My 99 trades

[skc]

Looking back at my record I have done around 99 trades since I started share trading about 4 months ago. Thought I'd share my record and put down in words how I think things went. Appreciate any feedback from the experienced.

Starting capital = $15000
Total trades = 99
Long trades = 80
Short trades = 19
Winning trades = 48 (48.5%)
Losing trades = 51 (51.5%)
Average win = $171
Average loss = -$126
Average win / average loss = 1.36
Ending capital = $16794 (+12%)
Total commission paid = $1342 (~9% of capital)

 

[skc]

Here's my thoughts on the results.

Positives
- Risk is within control, with risk per trade within ~1-2% of captial. There were a couple of slippage in there but nothing major.
- The win ratio at 48% is acceptable

Negatives
- Overall results not flash. The market probably moved 30% from it's bottom, so a really good trader should obviously be able to beat the market, while an average trade should be able to get half of that range.
- The avg win / avg loss was too low at 1.36

Areas for improvement
- On hindsight some stops for the more volatile stocks were not aggressive enough for the current environment. This would have avoided giving back heaps of open profit.
- Probably took profit on a few trades that would have changed the results dramatically. Need to exercise patience. (Need to review my records and see how many take profit trades did I do)
- Increase capital size will obviously reduce commission drag - but not a priority at the moment.

Overall I am not unhappy about the results, and stop management is probably one of the hardest thing to master in trading. Once again, any comments appreciated from the experienced.

 

[Aussiest]

Skc, do you sit in front of the screen all day? Perhaps you could initiate your stops manually? Eg, if market depth starts looking ugly, exit immediately. Re-enter if things clear up?

 

[skc]

Skc, do you sit in front of the screen all day? Perhaps you could initiate your stops manually? Eg, if market depth starts looking ugly, exit immediately. Re-enter if things clear up?

I am in front of the screen all day, but not actually watching the stock constantly. There are a few other types of trading and work I do so short term stock trading is my expansion area.

Displaying the depth of all my open positions on the screen would also be difficult from a screen space point of view. Not to mention that I have to remember the stop location of every position which will stretch my brain's capability too much

 

[Nero64]

Ending capital = $16794 (+12%)
Total commission paid = $1342 (~9% of capital)

That's pretty good for 4 months.

But is your ending captial before or after the commissions.

Who is your Broker? Do you use CFDs?

I assume you have entry and exit criteria.

 

[Knobby22]

I actually think that's pretty crap for 4 months.

I'm only an investor because I haven't got time for short term trades and I achieved better than that (over 20%). The market has been quite strong and a full time trader should have acheived at least 30% in my opinion.

It appears to me that the good trades have not been allowed to run.

 

[beerwm]

what were the conditions for the 99 trades.

-EOD/intraday? - avg. trade length.
-stops/ take profits
-price/ reversals/ breakouts

might wanna increase ur risk too.

with that win/loss ratio -

you have a 0.00305% of 15 straight losses - or a drawdown of 15% [at 1% risk/trade] - assuming you lose your entire 1%.
-although i understand your caution with a new system.

thanks for sharing.

 

[saiter]

Looking back at my record I have done around 99 trades since I started share trading about 4 months ago. Thought I'd share my record and put down in words how I think things went. Appreciate any feedback from the experienced.

Starting capital = $15000
Total trades = 99
Long trades = 80
Short trades = 19
Winning trades = 48 (48.5%)
Losing trades = 51 (51.5%)
Average win = $171
Average loss = -$126
Average win / average loss = 1.36
Ending capital = $16794 (+12%)
Total commission paid = $1342 (~9% of capital)

I think that you've done pretty well considering that you only entered shares 4 months ago.
At least now:

1. You've finished with a larger capital base
2. You haven't blown your account
3. You know what your strengths and weaknesses are

Keep up the hard work, I'm sure it'll pay off.

 

[skc]

That's pretty good for 4 months.

But is your ending captial before or after the commissions.

Who is your Broker? Do you use CFDs?

I assume you have entry and exit criteria.

The P/L are after commission. For what it's worth, the P/L before commission was $3136, or 20.1%. So if I was to double my capital and double my risk to 2%, the commission probably wouldn't increase that much and my return would look a bit prettier (up to 35%). It was good to know that is up my sleeve when I decide to increase my capital deployed.

IB is my broker.

I actually think that's pretty crap for 4 months.

I'm only an investor because I haven't got time for short term trades and I achieved better than that (over 20%). The market has been quite strong and a full time trader should have acheived at least 30% in my opinion.

It appears to me that the good trades have not been allowed to run.

As I said, results are not flash. Looking back I took partial profits on about 10 trades (with the rest trailed to stop), and took full profits with may be 3 trades. Also had about 5 scratched trades when they weren't moving.

I think my problem was not taking profit but stop placement - but that has the same effect as not allowing trades to run.

what were the conditions for the 99 trades.

-EOD/intraday? - avg. trade length.
-stops/ take profits
-price/ reversals/ breakouts

might wanna increase ur risk too.

with that win/loss ratio -

you have a 0.00305% of 15 straight losses - or a drawdown of 15% [at 1% risk/trade] - assuming you lose your entire 1%.
-although i understand your caution with a new system.

thanks for sharing.

The average holding time was ~10 days. Most trades were either breakout or retracement swing trades. There were a few fundamental trades and even a few quick punts at the beginning.

 

[johnnyg]

Negatives
- Overall results not flash. The market probably moved 30% from it's bottom, so a really good trader should obviously be able to beat the market, while an average trade should be able to get half of that range.

Ive often thought about this (in regards to my own paper trading results).

Fair call to say that the market has risen 30% from its bottom, but how much of your capital would you of needed to risk to return that %?

For yourself to return 12% only risking 1-2% per trade I think is a fair result.

What was the maximum amount of your account you had invested @ one time (max system draw down?)

For you to log 99 trades, be profitable after 4 months, and have an average annual return of 30-40% is really good work.

Anyone who is of a different opinion I believe have a long way to go to fully understanding trading.

Cheers.

 

[kam75]

Some thoughts looking over your stats.

Try to get your win/loss ratio up and cap your losses to smaller amount.

Have a look at what your average time is in your winning trades vs your losing ones. You may want to introduce a time-stop into your system where if a trade does not work out in the time planned, you get out with a small loss.

How you managing your money in terms of your bet size? This is very important. You should have rules for increasing your bet size as your portfolio grows, and decreasing during drawdowns.

 

[kam75]

I also think that's too much damn commision you paying. But it's a hell of a lot of trades too. Should negotiate better rates for trading so much. It's eating way into your profits.

 

[Aussiest]

I actually think that's pretty crap for 4 months.

Well, he was probably trading small caps. What were you trading if you don't mind me asking SKC? I think that small caps would move slower than medium or large caps?

 

[Mr J]

I actually think that's pretty crap for 4 months.

I'm only an investor because I haven't got time for short term trades and I achieved better than that (over 20%). The market has been quite strong and a full time trader should have acheived at least 30% in my opinion.

It appears to me that the good trades have not been allowed to run.

It's not a sensible comparison. A strong movement such as the one we've had is the hardest situation for a trader to outperform the market. It's in all other conditions - slow rise, fall, sideways - that traders will outperform investors. I wouldn't be concerned about not outperforming the market in this case.

 

[So_Cynical]

99 trades over the last 4 months for a 12% profit is pretty surprising...its a lot of trades/work
for such a small result, when picking 12 stocks out off a hat and holding, would of prob given a
much better return.

Still im sure u will do better over the next 4 months.

 

[Trembling Hand]

It's not a sensible comparison. A strong movement such as the one we've had is the hardest situation for a trader to outperform the market. It's in all other conditions - slow rise, fall, sideways - that traders will outperform investors. I wouldn't be concerned about not outperforming the market in this case.

99 trades over the last 4 months for a 12% profit is pretty surprising...its a lot of trades/work
for such a small result, when picking 12 stocks out of a hat and holding, would of prob given a much better return.

just LOL!!

Anyone who does 99 trades and still profitable would be in a select group here. Hindsight comparison to the strongest move in years is worthless. what about picking 12 stocks today and holding. Not much working in that but will there be any profit ??

 

[KurwaJegoMac]

Ive often thought about this (in regards to my own paper trading results).

Fair call to say that the market has risen 30% from its bottom, but how much of your capital would you of needed to risk to return that %?

For yourself to return 12% only risking 1-2% per trade I think is a fair result.

What was the maximum amount of your account you had invested @ one time (max system draw down?)

For you to log 99 trades, be profitable after 4 months, and have an average annual return of 30-40% is really good work.

Anyone who is of a different opinion I believe have a long way to go to fully understanding trading.

Cheers.

I agree with Johnnyq. I commend you on sticking to your risk management guidelines and I congratulate you on what I think is a great result for your first four months of trading and I urge you to ignore the people claiming your results are bad -arguing that you did poorly because the market went up 30% and your capital didn't, is a stupid argument.

This is your first time trading and your objectives are to develop a system and risk management framework that will yield you positive returns. Being able to outperform the market will require tweaking of your system (such as lowering commissions, letting winners run, etc.) as well as experience. I cannot stress this enough - it's easy for a person to say 'the market rallied 30% you should have achieved the same result" when they've had a lot more experience than you - but if you look back on this forum you'll see a lot of people got caught with their pants down and for those that did jump in, most felt that the rally would not be sustained. Many of these people have been trading for a lot longer than you and they did not capitalise fully on the rally.

So keep at it and keep tweaking your system until it yields the results you want. With time, experience and hard work it'll pay off in the end.

Congratulations on your result, well done!

 

[skc]

Just adding a bit of information to my trading...

With 99 trades and an average holding period of 10 days (calender days) over 4 months (120 days), it means roughly I held 8-9 positions at any one time on average. In truth, however, I probably held 4-5 positions in the first 2 months and 12-15 positions in the last 2.

Ive often thought about this (in regards to my own paper trading results).

Fair call to say that the market has risen 30% from its bottom, but how much of your capital would you of needed to risk to return that %?

For yourself to return 12% only risking 1-2% per trade I think is a fair result.

What was the maximum amount of your account you had invested @ one time (max system draw down?)

For you to log 99 trades, be profitable after 4 months, and have an average annual return of 30-40% is really good work.

Anyone who is of a different opinion I believe have a long way to go to fully understanding trading.

Cheers.

I can't remember what the maximum amount I had invested at any one time as I have various bits of money in my IB doing other different things. It was definitely larger than the notional $15K however. But I think the maximum at risk was probably ~$2K. That is, if all the stop loss were hit at the same time, my equity would be down by $2K.

Max drawdown based on equity in closed position was around $800 (just eyeball the equity curve). Max "drawdown" on open profit was way higher than that...

I also think that's too much damn commision you paying. But it's a hell of a lot of trades too. Should negotiate better rates for trading so much. It's eating way into your profits.

I think the commission I paid was reasonable. 99 trades, $1342 commission paid, that's less than $7 each way. IB charges $6 but I had a few partial exits etc. The commission drag is purely a result of small position size rather than the actual fee imo. Like I said, commission doesn't worry me at present as I know it's effect will decrease once I increase my capital.

I stand corrected however and if anyone has successfully negotiated cheaper commission trading similar position size then let us know!

Well, he was probably trading small caps. What were you trading if you don't mind me asking SKC? I think that small caps would move slower than medium or large caps?

Aussiest, are you sure small caps move slower!? Check out any coal or iron ore shares... Anyway, I traded shares of all sizes - biggest ones like ORG, OSH, BXB, CSL to mid size like BOQ, NHC, FLX to juniors like WDS, NOD, ETC.

 

[Knobby22]

I didn't realise they were your first ever 99 trades, skc.
Well done. Just remember the song - One big win, pays for them all.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiE1VgWdcQM

 

[MRC & Co]

I think your doing well SKC, good work. First 99 trades and in the green after costs, must say something about your future potential!

As you say, once you increase position size, it will be even better.