Jump to content

Welcome to the new Traders Laboratory! Please bear with us as we finish the migration over the next few days. If you find any issues, want to leave feedback, get in touch with us, or offer suggestions please post to the Support forum here.

  • Welcome Guests

    Welcome. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest which does not give you access to all the great features at Traders Laboratory such as interacting with members, access to all forums, downloading attachments, and eligibility to win free giveaways. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free. Create a FREE Traders Laboratory account here.

TheNegotiator

Which One Trading Rule Has Saved You the Most Money?

Recommended Posts

So we all have rules to adhere to when we trade whether we realise it or not. If not, I think we can all agree the likelihood of remaining in the black is low to zero. But is there one particular rule which for you personally, has made a BIG difference to your account size(%-wise)?

 

For me personally, it's not trading NFP. I always traded news very actively in the past and did extremely well from it as I had a newswire and a fast connection to the exchange, but more importantly I have a good feel for how the market might react in particular big economic releases. "Great!" you might say. But come non-farm payrolls, I seemingly turn into a rabbit in headlights. I can never really work out the flow or the reasoning. I reckon it's probably because so many people trade it aggressively that actually that 'flow' tends to not show itself to a high degree in the initial trading post release. I know that there are traders who love NFP day. But hey, one thing I'm sure of is that when I stopped trading NFP I saved myself time, stress and most importantly, MONEY!!

 

What's your golden rule?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The rule that has saved me the most money = take small losses.

(ie the rule that has cost me the most accounts = don’t take small losses)

Breaking the phrase up:

The ‘take’ part means getting to a place where taking any loss (in all but a few cases) does not move any of my biometric or subjective (SUD) measures at all. When individual losses do finally become truly da nada / meaningless – whole new opportunity horizons open up in the game.

The most obvious application of the ‘small losses’ part in most systems is never hanging on for a loser to come back. Set a dropdead out point. If it passes that point, eat it gratefully and gracefully.

Generally the best, but certainly not easy, way to apply this rule is researching and testing the very best type of loss levels to take for each individual system. For each system there is a best near or far, dynamic or fixed, single or arrayed, etc or etc. stop that needs to obliterate any and all ‘comfort level’ urges, impulses, tendencies, whatnot!

Further developing the concept (in some systems) means getting enough experience to be able to call a loser by its activity instead of its price level and exit before stop is hit. In one of my edges, since the profits take care of themselves, getting out and cancelling the stops before they are hit is actually the main focus of each trade in that system…

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

along with zdo, reducing my losses has helped saved me money, but definitely for me, I know the thing that costs me the most money when I break it is not having enough patience.

Going too early on a trade, (or not sitting in a winner long enough - though this is not about saving money) I would have to say lack of patience is my biggest killer.

When I wait, for just the right setup it seems so much easier.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Taking small stop outs is a good one although somewhat subjective. If you lose focus on your system and start changing your targets, you can trick yourself into thinking it's a small risk at the time.

 

I can definitely relate to you on being wide awake for trading Mystic! When I first started I had a bit of a trek to get into work, which was actually a good thing. After that I got a place right near the office and really just rolling out of bed into trading is not good for me!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

TN,

re; "Taking small stop outs is a good one although somewhat subjective. If you lose focus on your system and start changing your targets..." If you inferred that from my post, then I need to work on my 'communication' skills far more than did the feral child ... :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

actually - I try not to relate my stops too much to my targets. I try and look more at the bigger picture context, get the timing right with tight stops and then manage the trade after that. for me the whole 1r:4r risk to target mindset is merely historical measurement.

In short, maybe its against the grain but by focusing on my bigger context allows me to run tight stops without worrying too much about the targets - I let the market decide those.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Mad, I think this is a very useful rule when applied to heavily trending markets. However, I would also add that when a market is not trending at all and this happens much of the time short term, reversion traders who fade the market are the ones who are cleaning up. So it really depends on your timeframe I think. Long term trading I think that the rule makes more sense.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm, I see the benefits of what you are saying here Siuya. However, I also see an issue for at least for my way of thinking. If you keep the stops small and the market starts giving you smaller profits on winners and your loss percentage increases, you end up getting stuffed! So presumably you would want to have an overall profit target threshold for a particular strategy to be employed, which would likely be a combination of win:loss ratio and risk:reward ratio. So really, there is a minimum profit target as otherwise the method would fail. So the way I see it is coupled with a money management strategy, stops and profit targets must be related.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I know what you are saying Neg. My point is along the lines combining the bigger picture context, looking to get good entries, so that you can move to BE quickly - hence minimising the losses, yet when you actually get on something, you have to let it ride...... when it comes to stocks, there are often those things that are ten baggers that pay for lots of small losses. eg; apply this in simple maths to FX. Lets say you apply this and get it wrong 10 ten times, and loose .10 of a cent each time. You only need to get it right once to cover that - if you can get those 10 losses mainly to break even quickly then this increases your odds. However the next trick is to then run those winning trades.

Admittedly this works best for me as I have multiple instruments, and enough money to run opens. This also requires a way in which to keep putting on trades, building positions and being able to keep taking the opps when they occur.....this has been a bug bear for ages and ages for me. Trying to cover too many positions, ideas and trades requires computers - or lots of focus.

These methods all stem from my days as an option market maker who trades long volatility - every day you would have your time decay to cover, you would trade around trying to get this to break even (ie; covering your costs) and then every now and again trends would develop OR a big move would occur that made you money.

 

But I think this also can apply to many who trade shorter term as well. It seems there is always that trade off between entry timing, missing opportunities and how big a stop should be......and then relating this to a target adds a whole other dimension, and my thoughts on the matter (and I think that its possibly also the fact that I am terrible at expressing these thoughts on paper) is that the best thing to control is your intitial entry and exit, and then why add the extra element of something you have no control over, is a best guess (possibly based on past stats maybe - or back testing). I would rather give myself the opportunity, than limit myself.

(thats also not to say that you cant run profit taking systems in conjunction)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

  1. No contest. Cut your losses short. You have to learn the right way to lose before you can learn to win.
     
  2. Second would be follow your plan, and it's complement, no impulse trades.
     
  3. Third would be don't chase, wait for pullbacks.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

GCB, the simple ones are always the best! But the simpler they are, the harder some people find they are to follow. You have to see and understand why they are important rules. Essential rules in fact.

 

Siuya, I agree and you are pretty clear with your posts btw! I guess it just depends on what your style is as to how your profits relate to either each trade or your account.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Topics

  • Posts

    • Thx for reminding us... I don't bang that drum often enough anymore Another part for consideration is who that money initially went to...
    • TDUP ThredUp stock, watch for a top of range breakout above 2.94 at https://stockconsultant.com/?TDUP
    • How long does it take to receive HFM's withdrawal via Skrill? less than 24H?
    • My wife Robin just wanted some groceries.   Simple enough.   She parked the car for fifteen minutes, and returned to find a huge scratch on the side.   Someone keyed her car.   To be clear, this isn’t just any car.   It’s a Cybertruck—Elon Musk's stainless-steel spaceship on wheels. She bought it back in 2021, before Musk became everyone's favorite villain or savior.   Someone saw it parked in a grocery lot and felt compelled to carve their hatred directly into the metal.   That's what happens when you stand out.   Nobody keys a beige minivan.   When you're polarizing, you're impossible to ignore. But the irony is: the more attention something has, the harder it is to find the truth about it.   What’s Elon Musk really thinking? What are his plans? What will happen with DOGE? Is he deserving of all of this adoration and hate? Hard to say.   Ideas work the same way.   Take tariffs, for example.   Tariffs have become the Cybertrucks of economic policy. People either love them or hate them. Even if they don’t understand what they are and how they work. (Most don’t.)   That’s why, in my latest podcast (link below), I wanted to explore the “in-between” truth about tariffs.   And like Cybertrucks, I guess my thoughts on tariffs are polarizing.   Greg Gutfield mentioned me on Fox News. Harvard professors hate me now. (I wonder if they also key Cybertrucks?)   But before I show you what I think about tariffs… I have to mention something.   We’re Headed to Austin, Texas This weekend, my team and I are headed to Austin. By now, you should probably know why.   Yes, SXSW is happening. But my team and I are doing something I think is even better.   We’re putting on a FREE event on “Tech’s Turning Point.”   AI, quantum, biotech, crypto, and more—it’s all on the table.   Just now, we posted a special webpage with the agenda.   Click here to check it out and add it to your calendar.   The Truth About Tariffs People love to panic about tariffs causing inflation.   They wave around the ghost of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff from the Great Depression like it’s Exhibit A proving tariffs equal economic collapse.   But let me pop this myth:   Tariffs don’t cause inflation. And no, I'm not crazy (despite what angry professors from Harvard or Stanford might tweet at me).   Here's the deal.   Inflation isn’t when just a couple of things become pricier. It’s when your entire shopping basket—eggs, shirts, Netflix subscriptions, bananas, everything—starts costing more because your money’s worth less.   Inflation means your dollars aren’t stretching as far as they used to.   Take the 1800s.   For nearly a century, 97% of America’s revenue came from tariffs. Income tax? Didn’t exist. And guess what inflation was? Basically zero. Maybe 1% a year.   The economy was booming, and tariffs funded nearly everything. So, why do people suddenly think tariffs cause inflation today?   Tariffs are taxes on imports, yes, but prices are set by supply and demand—not tariffs.   Let me give you a simple example.   Imagine fancy potato chips from Canada cost $10, and a 20% tariff pushes that to $12. Everyone panics—prices rose! Inflation!   Nope.   If I only have $100 to spend and the price of my favorite chips goes up, I either stop buying chips or I buy, say, fewer newspapers.   If everyone stops buying newspapers because they’re overspending on chips, newspapers lower their prices or go out of business.   Overall spending stays the same, and inflation doesn’t budge.   Three quick scenarios:   We buy pricier chips, but fewer other things: Inflation unchanged. Manufacturers shift to the U.S. to avoid tariffs: Inflation unchanged (and more jobs here). We stop buying fancy chips: Prices drop again. Inflation? Still unchanged. The only thing that actually causes inflation is printing money.   Between 2020 and 2022 alone, 40% of all money ever created in history appeared overnight.   That’s why inflation shot up afterward—not because of tariffs.   Back to tariffs today.   Still No Inflation Unlike the infamous Smoot-Hawley blanket tariff (imagine Oprah handing out tariffs: "You get a tariff, and you get a tariff!"), today's tariffs are strategic.   Trump slapped tariffs on chips from Taiwan because we shouldn’t rely on a single foreign supplier for vital tech components—especially if that supplier might get invaded.   Now Taiwan Semiconductor is investing $100 billion in American manufacturing.   Strategic win, no inflation.   Then there’s Canada and Mexico—our friendly neighbors with weirdly huge tariffs on things like milk and butter (299% tariff on butter—really, Canada?).   Trump’s not blanketing everything with tariffs; he’s pressuring trade partners to lower theirs.   If they do, everybody wins. If they don’t, well, then we have a strategic trade chess game—but still no inflation.   In short, tariffs are about strategy, security, and fairness—not inflation.   Yes, blanket tariffs from the Great Depression era were dumb. Obviously. Today's targeted tariffs? Smart.   Listen to the whole podcast to hear why I think this.   And by the way, if you see a Cybertruck, don’t key it. Robin doesn’t care about your politics; she just likes her weird truck.   Maybe read a good book, relax, and leave cars alone.   (And yes, nobody keys Volkswagens, even though they were basically created by Hitler. Strange world we live in.) Source: https://altucherconfidential.com/posts/the-truth-about-tariffs-busting-the-inflation-myth    Profits from free accurate cryptos signals: https://www.predictmag.com/       
    • No, not if you are comparing apples to apples. What we call “poor” is obviously a pretty high bar but if you’re talking about like a total homeless shambling skexie in like San Fran then, no. The U.S.A. in not particularly kind to you. It is not an abuse so much as it is a sad relatively minor consequence of our optimism and industriousness.   What you consider rich changes with circumstances obviously. If you are genuinely poor in the U.S.A., you experience a quirky hodgepodge of unhelpful and/or abstract extreme lavishnesses while also being alienated from your social support network. It’s about the same as being a refugee. For a fraction of the ‘kindness’ available to you in non bio-available form, you could have simply stayed closer to your people and been MUCH better off.   It’s just a quirk of how we run the place and our values; we are more worried about interfering with people’s liberty and natural inclination to do for themselves than we are about no bums left behind. It is a slightly hurtful position and we know it; we are just scared to death of socialism cancer and we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is.   So, if you’re a bum; you got 5G, the ER will spend like $1,000,000 on you over a hangnail but then kick you out as soon as you’re “stabilized”, the logistics are surpremely efficient, you have total unchecked freedom of speech, real-estate, motels, and jobs are all natural healthy markets in perfect competition, you got compulsory three ‘R’’s, your military owns the sky, sea, space, night, information-space, and has the best hairdos, you can fill out paper and get all the stuff up to and including a Ph.D. Pretty much everything a very generous, eager, flawless go-getter with five minutes to spare would think you might need.   It’s worse. Our whole society is competitive and we do NOT value or make any kumbaya exception. The last kumbaya types we had werr the Shakers and they literally went extinct. Pueblo peoples are still around but they kind of don’t count since they were here before us. So basically, if you’re poor in the U.S.A., you are automatically a loser and a deadbeat too. You will be treated as such by anybody not specifically either paid to deal with you or shysters selling bejesus, Amway, and drugs. Plus, it ain’t safe out there. Not everybody uses muhfreedoms to lift their truck, people be thugging and bums are very vulnerable here. The history of a large mobile workforce means nobody has a village to go home to. Source: https://askdaddy.quora.com/Are-the-poor-people-in-the-United-States-the-richest-poor-people-in-the-world-6   Profits from free accurate cryptos signals: https://www.predictmag.com/ 
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.