Monday, December 28, 2009

2 Stops

2:50pm CST - Plan to trade lightly this week and that equated to 2 trades today. Had small profits on both trades before stops got taken out. Both went on to hit targets later in day of course. Such is trading...


Net breakdown: GCL -$155, ZS -$80
RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:2
Net $P/L:-235
Wins:0
Losses:2
Win%:0
Avg$Win:0
Avg$Loss:-117
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 28, 2009 at 5:56 PM

    Keeping losses small doesn't mean keeping unreasonable tight stops. It's more about keeping them small in relation to your wins. It's worth plotting the ratio over time if nothing else.

    I'm guessing from your equity curve plots also that you're using some kind of momentum trading strategy that has long drought spells in between trades and huge wins here and there.

    Personally, I think you could benefit from a decent backtesting platform that optimizes parameters for you.

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  2. MBAGearheadDecember 29, 2009 at 2:47 PM

    Agreed - the ratio is the meaningful stat. Just $Loss alone is useless.

    "Huge wins here and there" is exactly what I need!! :)

    I've always backtested manually since I have eSignal and don't like its backtesting features. Plus you have to be an expert .efs programmer to use it, which I am not. Got any recommendations (besides Tradestation)?

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  3. TraderB52December 29, 2009 at 6:05 PM

    MBA,
    You lost your first trade because didn`t exit on time. You didn`t take in cosideration low valatility. A previous pivot(resistance) was 78.89.GCLGO was making LL and LH-the trend is down. So, basically you went against the market. In this situation you should grab what you can and run. My at least partial exit would be 87-88. If I`m 5 tick in profit I would take one tick profir or BE if market turns against me. I don`t see any reason to loose a winning trade.
    Second trade had a simillar mistake. Why did you expext brake out above previous pivot. Why not to take profit and reeenter if you think your setup is still OK. Don`t think about comissions and ratios. You saved 10 baks and lost 200.
    I hope my comments will help in your trading

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