Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Had the same thing. Packet loss - and my broker software reacts really badly to it. I found out about it and complained and they didn't admit that they do it, they call it "profiling", but they did tell me I needed to use the business tariff, and not the home user tariff. So I switched, problem went away. That's BT in London. Hope you've got something better where you are.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
As I am on sim these next two weeks, I am trying some stuff out....at the same time I am trying to solve the puzzle of losing a full stop with size vs winning with a scale out approach.
Today, I made a couple of mistakes early, caught almost all of the rally, then caught almost all the sell off. Today was a perfect example of this issue. I had two very nice winners that using size would have resulted in a loser day if the winners were/are scale out winners. In terms of tick count per trade, I am up, in terms of dollars, I am down. This should not be. The losers were bigger than the winners even though the winners in terms of ticks were much bigger.
Scaling out makes it SO much easier to manage a trade once its a winner. Its the mistakes that kill you.
Phantom of the Pits said to lose small and press the winners. Rule Two....
The only way I can see to do that is to enter with basically a small portion of the size you hope to have on and add to it once its a winner and at a logical place to enter another, separate trade if you were flat. Then move the stop to the logical stop location on the entire position and at that point, the trade is free.
Now apply this to a 5 min chart for CL. Where MOST moves have been mostly impulse spikes followed by a nasty sideways channel...you will get a few trend bars with little or no chance to put a second position on unless its a break of a previous bar. The idea of waiting for a pull back to a moving average does not work during the kind of days we've been having...you get a spike and channel. On days when its trending nicely and it has multiple MA touches with succeeding higher highs and higher lows for a long rally, sure, its pretty easy....but the kind of days like we've seen lately, its capture the impulse move or you are done for the day.
However, one possible way around it is this, find your entries/levels on a five min chart, enter small, move to a one min chart, wait for the pull back there and enter the remainder of your position......even this I am not sure about.
Check out today's impulse move down....very little opportunity to scale in. Seems to be the norm lately.
Anyway, I love the scale out idea....and I love the scale in idea even more. It guarantees you lose small when you make mistakes and it guarantees you win big when you are right....but doing it in real time....thats the issue. The other issue with that is on moves with no second scale opportunity, you win big but with small size. Thats ok if you are losing small with small size, but the idea is to crush the winners with as much size as you can risk, not with one or two lots. Ideally if you can trade 10 lots, you'd like to have 4-6 or even 10 lots on when you finally close the trade 50-100 ticks later.
Today really put this issue into perspective for me....glad its on sim.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
I went thru all kinds of stuff to try to fix it. The easiest fix would to change to Comcast for my area & FIRE at&t. Its a touchy subject w my wife cus she's tired of hearing me.
I just know when its gonna drop & I trade accordinly, but I like to trade naket so floor doesnt see my stp and if Im near the drop time I havt to put a stp on...christ sakes
I use free version cus Im just a peanut among a land of makers & breakers, I stick my head out the window then I wanna run & hide. just kidding. I'll ask about a commercial service.
I've read the Phantom of the Pits book and he points out that this "adding to winners" rule is better suited to longer time frames. With the smaller time frames that you are trading it would be harder to find a logical entry point. While you're on sim you might experiment with using a reentry point that is not as obvious. For instance, rather than waiting for a pullback, enter another unit at every break of the prior 5-minute bar's high/low or something like that. (I think PoP also advised to make the second entry smaller than the first, so something like a 3-2-1 pyramid approach might be better.)
A scale-out approach is the opposite of the PoP approach, and what you experienced today is a good example of why the scale-out approach can work against you at times. You ideally want your system to produce winners that are larger than your losers on average, and the PoP scale-in approach is one way to do that. It only works though if you can stick with it through thick and thin.
He does use it on a daily time frame if I remember correctly but since time is fractal, I see no reason why it couldnt be used on an intra day basis. The trick is two fold, where to scale in, and where to exit the entire position. This approach is the opposite of scale out....but I think it could work.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
The major rule that PoP uses for scaling in is to add once the position has "proven itself" to be right. If you're trading a breakout, for instance, add after price has broken far enough through the S/R level that you are confident the level has been breached.
When trading smaller timeframes (and therefore smaller price moves), the targets need to be moved closer in. So while you may use 50 ticks of leeway on a daily chart, you might only allow yourself 10 ticks of leeway on a 5-minute chart.
This likely means that you need to be adding a position right about the time that you would normally be scaling out of your position if using the scale-out approach.
I was gonna use rule two today and forgot to change my ATM on the first trade. So entered with a scale out trade instead of a scale in trade.
After that, the trades were one lot entries looking for another possible place to enter. I just decided price action was not gonna lend itself to that type of trade. Sixth trade was AIAO as I had no intention of looking for a runner. Price had made it to support on the 30M chart and figured it was good for a small trade. I got in a little late but still worked out ok.
Last trade was one lot looking to see if perhaps my premise on the 6th trade was wrong and it might break and run. It didnt so I just exited with 10 ticks.
One lot trades offset each other, winners with size made the money.
Now if I can do that every day......
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Nicely done. +77 is certainly a nice days work. I would gladly take 1/3 of that every day. i like how you stayed with the trend...it was the right move to look for shorts from pit open.
+60. A major mistake made early, a quick recovery, out 100 ticks to soon...whats a guy to do?
nice clean swings today. I had fun watching them.
To trade or not to trade after a 100 tick sell off. Last few weeks, thats all you got...sideways after that for a long time. I got 80 ticks out of a 100 or tick drop...last couple of weeks, time to quit, today, out to early....a conundrum.
Anyway, I am happy with the decisions I made today....all of them.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
