I’ve been moving my stops up to the high/low of my entry bar once it gets completed. I’ve realized that reducing my risk after the first fifteen minutes of the trade just makes me feel psychologically safer. In reality , those stops are more likely to get hit, like IMCL today, and I just end up doing more trades for the day, which in the long run will just make my prop firm more money. When I checked the results from the last seven days, I would be up slightly more if I didn’t touch the stop and my return on R would be slightly higher. The only major difference is I make more trades, which is more stressful and once again will just end up costing me. I definitely will take the lazy way in this one and not even touch the stops until three. Now I just have to figure out how to keep myself busy from 12:30 to 3:00.
IMCL
I shorted on the break of the fifth bar. After the sixth bar completed I moved my stop to it’s high. I got stopped out by one cent, only to have to stock close at around 28. I did get in again at the break of the 11th bar. At three I moved my stop to the nearest swing high to my break even price, which was 23.11. I lost .05 on the second trade
FILE
I went long on the break of the fourth bar. I moved my stop up and got stopped out three bars later. I got in on the break of the very bar that stopped my first trade out and held till eod. (end of day).
SVU
Here I got in on the break of the fourth bar. The reason I did this was because I had my order in for the third bar. As soon as the fourth bar formed my order got hit. Eventually I saw that it was an outside bar, bullish engulfing, whatever you want to call it, but it wasn’t a bar I would get into according to my rules. I should have gotten out immediately. Moving my stop up in this situation did help, but once again, I shouldn’t have even been in the trade. I reentered on the break of the tenth bar and got out eod.
My other trades for the day were CEPH and EAT. Both were choppy so I took some losses. The toughest thing about trading this way is that you will always start out in the red. Why? If you’re taking profits towards eod then the only positions that will be closed are losers. Earlier today I was down $85. Thankfully, I followed me rules and actually got out -$9 for the day. There were many times when my open p&l was at about $47 and I was tempted to take it just to have a small loss for the day. By following the rules, I gave the stocks the opportunity that it sometimes needs to make a move. Any one of the stocks I was in could have moved at least .40 cents more in my favor. Of the stocks on my watchlist that did move , ZOLT was the only one. I didn’t trade it because the risk was more than .50. For whatever reason .40 is as number I fell comfortable with. To be honest, I don’t even know if it was shortable for me (some stocks can’t be shorted through my platform. I have to call the desk to see if I can borrow the shares). Even though I lost, I’m happy with the loss. I’m also glad that I realized that what I’ve been doing with moving the stops is ridiculous since it doesn’t necessarily make me more money. It was just a silly crutch. At this point, having traded for more than half a year, and using parts of this system for three months now, I should know better. It’s not going to work every day, but when the stocks move, you look and feel like a champ. Hopefully tomorrow will be one of those days.
