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So true. With the advent of modern brain scanners many of psychology's accepted beliefs are being rewritten wholesale and we now know that emotion comes before rationality and you can't actually make any decision without it. Damasio's work is particularly enlightening but then so is much of modern brain science compared to the tosh and waffle I got qualified in, except maybe Spinoza and James and all the ones I've forgotten....
I've been simming the ES for a couple of days. Price action only. No external signals. And I have to confess, I am not really a fan. It seems to be moving well but some days it seems like all it does is run stops and not just little intermediate ones.....but thats my impression. So today I took a trade with a pretty wide stop. I think 4 points or something like that. But here's how it played out. Single lot, no trade management. In fact, I set this and forgot it. Just minimized the chart and never looked at it again. Used an 11 point target. Somewhat inside the ATR range....I may have miscalculated that a bit otherwise the target might have been a few more ticks higher.
Regardless, this is the third or fourth large trade (sim of course) that I've had in ES recently. I am NOT tracking it for numbers, just getting a feel for it in case I ever want to go back to it. Watching @tigertrader trade multiple lots on ES makes me wonder about the idea of hitting more singles with larger size vs trying for large runners on CL with smaller size. Just thinking out loud here.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
@PandaWarrior: your thinking is completely counter-intuitive: the quantity you trade is a function of your equity, not your expectation of the trade. you want to constantly increase your size as you increase your equity, so that you get the maximum geometric growth of your capital given the characteristics of the return stream, and your tolerance for risk. you may want to reduce your size, when there's greater volatility, and increase your size when there's less volatility, but you want to be trading the optimal size relative your account size, whether you are in a range trade looking for 3 or 4 points, or in a trend trade looking for 10 or more points. in fact, if you are able to catch a trend, you should be adding aggressively, and levering up a fairly good multiple of your normal unit size. this is crucial, if you are going to be pulling a percentage of your profits out of your account to live on. otherwise, you can kiss your account adios, my friend.
adding to a winner is probably the hardest thing to do in trading, at least emotionally. I'm doing ok managing my initial position, but whenever I add to it, my pulse increases, and every tick in the wrong direction induces nightmarish visions and a feeling of pending disaster. I quite accept the truth that the outcome of my last trade has no bearings whatsoever with the new one, but I just cant seem to implement this belief when I have an active position (maybe I just don't believe it enough yet). this is so irrational and I've tried to analyze the cause of it but couldn't reach any productive conclusion, apart from the obvious one that I'm just a coward. however, despite this irrational behavior my account has been growing and it doesn't look like I'll blow it any time soon. maybe I just haven't traded long enough. anyway what I'm trying to say is that I recognize the importance of adding to winners, and I applaud/admire you for being able to do it flawlessly. may I ask how? any secret that you don't mind sharing?
Add on pull backs, break outs, wherever....its best if you can have a risk free trade on your add on's of course, that takes the sweat out of it but you cant always get that perfectly....yes it is difficult but when I do it, it sure feels good....even if it stops out as a BE trade, I'm glad I was able to execute.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris