brownsfan019

In another thread or two, there was a lengthy discussion on stopping after reaching a target. I didn't like it then and sure don't like the idea now. You say greed and I say executing your business plan and striking when the iron is hot b/c there will be cold days.

Thanks blu!!! I feel like a kid the night before Christmas. Who would have thought... take less per trade to make more in the end?!?!? Staring me in the face the entire time. I know, time will tell, but it feels pretty darn good right now.

And for anyone that suggests ending your day after reaching XXX profit, I will use today as a quick reminder as to why you cannot do that. I seriously thought to myself when I was up 4.00 pts on the day after 18 minutes of trading to stop. FOUR LOUSY POINTS. I could have literally left on the table 29.75 points. I doubt anyone here would suggest that walking away after +4 was a good idea. It's days like today that can make or break your month in my opinion. You must strike when the iron is hot b/c tomorrow could be a junk day. I can give back 2-4 pts tomorrow and still be way in the green. If I stopped after +4, there's a good chance 50% of that could be returned tomorrow. Make no mistake - I am in this for the money and the money only. In trading you are not saving the world or making the Earth a better place to live. I work from 9am - 4:15pm to crank out cash. That's it. Now what you can do with that cash is a different story, but you have to make it before you can do something good with it. Moral of the story as far as I am concerned - stay in the game all day, esp when you are on fire. Don't let fear of losing or 'giving money back' keep you on the sidelines.

WOW, WHAT A DAY TO BE TRADING LIKE THIS. Today was a great example of a day where serious money can and was made. NUMBER OF TRADES: 65 GROSS ES PTS: 33.75 NET ES PTS: 30.734 (2.32 COMMISSION RATE) WIN %: 66%% If every day could be like today, life would be very good. This was a great example of a day where taking small chunks can real add up. Outside of the nice down move in the afternoon, most other trades were taking small pops here and there. It can add up. I suggest you consider this if looking for something to exit on. Just my humble opinion but when my account is reflecting + $1535 NET PER CONTRACT traded, that grabs my attention. Great day today!! Now if the CAVS can pull off a win tonight it would be the great way to end the day!

Ok, gotcha. We agreed even though I did not clearly specify the levels. Daytrader: 1-12 trades per day Scalper: 13-100 trades per day Hyper Scalper - 101+ trades per day That's assuming you quantify the classification based on the amount of trades being done. I think that's fair criteria and sounds like walter does not. No one is right, I was just wondering what everyone thought.

Walter - I guess b/c of how much time, effort and money is in what I do, it's hard to just give it all away on an open forum. I understand that may not be in the spirit of the board, but trust me, my system is for sake of argument here. It's not in one clean thread, but it's here if willing to invest some time piecing it together. Here's what everyone knows on how I trade: $ Use candlestick analysis heavily $ Smaller stops $ Closer profit targets (now) $ Things are kept simple Take that with a couple of my charts and who knows. I personally place a lot of value on what candlesticks can 'tell' you. I don't necessarily use them in a traditional sense. In a post here, I suggested a poster try to 'see' what the candles are 'telling' him between the ongoing fight between the bulls and bears. EVERY single candle tells you something - who won, who lost and the occasional even fight. Once you know who just won the fight, you might be able to capitalize on that.

Tin - understand that this is a learning experience for me as well since I was trading no more than 10 in a typical day. It's an adjustment to say the least. But like I mentioned, it's much more 'fun' doing my job. I know that it's not supposed to be about fun, but if you enjoy your job, it makes life a little easier in my opinion. It was just an adjustment on my end - instead of saying I wish I caught that entire move with one trade, I am saying glad that I caught a good part of that move with many trades. Here's another example: around 12:30pm EST we started a nice downtrend. Since then, I have taken about 14 trades. All shorts, but not all worked. Of the 14, 6 failed and 8 worked. So a 57% win rate. Nothing exciting if you just look at that number, but it's yield nice returns as all wins are 1.25 and stops are .75 on average.

Coot - so what do you call the guy that trades more than dozens but less than hundreds? There's a gap there that needs classification.

Here's today's actual stats to help with the questions: NUMBER OF TRADES: 29 GROSS ES PTS: 15.00 NET ES PTS: 13.6 (2.32 COMMISSION RATE) WIN %: 67.8% ------------------------- That's my numbers from the AM session. Some might like that, some might not. I am personally cool with that. The key here is that I was extracting profits when there wasn't huge moves taking place. For example - I shorted 3 times near the open. Two of these produced profits. Take a look at your ES chart at the open - there's not much movement there for shorts, right? Well, taking 1.25 twice and one loss of .75 yielded profits. Going for a larger profit and that would have been a full loss. I prefer to make money.

Tin - my initial stop placement has not changed that much to be honest. Here's how it's worked for me: > Initial stop was always good in my opinion, some as little as 1-2 ticks. > When to exit was causing concern b/c of the fact that my stops are 'closer'. So, in order to get that +2 or +3, I might have to be willing to accept some heat on the trade, which was fine; however if you have a 2 tick stop and going for 8 ticks, the Risk/Reward looks incredible, but that 2 tick stop can be EASILY taken out. So, I thought, keep the stops at 4 ticks or lower (about 3 on average) and go for 5 ticks. I understand that the risk/reward may not be textbook or what others would call ideal, but for me, it works so far. In the end, you need to know where your break-even point is. In other words, what % of your trades can you win and still make money. For me right now, it's approx. 40%. Well, hitting 40% is not the problem. Now it's a matter of how much over 40% I want to get! You bring up some good points for consideration though when trading for smaller profits, but more often (I'll start a list here and we can update as needed): KEYS TO TRADING WITH A SMALLER REWARD, HIGHER FREQUENCY TRADING PLAN: 1) Commissions are important here, negotiate the lowest rate possible. At some point, need to consider a seat on the exchange. 2) Initial stop placement is critical. While risk/reward is always a consideration, in this setup your risk/reward is going to be closer to 1 to 1. If you can't accept that, do not attempt this. 3) Higher frequency can mean A LOT of trades for some people. I'll update my stats from this morning shortly. 4) Smaller profit targets SHOULD AND MUST increase your win %. If you are still not hitting profit targets after bringing them, something needs adjusted.

In this thread, http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f34/smaller-profits-yields-better-results-1869.html - I talk about taking 1.25 pts or 5 ticks out of the ES with regularity. My question here is - what are the types of daytraders? I've often referred to myself as a daytrader, but that can mean many different things. I think there's 3 distinct types of daytraders (those that only trade during RTH and hold no positions overnight): 1) Daytrader - takes a handful of trades during the day. 2) Scalper - takes more trades during the day, looking for smaller moves and many of them. Trades are in the ballpark of 100 trades per day. 3) Hyper-Scalper - this is the black box or trader that is basically taking 1-2 ticks all day. Trades are in the hundreds per day. I posted this in the futures forum b/c that's all I trade and all I'm interested in for purposes of this discussion. So what do you think, are there other types of daytraders? Would you add/delete to my list? The only purpose behind this for me at least is to figure out what kind of trader I was, am and will become. It's nothing more than just classifying yourself as a type of daytrader. I'm just wondering what I should say if another trader asks what kind of trader I am.

I'm still using a 5000 VBC Chart. Entries are little more 'flexible' now, but so far, well worth it. Nick - commissions are important when taking 1.25 on the ES. That's for sure. My current negotiated rate is under $3.00 round trip and that will be changing soon after the broker sees the trading over a longer timeframe. As time progresses however, I will have to look at just getting a CME seat for purposes of lower fees. If anyone has info on this, please start a thread!!

I can see where Bramble was coming from; however it could have been phrased a tad more friendly. I think the point was if the doc was adding value to the forum or simply using it as a way to peddle her services. I'm not going to comment on either, but it's a valid question. As others have said, there's a few threads in her forum (I started one) that have yet to get a response from the doc. We are having good discussions there, but point is that these posts were put in her forum on purpose. If she's planning to be a contributing member here, then contribute. Perhaps something happened and she's unable to get to the forum, but as a new vendor/contributor it would help if she was actively contributing.

Hey guys, Great responses already, thanks!!! I will take the ideas into consideration. In response to particular posts: Cooter - I've considered a setup like the suggestion many times over. What I have found, for the way that I trade, getting the 1.25 pts over and over is easier and more likely than catching the +2 or +4. I'm not saying that trades don't go there (eventually) but I'm much more interested in grabbing the 1.25 and then looking for a reason to jump back in if one presents itself. Walter - Yeah, I guess by most definitions this way of trading is more scalping. I always considered scalping going for 1-2 ticks, but anyone could argue that 5 ticks is scalping. It won't be easy at first, but time will tell if I can make it work. Leroy - in my opinion, I'm not sure that any trades have a real high or low odds scenario when going for 1.25 ES points. What I mean is, just about any trade can realistically hit that profit target. I've often thought of ways to filter trades but in the end, I come back to just take all your setups, esp if just looking for a 5 tick pop in your direction. Thanks for the feedback guys and I will do my best to post some statistical updates here as well!

So I resisted starting this thread initially, but for whatever reason, felt like sharing today. In my pursuit of a better exit strategy (as evidenced in my time at the WRB thread) I've looked and re-looked at just about everything - Fibs, pivots, trailing, fixed, etc. etc. And for me, I came to this conclusion - simpler is better and taking small bites out of the market is much easier than trying to devour the elephant at once. Yes, we'd all like to take one trade a day and let it run on trending days and stay out during chop or whatever, but you don't know what type of day is ahead of you till after the fact. And since you can't win if you don't play, that's no use to me. So I went back and forth on this topic over and over recently - the topic of how/when to best exit for me and my trading methodology. And while I had been using a +2 point target before and during my WRB analysis, one thing stood out and the light went on - getting +2 on my trades with no risk to my initial stop was pushing the limits some days. Some days +2 is just not there. And then I realized that +1 - +1.5 was very achievable time after time. So then I asked myself if those extra ticks were worth the additional risk and stress to get. I of course thought probably not. And then after realizing that taking +1.25 was achievable over and over, and then realizing that sometimes you just have to jump back onto a trade if another valid signal arises, I was able to become more nimble this week, esp today (Wed 6/6). In a nutshell, I found for me that taking LESS in profits MADE me MORE money (at least this week and some previous backtesting). I realize that this could blow up in my face at a later date, but I'm going on record here with my observations. The WRB thread helped immensely not b/c I realized that WRB's are not going to work for me, but with the comments others made, esp in the last few pages, I realized that I could take less in profits each individual trade and make more money each day. Or it at least has the potential to do so. The downside - some would say that I am 'over-trading' now. And at first glance, I get that. But if I told you that I could show you a way to make some money every day in the markets taking 3-7 trades or you could possibly make substantially more but would require many, many more trades (more on that later), would you be interested? I'm all about maximizing my work time. If I could take one trade and make a ton of money, I would. I have not found that however. What I have found is that for me (and this might not work for you, so please keep that in mind) taking multiple trades during the day and going for realistic targets is much easier. And to be perfectly honest, it's more fun. I'm active all day and really feel like I am doing my job. I don't know about others here, but taking 1 or 2 trades a day when you are a daytrader sucks. I know that if that works for you, then great and all that stuff, so please spare the lectures on why taking 1 or 2 is better. If it works for you, great, start your own thread. I've attached a couple very, very simple scenarios of how I have seen this way of trading work better for me. Please bare with me as these were drawn using SnagIt and I did it quickly for purposes of sharing here. Scenario 1 - Tending Day Scenario 2 - Non-Trending Day Basically, by going for more realistic targets on the ES, my profits are taken out much more often and being flexible provides a way to get back into a trade if need be. The key for me by looking for smaller targets is that on choppy or more range bound days, I can actually take some profits out of those moves. By going for +2 and/or a WRB, it wasn't always there on some of those days. That's probably enough for now. I could go on and on some more, but I'll try to post some updates/stats of how things are going here. I would strongly suggest to those looking for a possible exit plan to consider bringing your targets CLOSER vs. going for more!

Fish - funny you would mention that as that's something that's crossed my mind many a times. Start a new thread and see where it goes!

Welcome steph. My suggestion - keep it simple. Heard of information overload? I'm sure you got it right now. Find one simple trading methodology that you like and trade it. Give it a chance to work before jumping ship.

Pivot - I should have explained a little better... Basically by waiting for a WRB to show after a +2 move, a good majority of trades that fulfilled this were closed out at +2, give or take 1-2 ticks. Now, in order for me to possibly get +2.5 on occasion, I had to take much more risk to get those extra 2 ticks. In other words, while waiting for that +2 WRB to appear, price could retrace within the potential WRB candle and then I would be stuck... do I exit even though it's now at +1.25 or wait for another WRB to hopefully appear at +2 or higher? And as you can imagine, that's a losing game. So I just took a step back and thought - is the reward of maybe 1-2 ticks worth the additional risk of 4+ ticks? For me, no.

Paging Dr. Janice, you have a thread or two on TradersLaboratory to reply to.

Pivot - If I wasn't clear, that's basically what I have been doing. The main issue being that after it moves +2 and no WRB shows, then what? I know your definition of WRB could easily apply, but I was just looking for the visual WRB. And in the end I found that by looking for the WRB after a +2 move ended up resulting in many trades being exited around 1.75-2.5. 1.75 b/c if the candle closed as a WRB, but not at the full 2, I would still exit. I realize there's a few different ways you could construct the exit rules using some version of the above, but it was much more stress on me vs. just taking a fixed level and looking to re-enter.

Good point Tor. I never landed each and every whale that I went after, nor can I do it in trading. I can however get as many as I can, whether that's one large whale or a handful of 'baby' whales.

Agreed. 3 posts and all 3 a waste of space. Since everything here is 'junk' I suggest Mr. BigStreet take his precious comments elsewhere. I suggest http://www.elitetrader.com - your ego and useless posts will fit in well there.

Wow, thanks for sharing, very useful. :rolleyes:

You got it! I figured out that taking +2 and -1.5 on stops, I can have a 40% win rate (approx) and make money. Now, I'm not shooting for a 40% win rate, but it helps to break it down like that. If I can bat 60-75%, should be good in the long run by just simply taking out the position at +2. I know, keep it simple, right? :p

Fish - I wouldn't say that the entire plan was changed per say, I was testing a different exit strategy. As mentioned previously, entries and stops have never been adjusted during this trial. In pursuit of a better exit strategy I basically came to the conclusion that taking +2 over and over again throughout the day is much easier for me vs. taking one and hopefully letting it run or being able to do so. With the way that I enter and then taking +2 and looking for a reason to re-enter, you are correct when you get volatile days but not necessarily trending - you can get trades to take over and over and over... I suppose we can debate all day on the best exit strategy(ies), but in the end, I think it comes down to each trader's comfort level. Some guys can take 1 or 2 trades and let them run all day to see what happens. I personally like 5+ trades a day taking smaller chunks. It's easier on me mentally and keeps me active throughout the day.