Monday, November 1, 2010

Mon. 11/01

1:35pm CDT - Nothing but losers today as the sole winner was last night after the grains opened. These things happen but days like this make you question everything about any "edge" you may think you have. I had to look back to see when I last had a losing day worse than this and I had to go way back to March 2, 2009. So maybe it's just an outlier? Either way, time to do some more homework. Losses would have been much less if I had a fixed stop loss (which I recently got away from). Instead, losses were greater because the swings today were greater so I gave trades more room to work, as per plan, but they stopped out anyways.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$2514(27), ZC -$428(3), ZW -$1006(6)
RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:36
Net $P/L:-3948
Wins:1
Losses:7
Win%:13
Avg$Win:660
Avg$Loss:-658

4 comments:

  1. MBA... you hate to hear it much as I hate to repeat it. But the truth is the truth. No one on earth can be profitable over time without fixed stops that ensure smaller averaged losses than wins.

    Anything else is statistically impossible over a long period of time. How many times do you want the market to remind you of this universal law?

    A "trading edge" is easy to come by and much, much cheaper than the -$3950 tuition you paid for one sole lesson today. The market is speaking to you again... please heed its advice :)

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  2. My day wasn't much better. Instead of stops my issue was missing two that would have helped me.

    I guess we both paid a little tuition today...

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  3. Austin, if a "trading edge was easy to come by" 90+% of traders would not fail. But I hear what you're sayin'...

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  4. well, the "edge" itself is easy to come by. managing oneself as part of the overall edge is a completely different story. self-management is a big part of any edge, discretionary or mechanical... no way to circumvent that part of the equation :)

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