My 99 trades

[skc]

Hey skc,

Quick question, how do you get the equity and P/L chart? Did you manually enter your daily end-of-day position($) in Ms Excel to create the graph or did it come from your broker or you have certain software to do it?

Planning to create one for myself when I got the time

Manual entry in Excel and basic charting of closed positions.

 

[Albi]

Hi skc
I missed this thread. It is quiet interesting. I will try to trace all my trades.
Thanks for starting such nice thread.
I am learning everyday.
Good luck
Albi

 

[Ato]

2. Wider stop that trails slower, say move stop to $1.1 only after that pivot low has formed. But it means foregoing the 25c profit one could have had. The paper profit is now 50c, but the locked in profit is still only 10c.

Hi skc

I dont understand the bolded part in the above. When you have the time, could you please spell it out for me?

 

[skc]

Hi skc

I dont understand the bolded part in the above. When you have the time, could you please spell it out for me?

Assumption was bought at $1 and after stop moved to $1.1, the "locked in" profit is $0.1. Assuming no slippage or big gap down on open etc.

50c paper profit (assuming current share price $1.5) as it is not banked yet.

 

[Ato]

Assumption was bought at $1 and after stop moved to $1.1, the "locked in" profit is $0.1. Assuming no slippage or big gap down on open etc.

50c paper profit (assuming current share price $1.5) as it is not banked yet.

Ah, I understand now. Thanks.

 

[skc]

Re: My 99+ trades

As a continuation of my first 99 trades... here are the results from the next batch. Each picture is quite self explanatory.

 

[johnnyg]

Very Impressive skc, how much risk per trade? 1%

Also notice the the average winning trade is 3 times longer then the 1st set, why so? Wider stops? Larger trends to follow? Change in strategy?

 

[nunthewiser]

Well done Skc ... obviously found something thats working for you .

 

[skc]

Some commentary

Positives

• Must improved results overall compared to my first 99 trades

• Able to improve average win / average loss to 2.52. Probably still not where I think is achievable, but in the right direction

• Longer average holding days demonstrating better patience
  Average loss is basically the same

Negatives

• 
  Still not happy with my stop placements. Stops are too lose for the volatile stocks while some are too tight for the more reasonable trending stocks

• Related to above - need to develop better read on the overall market - when to tighten stops vs accept some retracements. More on this below

• Commission still a drag on current position sizes

A couple more interesting points.

• Top 5 winning trades represented 63% of total P/L, top 10 represented 89%

• As I have plenty of funds in my account. I actually have way more positions open at a time then a $15000 account would allow. By having more positions open I am able to capture more of this phenomenal rally. For those who are more capital constrained this results is probably not easily repeated.

 

[skc]

Here are 3 trades to illustrate my shortcomings in adjusting my stops to suit the stock. Blue line illustrate the stop and when they got moved.

1. NGF. A gold stock that I wanted to ride higher. But I should have known this is a more volatile stock and when that reversal candle (dark cloud cover) showed itself I should have tighten the stop right at the base of that candle. In this case, the stop was too wide for this stock. Profit foregone ~2R.



2. SUN. A recovering bank in the midst of a finance-led rally. I should have sat back and watch it run. Instead I was too quick to lock in profits. A intraday fall shook me off and it went on to run another 6R



3. WAN. An example where I think I trailed the stop quite well. Time will tell if that is in fact the case.



To me the lessons are.. you got to know the stock (1) and got to have a read on the market (2). Can't have them right all the time, but definitely room for improvement.

 

[prawn_86]

Great stuff.

Good to see people actually willing to put their results out there, warts and all for everyone to see, as opposed to just talking about their trading without showing it.

Well done SKC, i hope your winning ways continue

 

[lukeaye]

Hey really good effort.

What sort of exit strategy do you use? It looks like you have applied it mechanically?

I really wish i had the time to go over every trade i do, and really evaluate properly.

 

[suhm]

I thought I'd put up my results as I have been re-evaluating my approach and would appreciate some comments. I found that my return from dividends not included in the graph, was more than my cap gains and that I should cut my losses or re-evaluate if they reach my new trigger point about -15% on my average sized position (-1).

The changes in the second section are mostly to do with that and defining a point to take profits before commencing the trade, most of the trades in the 2nd section are still open.

Edit: Sorry I just realised I might be hijacking your thread but it was good to see what the results of other people's positions were, so I thought I would share

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Good work skc, thanks for posting it all openly too, looks like you're getting things sorted, what sort of time frame was this over?

Keep it up

 

[Mr J]

Skc, is that over the last four or so months? What timeframes do you trade? The daily?

 

[Ato]

Wow, that's awesome skc You've inspired me further with this thread!

 

[skc]

Very Impressive skc, how much risk per trade? 1%

Also notice the the average winning trade is 3 times longer then the 1st set, why so? Wider stops? Larger trends to follow? Change in strategy?

Risk were between 1 to 1.5% per trade for the vast majority.

The increase in holding days largely due to the fact that the number for the first set were way low. The 1st set contained many trades where I took profit, took a 1 day punt etc which reduces the average significantly. The overall large, persistent trend in the market also helped.

What sort of exit strategy do you use? It looks like you have applied it mechanically?

Nothing mechanical at all. All exits are through trailing stops or scratched trades (i.e. pattern that didn't want to go on with it). Stops are trailed in a discretionary manner... e.g. 6 day look back, below most recent pivot low, or "shove it up the back side".

It may look mechanical because how the charts looked. But that's just me putting signals on the chart manually.

Good work skc, thanks for posting it all openly too, looks like you're getting things sorted, what sort of time frame was this over?

Skc, is that over the last four or so months? What timeframes do you trade? The daily?

Trades are between June to Oct.

I don't trade with any particular timeframe in mind. That is, I enter a trade without any fixed intention of how long I will hold it. I use daily charts, but sometimes I move stops during the day depending on market action.

And thanks all others for the kind words.

 

[nomore4s]

Great results skc, keep up the good work.

As I have plenty of funds in my account. I actually have way more positions open at a time then a $15000 account would allow. By having more positions open I am able to capture more of this phenomenal rally. For those who are more capital constrained this results is probably not easily repeated.

Can you just clarify this comment for me?
Does it mean you have more then $15,000 in your trading account?

Thanks.

 

[marknz88]

I think SKC trades via CFD's rather than pure stocks hence his 15,000 on margin allows more open positions?

 

[skc]

Great results skc, keep up the good work.



Can you just clarify this comment for me?
Does it mean you have more then $15,000 in your trading account?

Thanks.

Yes. I had way more than $15000 in the account at a time. The peak "funds employed" was probably around $55K. The average was probably $30-35K so can be done on a margin account if one so desired. I didn't use CFDs.

On one hand, you could probably argue that the P/L of $13K was on the $30-35K instead, which makes the return % of ~40% far less impressive but more reasonable.

On the other hand, as I use $15K as my risk management figure, I would say the RAROC (risk adjusted return on capital) is still 78%.

I also keep a close eye on total amount at risk (i.e. entry price - current stop loss price) at any one time. And I usually manage that to be ~10% of the risk capital. I think this was a good comfort check, that even if I was holding $50K of stock and all my stops get hit at once, I am only down $1-2K in terms of capital (but also a lot of open profit).

The downside was that this had some impact on the way I move stops up - I perhaps moved stops up faster than they warranted just so that this total amount at risk looks smaller.