Just wanted to talk about position sizing, with brent i would have only put on half a position due to the size of the stop this is key to been profitable in this game, you really need to workout how much you willing to risk on anyone trade, i recommend between 1 to 3 % max of your account
and this helps answer a question yesterday also, you could wait for the pin to be broken and then buy on a retrace of the pin, the pin has to be broken then price reverses down the pin and you get a lower risk entry, your stop is tighter and you will get a better risk/reward. The only problem is you may not get the reversal and miss the trade, sometimes price is so close to the entry on the next bar you miss the entry and all you can do is hope price reverses a little so you can better entry.
As for gelly great stuff mate and as he pointed out if you play the % game correctly you will be way ahead when a small pin kicks in and it takes off
everyone one should only be risking the same % on each trade no matter the size of the pin, so if you take a half off at 1 to 1 and leave the rest run till pivot then your way ahead of the game, just like you can see in gellys example
I have just finished reading through this thread in whole and have no problems understanding how the system works. This has been fully explained, both for entry and exits. So a big congratulations to Pocrel for an excellent thread.
However apart from the few win / loss ratio posts posted by DDI over 100 and 150 trades position sizing per trade has not been made clear and results are always reported in pips which are mostly meaningless if they can't be equated back to % or risk per trade.
You could make +100 pips @ 1% risk and lose -40 pips @ 3% risk, have +60 pips for the day / week but be at a £££ 2% loss in "cash in bank terms".
I have pulled two replies on this posted and they seem to contridict each other, they are below.
So can i ask for some more clarification on this please?
Are you saying if a FTSE trade needs a 10 pip stop , with say 25 pip target to the next pivot and you risk 1% , if you get stopped out you lose 1%, but if you win you win 2.5%.
So then say a WTI oil trade with that needs a 50 pip stop but has a 150 pip pivot target you also risk 1% too? So if it gets stopped out @ -50 you lose 1% but if it wins you win 3%.
Is this what you are saying in the second statement made recently?
Or, as is often mentioned on some trades "only a small 8 pip loss" etc, which can't be true if 8 pips = 1%, 2% or 3%!
So are you saying you have a fixed value say the usual 30 pips = 2% of bank.
So therefore a Forex trade with a 15 pip stop and 30 pip target to next pivot yopu are risking 1% to gain 2%.
But with say Gold you need a 45 pip stop and have a 68 pip target to the next pivot (over the minimum 1:1) you are risking 3% on that trade to win 4.5% ?
Don't mean to sound "off" for a first post on this thread but i'm just trying to understand what you and others do Porcel. Becasue as we know pips don't always equal prizes in cash terms.
Thanks
M
hi mark and cheers for the question
it not the easiest to answer but i will try,
an example i will use is if i have a 10 grand account
i will only risk 1.5% per trade s0 150 pounds at risk per trade
now if i win a trade (+250) then i will add the win to my capital so my next trade will be 1.5 % of 10250 = 153.57
now if i lose then i deducted 150 so my next trade position size will be 147.75
and so on and so on
as for say the ftse example you gave above a win would have worked like this
1.5% risk so if it lost -10 point that would be -150
if it won its 15 pounds a point, half off at 1 to1 = +75 second half off t pivot =+187.50
so total profit for trade +262.50
or a gain of 2.6%
no if you can get a small pin you position size is going to be much larger so the longer the pin the smaller your position size the further everything has to travel to get a profit
as an example if wti produces a larger pin of 150 points then you would need to to put on a half position size to get out of the trade in the way i do
but if you decide to wait for a retrace of a large pin then you can get more cash on with out risking anymore than you had to before 1.5%
not sure if that answers your questions, also i use pips as its easier show, also i have added a win/ loss trades count
but for me to work out the percentage for every trade for here then i would never get a trade on i think
so if you take a half off at 1 to 1 and leave the rest run till pivot then your way ahead of the game,
Ok I understand the trading of % of bank, that is normal, and you elect to adjust position size after ever trade outcome win or loss. I personally only do this adjustment weekly, so some week's i'm trading a bigger % if the weeks starts witrh a few losses and other weeks i'm trading with a lower % of bank if the week starts with a few wins.
That is Money Management and everyone should bop what they are comfortable with.
But the other part of you answer really raises my eyebrows. You really risk 1-2% on say only an 8 or 10 pip stop if the pin par / candle is very short?
I know the RRR would be very good but in most markets, and Forex and Oil especially (which I trade using AutofocuxFX system) a price movement of only 8-10 pips, even against a reversale pin bar is nothing!
Do these not get stopped out a lot ? This explains now why you seem to exit a fair few trades for 5 pips to 15 pips when maybe the target was 30-40 pips as 10 pips could = 1% !!
FTSE I could see maybe as we only use a standard 16 pip stop on out Affx trades for that so a 10 pip stop is not so scary.
But I have to say a 10 pip stop on say Cable off a pin bar reversal signal risking 1% or 2% would scare the crap out of me.
Maybe it's because I trade Cable daily on an AM breakout system where we use 30 pips @ 2% risk and many many days we go -15 to -20 pips before ending in profit or hitting TP.
I have even more respect for you trading this system using the MM. But this also means toy could have say 5% + risk exposure daily if you have 4 or more trades on the go at once?
Anyway thanks for the explanation. Do you keep any record of the number of this systems trades at say 15 pips and under stops and their win ratio? I suspect they are fairly rare and have a lower rate than those around 30-45 pips.
I will have so time to play with this once the school summer Holidays arrive so may have a play @ 1/2% risk per trade to see how it performs. Just couldn't bring myself to put 1% - 2% risk on a very small stop just yet.
M
Glad you're back Pocrel. Not so good for me today
oil -29
gold -19
ftse +11
dax -14
Cheers, enjoy the rain! Geoff
ouch shafted!
my autopivot works well with UWC demo account for metatrader
best luck
patrick