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There was no Week 15 summary, so here is Week 15+16. As you can see, I have had 10 winning days in a row. That feels pretty good!
Summary: First, let's look at the big picture. I like to do this every month or so, because at a glance I can tell if things are going as planned or not. From look at this first chart, a couple of things are clear:
1. Over the whole course of the system history (walkforward, incubation, live), the system performance hasn't changed much. I could draw a line from the start of walkforward to the start on incubation, and then another line from the start of incubation until the present time, and the slopes of those two lines would be about the same - with the slope from start of incubation to present being a little flatter. This gives me some reassurance that the system is behaving, subject to point 2 below.
2. It is easy to see that the live trading (blue line) has been lagging long term performance. The performance these past 3 months has been lagging.
3. The system, overall is at a new equity high!
So, after 16 weeks of trading this system live, I am up 18% for real world trading. I am fairly happy with that.
Am I surprised at this result? No, this is still below my expectation, but the system is doing OK.
Am I disappointed in the results so far? No.
Are results in line with expectations? Yes, although still below the average expected line.
Are fills and trades live comparable to Tradestation strategy report? Due to a myriad of reasons, I am +$715 better in the real world than I should be. This is good!
Do I see any reason to stop trading this system? No.
Do I see any reason to change my position sizing plan, i.e. reduce or increase my risk? No, although I am about $50 below the point of adding another contract. See the chart below, from an earlier post. Once I exceed $10,114, I will begin trading 2 contracts.
Well, after 16+ weeks of live trading, I finally reached one of the targets I set out at the beginning. Thankfully, it was not the drawdown limit that I hit!
I am at the point where I can start trading 2 contracts, per the plan presented earlier:
If you have a good trading system, eventually you will want to start trading it with multiple contracts. There are a ton of position sizing schemes out there (Van Tharp wrote a huge book on the topic), so there is no right way to do it. There is no …
Most of the tracking I am doing will remain the same - based on 1 contract. I will add in an additional tracker or two to show the actual number of contracts traded.
My quit point, as you may recall, is based on single contract drawdown, and that will not change.
If my equity falls below $10,114 on a closed day basis, I will revert back to trading one contract.
It may seem confusing (trade metrics will be single contract, but position sizing will be based on actual equity and therefore actual number of contracts, and quit point and drawdown are based on single contract), but I think my reasons for doing this will be clear as time progresses.
I expect the journey from this point on to get a lot more interesting!
I just finished spending several hours each day over each of the last three days going over this and your Combine journals, and wanted to send a huge thank you for spending the time sharing and educating all of us with your studies. I want to applaud your steadfastness at applying your methodologies and process. It is quite encouraging to see behind the curtain, and also to know the processes you go through to see a strategy through its conception, birth, infancy, and adolescent period. I am thinking your Karma account will increase in multiples for taking your time to assist others in this lofty endeavor, and I for one appreciate it immensely.
1. Losing day to start Combine #1
2. Losing day to Start Combine #2
3. Losing day to Start Real Money Trading
4. Losing day to Start Real Money Trading, 2 contracts
Based on my strategies (62.8% winning days). the chances of these 4 days all being negative are about 98% against. That is what I call bad luck!
By the way, with today's loss I am back down to trading 1 contract. The fun did not last long!!!!
LOL now here is a challenge for you -- name four positive things your strategy has accomplished and ask yourself if those things are more or less important than the four negative "luck of the draw" things you've listed above.