Tom, are you setting the target at trade entry and leaving it or are you allowing yourself to dynamically change the target while the trade is running?
Hi Bramble,
I've been doing this for quite some time and toyed with starting a journal on it many months back but looks like I got pipped to the post (so to speak) by a few others. I would still start a journal if there was enough interest but just expect to receive a lot of "yawwwn" type posts. lol
I'm using dice instead of coins.
One throw of the dice gives a number between 1 - 6 and gives me the market to trade.
1: Crude Oil
2: Dax
3: Eur/Usd
4: Bund
5: Gold
6. Wheat
(so, equities, bonds, fx and commodities (softs, metals and energies) are covered. A nice broad spectrum.
Then once the market has been chosen, I throw again.
Even number: Long
Odd number: Short
The trade is entered bang on 8am each morning for all trades.
One trade per day.
The stop is always 40 ticks/pips.
The target is totally dynamic. I use my reading of the market and interpretation of price action to decide whether to take any profits quickly or whether to run it. If I find myself long Bunds, for example, and the ECB announce quantitative easing, I am not going to be coming out once an arbitrary profit target has been hit. That is not sensible.
The rule I have used is that the stop cannot be moved until the trade has offered at least a 0.5:1 (e.g. 20 ticks profit is on offer). At that point it can be moved/trailed if so desired.
The trade can run as long as it takes until I am stopped out. Some have run for several days.
As soon as I am out, the dice is thrown and I start again the next trading day.
What I was trying to prove is whether a good trader can make money using a system that throws them randomly into a market (both the market and the direction are random) when ALL they have any power or control over is their exits.
The reason I give control over the exits is I am not trying to prove that the markets are random per say, I am simply trying to prove that entries (trade reasoning) is largely meaningless.