Thanks, I will read it and comment on it after my bath.
It's maybe a bit blah-blah-ey in retrospect... but anyway.
Thanks, I will read it and comment on it after my bath.
It's maybe a bit blah-blah-ey in retrospect... but anyway.
Private Sub worksheet_calculate()
On Error Resume Next
If Cells(26, 12) > Cells(25, 15) Then
Cells(25, 15) = Cells(26, 12)
Cells(25, 16) = Now
End If
If Cells(26, 12) < Cells(27, 15) Then
Cells(27, 15) = Cells(26, 12)
Cells(27, 16) = Now
End If
End Sub
So, just like above, I am going to think about this thing for the first time, in order to write logically. And I postponed this thinking until I could write it down here. But I guess everyone else, too, thinks as they write. Every once in a while I'll post the writing, so I don't lose everything I've written, just in case of accidents with the browser.
By the way, it's pretty funny that a few people here came and complained that I was talking about everything except my trading, so maybe somehow this made talk about my trading a lot in the past month, and thanks to them, I went into this good direction of reporting on my trading live on the journal, somehow to make them shut up (and because partly I agreed that they were right: somehow to earn the right to keep on writing here, about my father and the bath tub). But now that I've solved my problems, this journal will be even less about trading than before. So on the one hand I am happy that it's still liked. On the other hand I am expecting some censorship about this, from one of these new forum guides who keep on busting my balls wherever they meet me elsewhere on the forum.
And now instead, why am I saying that the 1k I make nowadays is worth so much more than yesterday's 1k?
Because it was a 1k that was built with 250 dollars bricks, in one direction and in the other. If I went wrong, both with automated and discretionary, I'd lose 250 dollars and that was it.
After going from 4800 to 6300, after tiringly putting together this wall with all these 250 dollars bricks, do I want to start building a wall the way I used to, a wall that could suddenly not lose 1 brick but crumble to the ground? No.
I mean, let's look at how I went down from 10k to 5k in about 1 week in November. And how I went from 20k to 10k in another week in July. Back then, up to very recently, I didn't know the value of money. My accounts went down like the Twin Towers.
I always felt that trading was like making money without working and I felt guilty because of that. But now I am starting to feel less guilty with this new trading of mine, that has reasonable money management, and I feel more like it's hard earned money. Yes, because I am gaining it 250 dollars at a time, whether on my automated systems or on my discretionary systems (which are more like manually executed automated systems almost).
Well, you're right that there's a problem. I am not good at money management and even the term "risk/reward" kind of upsets me just to hear it mentioned. But I can tell you that somehow I figured out good enough homemade formulas so that as soon as I reach 20k, I will fly up to 40k in a bit over a month. I am pretty confident about that, and without a bumpy ride.
But yes, now, my system doesn't get anywhere. It's trading a few so so systems that have little drawdown but that are not the best performing ones. The best ones are the ones on the CL, but those guys lose 1000 a day if something goes wrong, and that's what I meant by crumbling to the ground like the Twin Towers. I can't allow those systems to trade. But even at 20k I won't allow them to trade. I don't want to risk losing 1000 or 2000 in one day because the system had a bad day.
I can't put it all together with words or concepts. I know there's a problem but these money management formulas drive me mad.
Plus there's much more than that at work here.
What I do know is that I'll only trade the systems that make money, and I won't trade any system that loses more than 5% of the account in its worst trade. So if there's a CL system that in its worst trade loses less than 1k, then I'll trade it. Otherwise I won't. If I take these things one at a time, I can use safe money management formulas. If you ask me to put it all together and explain it in one sentence, I can't.
It's not...
It's not how much you can make... I got it maybe.
You don't only have to know how much you can make and how much you can lose each month, but also what the probability of each thing happening is.
Then you can decide to go for it or not.
For example, previous scenario:
66% chance of doubling each month
33% of losing everything
Do I want that? Not. I don't want to have such a high risk of losing everything.
Present scenario:
90% chance of making 50% each month
10% chance of not making any money
I want this. Yes. I do.
And these are proper estimates, realistic ones.
Private Sub worksheet_calculate()
On Error Resume Next
If Abs(Cells(26, 12)) > Cells(28, 12) Then
Cells(30, 12) = Cells(30, 12) + 1
Cells(Cells(30, 12), 23) = Now
Cells(Cells(30, 12), 24) = Cells(26, 12)
End If
End Sub