Think about the post were TRO wrote about entering 3 times using the semifor and dfsr set up on a 15 minute chart. Can you open 3 different positions simultaneously with the pip values you are playing.
you are playing all or nothing it seems.
You may be willing to risk 10 dollars a trade, but I would seriously spread that out over a number of positions rather than putting it all down on "the green double zero".
From what I have seen, with the exception of a few, not to many people talk about position sizing in any detail.
Think about it for a second. You know when you get a signal to go long, say off of a support line - price then moves against you, knocks you out, and then finally goes your way and say just by coincidence, TRO posts a Drain the bank image that shows some 20 point gain.
Do you think he put all of his money down on the exact "right" spot and nails it every time? I suspect he had a number of positions open on that trade and made money on the over all trade, not each individual position. Price may have just popped 20 points, but do you think he makes that 20 points on every position?
Don't just set your risk in pips, set it relative to your overall account size. You need to be bigger when you are right than when you are wrong.
Think about your maximum risk in dollar terms for an entire trade, then work out the position sizing and then your relative stop losses
Don't go in with a predefined position and SL - this is what is killing you and leading you to "system hop"
Don't get carried away with everyone who says they are making xx% a day. Unless you see their trading accounts, you really don't know. Yes, I suspect that MO and TRO and others are really good at this, but until you see exact trading records, you don't know how many times they are just getting out at BE or taking a loss or what their position size is when they are right.
Think about this situation - lets use a long setup off of a DFSR
Price gives you a long signal - crosses the trigger line and goes up hard - a potential MOMO bar. Is it going to retrace back to the support line or is it going to keep going? Don't know, but you want to be part of it, don't you? it gave you a signal, now take it, but don't put on a 1$ per pip position - put on a 30 cent position.
Now if price retraces, you can decide, do I add another position to the trade. Price hasn't fall thru your support and you are still within your risk tolerance, so you can add another position....etc, etc etc.
Like i said, talk about trade management. The entry signals are easy
prochargedmopar wrote:Razor,
The way I see it you are either able to make pips or you lose pips.
If I'm risking 1% per xx amount of pip stop/loss or 10% per that same amount is irrelevant if I'm able to make + pips consistently day in and day out. Limiting the "off" days will preserve capital too.
That is, other than the times when someone who lets their account implode from to many outstanding trades or to big of or no stop/loss. Being this is not the case for me I'll either build it up or have to keep adding money to it's balance.
I think I'm expecting to grow my account when I have not yet been consistent and that is as you say, unrealistic for the time being. I like to have to PAY for my mistakes as I feel it will implant more meaning behind the lessons learned.
I do not feel that with a 10pip s/l that I'm expecting to much to get 10 pips a day min. I've just been out of control and not sticking to and perfecting ONE system or pattern in the marketplace.
As the account grows and more income becomes available then I will scale back the % risk and simultaneously increase the stops to have more staying power in each trade. I could also do as M.O. says by starting with 10 and then adding each win to the stop amount until I reach my goal of daily pippage. 20-30 should be a cake walk from what I've seen other people do. Just think, that would be 10%- 15% a day. 30 pips may be unrealistic at the moment but not in the near future.
I don't know if these #'s add up for others but $30 pips is just 3 lots. With a 5000 account and 400:1 margin that's only $300 risk at 6%. 30 pips a day would be $900 a day. That's peanut shucks. I only need to pull $100 a day for bills and the rest could just grow. You could hit 3 stops and still have $4100 in the account and never even get close to your margin requirements. Where's the fear in that? NONE. Crank it back up the next day and pull in your 30 pips to square things up and then the next day continue to grow. A couple weeks of that and now your $300 risk is only 3.9% risk. Maybe I'm being overzealous but once I get 30k-40k in the account the stops will be BIG and the reward will be good and the risk % will be small.
Lets calculate:
$30 pips (only 3 lots), 30 pip stop and/or 30 pips a day. $900 income. Risk percentage on 35k account = a measly 2.5% with 30 pips stop in stead of 10 pips stop. The bigger the account gets the less we risk.
I don't see needing more than $50k in the account to use as "business" capital for earnings. Funnel the rest off.
BTW, $50k and $50 pips and a 10 pip scalping s/l would only be risking 1% per trade. 20 pips a day is $1000. Who NEEDS more than that?
Is pulling 20 pips a day unrealistic? Not from what I've seen so far.
What do you think/See?
My thing is to get consistent. The money will take care of itself.
We'll see.
Pro