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I guess we have to cut me some slack, because I wasn't looking for 10 tick moves today, I was trying to catch trends (like the one I caught at the end of the day), and I was managing risk quite well.
Here's what I know Mike.... any feedback is more than welcomed. Anyone for that matter... PLEASE offer good advice if you know what you're talking about.
The Trade Analyzer from today is pretty thrown off from the data error/demo fill. Here is an adjusted one using the output from it, with a correction for that first trade. Also, this one is in average ticks per contract, as opposed to # contracts x number of ticks as displayed in the original post.
So... given this lack of "MFE capture" for lack of a better term, I've started doing some homework on things. The first thing I noticed was that I get 10 ticks MFE quite often. I also try to keep my stops around that level. So I did a test, what would my performance have been if I took a trade, then let it go +10 or -10 whichever comes first. (I said to myself, "Surely I am way better at managing trades than this.")
Here is this today's trade analyzer data... with the overlayed hypothetical p/l for the same entries but managing to +/-10 ticks:
woah.....
So, we need more data.
Here is the whole week's trade analyzer data, again with the overlayed +/-10 tick method.
So, we need more data.
I went and did this test, manually stepping through all my entries since I started "combine practice" and switched to trading CL on 2-19. I don't have trade analyzer MAE/MFE going back this far, so I'm just comparing P/L in ticks between what I did, and what the +/-10 did.
One thing is that my own performance had the largest winning trade of my life in there. (+175 or something on the scale out) +96 total average ticks per contract on the trade. so I removed this outlier trade from my performance.
Other variables to consider... I've been doing this Mark Douglas mental/mechanical method exercise lately, and my performance has flat-lined in doing so. I'll need to forward test this and/or go back through more normal performance.
I have never, before today, given much consideration to any type of hard target. I am re-considering, but what I really need is someone that knows way more than me to help guide me through this research...
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Firstly,let me say that this is fantastic stuff Indextrader and the amount of time and work you put into keeping this blog up as well as your day trading is absolutely incredible.
This upcoming Tuesday I begin the TST 150K 10 day min combine with only a profit target as a goal. I am a S/D intraday swing trader. I have made my living in this fashion with an extremely tried and true method of trading for the past 5 years. I will be focusing primarily on the ES as that is my specialty during the NY session, although I keep several selected contracts on the radar for high reward/low risk opportunities.
Unlike yourself I am extremely private and protective of the exact details of my system and my charts as I have worked extremely hard to define my edges and locate the numbers I use to trade with. I prefer complete isolation when I trade with the sole exception of a news ticker to determine market catalyst times and keep my finger on the pulse of the markets.
That being said best of luck in your journey. You will be starting when I am finishing mine up. I will certainly check in to see how your combine is progressing.
Merritt, I always appreciate how on top of your trade statistics you are. Fantastic job as usual.
Can you help me remember what FT71 said in the last webinar about the BSO column? If I remember right, it's "best scale out". So the figure represents just 1 lot out of 'x' total on, and is the actual exit of that 1 lot?
So trade #11 for example:
4 lots on, best scale out = 16 ticks. Does this mean your best single exit (1 lot) was +16? Since your net was 43 on the trade, and MFE was 75, I'm just trying to put the pieces together in my head for how you managed the trade.
Did you watch yesterday's FT71 webinar here on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT)? He gave a lot of good advice about targets and had a lot of statistics to back it up.
Also referring back to yesterday's webinar, FT refers to it as a rotational factor and went into detail about calculating it. There are already user-contributed studies for NinjaTrader in the thread I linked and in the Master Homework thread so you could adapt it to your market and crunch the numbers to make sure your stop is sized properly.
I often think of trade ideas, but seldom have time to perform analysis on them. I have even thought of hiring an "intern" type of person that could crunch numbers all day, but I thought I would try this thread first.
Thanks. I am getting hung up on some columns being for all lots, and other columns being for a single lot. So your scale out there for +16 x2 lots was actually very close to the MFE on the trade, nicely done for that.
Yes, I wish they would fix that. BSO is in a different "language" than the rest of them. I would prefer that they are all in average ticks per contract. That is much more relateable to the actual rotations in the instrument traded.
Despite that. I have to give a huge thank you to FT71 and those guys for the trade analyzer. I've been using it one week, and it's already revolutionized how I'm seeing my trading.
So, Mike, any tips based on the data I've presented? It looks like it could be a wash either way to me, although the 10 tick method is better on a risk adjusted basis (50 tick max DD, versus my 100 ticks)...
Our styles are very different, would not apply and I am not really keeping up with all that you are doing, so best for me to not comment. You are clearly on the right path, just keep going. FT71 said himself yesterday in the webinar he was impressed with your journal here on futures.io (formerly BMT).