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Ok, last post from this journal. This journal was where trading was no longer this wonderful exciting new thing that would make me rich, but rather a tough butt whipping where I started to learn how hard this game was. I started to learn things and have battle scars that could help me going forward. Many tears shed and awful deep pain felt. All worth it.
Obviously you are not a conservative trader ;-) What type of money management are you using? That's a risky bet to put 16 contracts on the table when most of the time you use 4 contracts. Specially on a 250 ticks chart where it's almost noise most of the time.
I put on a normal size position, and once it was in significant profits, I added to it, then I later doubled that (8 contracts) to sixteen. My money management was super tight, at any point during the trade if price began to retrace, I would exit the trade at a worst case scenario of a normal size loss... most likely would cut it off around breakeven. To me, the risk of this type of trade is that I'll get stopped at breakeven more times than not, since adding to the position keeps moving your breakeven point up (more likely to retrace there at some point).
The stop level on the chart for me is usually a worst case scenario stop.
I really don't think that most of the movement of a 250 tick chart is noise. Do you really?
@indextrader7 has been regularly posting to his journal on futures.io (formerly BMT) for several months now, but just recently he dug up his old pen + paper journals from many years ago, and started sharing them.
I really found it great to skim the notes from his old journals, you can see the experience unfolding year after year with every new page he shared.
His futures.io (formerly BMT) journal is about trading the Russel 2000 (TF), but the wisdom within from his notes applies to all trading. Check it out (continued...)
Most people add as the market goes AGAINST them, and reduce as the market moves WITH them. It's exactly the opposite of how it should be done, and as long as the adds are at strategic locations and do not raise the average too much to outweigh the benefits, it's absolutely the right thing to do when the market as strong direction. When the market is balanced and ranging, adds do not work well, as the market needs to be directional, but today for the most part it was very well suited for adding.
Josh....... Very well said and great point. I was introduced to this concept about a year ago and I was amazed. It is opposite of what most were preaching.. In strong trends and breakouts, you scale in to positions versus scaling out. Your risk is the smallest when you first enter(since you have the smallest size) and you only add to your size when the market tips its hand in terms of trend strength.(i.e. follow the herd).
The hardest part of this(at least for me) is what IT7 describes and it is money management and the willingness to forfeit the initial profit as well as the perceived risk one has with adding size.. Even though you can get your stop to breakeven in most cases, this discomfort with adding in a trend(vs taking profits) leads me to hardly ever do this. I still have problems with this strategy even though I know it makes sense and works..
It seems like the things that work best in trading are the things that are the most counter-intuitive and hardest to pull off psychologically. This strategy fits that bill to me.