable traders, say here on TL, how many of them have inverse r/r? Of all the profitable traders in the world, I wonder how many have inverse r/r. I'm sure some do. In theory it seems to be able to work, in practice though, with leverage, emotions and plain old good bad bad luck around, I doubt its so clear cut.

Bah -2.5 (NQ) I was trading ES though, with a 1 point stop and 12 point target. Long at around 819 in the AM. Stopped me quick before the large run up. I hate it when that happens.

Hmm. I still don't buy it. Maybe if someone comes in here who trades consistently with such a negative r/r. A run of bad luck would set you back horribly. It's true than I'm bias because I see the ridiculous amounts of money that can be made by letting your winners run, but still risking 20 to make 6 day in and out, or cutting your winners and letting your losses run, seems like constantly dodging speeding cars on a freeway to pick up pennies. The size you would have to be trading to make it worthwhile, and if trading size what 3 or 4 stops would do to your account...I shudder to think. Especially for us noobs. I realize this is subjective, but having to hit 8 out of 10 trades just to stay green seems tough. Today for example, my net was -1 ES. I went long at around 9:50ish at 819, and was quickly owned. My target was at Ghigh, 12 points away. Now I will miss that trade most of the time, about 7.5 out 10, so we all know the math, but more importantly...I'm a friggin noob. My accuracy is only going to get better. Imagine the math at 50% accuracy , with r/r's from 1:8-1:12. To me that's the end goal-to risk the least and make the most, and I will ever have to risk a lot on a trade to progress. Granted, all that is subjective. I know the term risk can be skewed a lot of different ways too. Why make trading tougher than it is by risking a lot to make a little?

Thanks for the input guys. I guess mathematically its possible to succeed with such a negative r/r. So i'll let him know that some people can do it, but I still won't recommend it. As far as Im concerned, with the leverage of futures there should be only 4 types of trades: small losses, small wins, medium wins, large wins.

lol thanks!! Sucks.

He takes 12 or so trades a day, for the past 3 weeks or so. From what hes told me winners are usually around 80%. His r/r is 3.33:1. It just seems insane to me.

A friend of mine is just starting to trade (aren't we all) and in trading YM he has discovered that if he uses a 20 point stop, and a 6 point target, he will make money. Now, to me, nothing could be more ridiculous. The fact is though that he seems to be green over the past few weeks. Of course the large stop gives him very high accuracy, enough to be profitable over the past few weeks. But to me this seems very unsustainable, I mean risking 20 to make 6? However I can't seem to convince him. He says the negative r/r doesn't matter because the accuracy makes up for it. What would you tell this person? Am I wrong for trying to steer him clear of what looks to me like a huge dead end? My accuracy has been around 25-28%, taking trades with a risk reward of 1:8 to 1:10 so this goes against everything that I do. Any ideas?

owned today! -5 Oh well!

Makes complete sense, that's exactly why I used to scale 1 at +15 or +12.75.

Good points. I should probably explain my targets a bit more because I wouldn't really call them set. The only thing set is my minimum R/R requirements. I don't take trades for that have less than a 1:8 risk/reward. I do this because lets me not be accurate. As anyone following my journal knows, january was a tough month for me, but even in my worst week I was down 20nq. I can make that up on one trade just by maintaining a favorable r/r. My trades will only get better and I will only get more accurate, and when I do, i will net more and more profit. There are enough levels throughout the day to play with, so that im not exiting in the middle of nowhere. Today is a good example, i went long at 1182.75. there were a couple areas above that, globex high, previous days high, a s/r line from way back when, but ultimately the only one that made sense was an exit at 1205.25, which is also a major area. That gave 1:9 risk/reward, so I am able to pick an area in that range at which to exit. It just seems to me that most people simply don't cut their losses and let their winners run. I realize that's overused, but still it seems like people cut their losses short via trailing stops, moving stops, getting scared or whatever. Of course it depends on the system, but I'm willing to bet a large amount of traders would make much more if they simply held their winners longer via all in/out. Just my noob $0.02 though. Like I said though, it's mentally difficult. Today NQ went within a few points of my target and then retraced 10 points. i was a little scared, but I didn't touch that button! haha

One more quick note, the all in, all out approach definitely is the best way to go profit wise. If you dont believe me, test it on your own system. You will be surprised. Its mentally tough though. As far as Im concerned, im not going to let my own mind get in the way of making more profit.

I should never have napped today before end of RTH. I gave up 7 points by doing that. That won't happen again. I have been trading ES as well. Yesterday ES was great, I just missed a great long in the AM, while NQ was no where near satisfying my rules. Today it was the opposite and NQ was there for me. This was a decent losing streak for me, but I realize now that it was just that. I followed my rules and took each trade independently of the last, and things worked out. Just kind of preaching to myself here. I know now, that through rules and discipline, there will be no cash demon whatsoever.

No trades yesterday. took a stop for -2.5 in the AM, then a long for +22.5. +20 net done for the day, need a nap

I'm sure there's a million ways to do it. I don't know which is BEST. But here's how I do it. I bought a program called parallels for my mac. I installed that program, which when done, asks you to insert the windows operating systems CD (anyone will do nothing special). Then when its done doing it's thing, all you have to do is click the parallels icon and a screen pops up with windows in it. That's it.

Good points. It's really too subjective. For my style of trading, sometimes I have to have on to trades literally all day, from open to close. So there I am, sitting, so I surf the net and do all kinds of other stuff. Thats just my situation though.