How was 2010 for trading?

We're going into year-end.

How was the year overall in terms of profit?

Which month, or period was most profitable?

Did you make any changes to your style of trading?

What was the most important insight you gained this year, that you could pass on?

Hope you guys had an excellent year
(mine was pretty good, mostly June-Aug, but I went out of synch sometime from November. I am looking to go for robustness rather than outliers. removed 2 indicators from my charts. advice: stick to your own rules.)

How was the year overall in terms of profit?

Main account (retracement strategy UK equities) steady but not spectacular - outperformed my missus (an active buy and holder) for a change which is cause for celebration arty:

Play account 1 (various strategies) was blown three times and looks like heading for a fourth .

Play account 2 (ftse/dow correlation strategy) did well and enough to up the ante on it next year.

Which month, or period was most profitable?

August through October

Did you make any changes to your style of trading?

Yes. I rarely use a stoploss anymore for the main stuff, but hedge at that point instead.

What was the most important insight you gained this year, that you could pass on?

Listen to no-one but yourself

good trading

jon

Great thread title Trendie, will take time out to put some imput in this evening.. fwiw I got nowhere near my yearly targets...

How was the year overall in terms of profit?
By the end of June based upon swing trading, I was up about 23% on account. I then realised I was not happy swing trading and really wanted to day trade. As of today, I am down about 60% on account. This was a phenomenal burn from July through to September. September accounted for 40% of that total itself. It was a turning point, a reality check and wake-up call. October ended flat as I got my head in the game and November was up as I further refined my execution and started to figure out what this lark is about.

Which month, or period was most profitable?
April & May were very profitable for swing trading with some big moves that I caught.

Did you make any changes to your style of trading?
Style and timeframe from swinging 4-Hour on ES to daytrading ES using 5min.

What was the most important insight you gained this year, that you could pass on?
Less is more.

trendie said:

We're going into year-end.

How was the year overall in terms of profit?

Which month, or period was most profitable?

Did you make any changes to your style of trading?

What was the most important insight you gained this year, that you could pass on?

Hope you guys had an excellent year
(mine was pretty good, mostly June-Aug, but I went out of synch sometime from November. I am looking to go for robustness rather than outliers. removed 2 indicators from my charts. advice: stick to your own rules.)

Click to expand...

as of now down 15% since august , having a 30% drawdown. none was profitable really. The main thing i've done is to stop using such wide stop losses, my win rate isn't great , about 60% so started to look for entry methods to improve the risk/reward i was getting, seems to be paying off, my levels are the same its just i wait for setups, the usual, pin bars and the like, rather than touch trading with a wide stop. Insights, um,it's funny because it's only now im realising how important it is to get your head right, spend so much time getting the right method, money management, rules, markets and realise there's so much to do and you're really just a raw noob.
so a humbling experience....
biggest change then is actually that i realise i was a cocky pompous dick who can't beat buy and hold.
i also somewhat regret my frequent trollings on arabian's chatrooms

trendie said:

We're going into year-end.

How was the year overall in terms of profit?

Which month, or period was most profitable?

Did you make any changes to your style of trading?

What was the most important insight you gained this year, that you could pass on?

Click to expand...

None of your business

Worst time period this year for me was Feb through mid march. I had 4 losing days of 5 in 1 week. Not good for a day trader!

November and December have been about as good as I can remember for any 4-6 week time period however currently I'm sitting on a 5 trade losing streak.

Overall the year was good but not great. I don't set any targets for myself. I prefer to view success as having a ROR that is a fair based on the time and effort involved, and I feel I achieved that this year.

My trading will be limited until January due to low volatility/liquidity and of course the holiday season. I wish everyone well and here's to a profitable 2011 for everyone!

Peter

ADDED: I realized that typing my thoughts and charts on the live trading thread gave me extra discipline and some valuable information about my own trading that I would not have seen otherwise. I started posting there as an experiment and I received some value from it. I hope others may have picked up a trick or 2 from my efforts.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Ah, humbug.

May was a cracking month, June and July complete toss, November was shaping up nicely then became toss.

Overall +11% on the year, I have now incorporated drawdown limits on my system which I didn't have before. I've had a couple of 20%+ drawdowns this year.. this is not statistically unlikely, but is certainly emotionally unpleasant.

Whilst I am fairly disciplined in my approach, I skipped a few signals this year which ended up costing (or not making) 10% of my account.. I'll consider that an expensive lesson.

How was the year overall in terms of profit]

Steady and consistant, overall % success rate about maintained

Which month, or period was most profitable?
April through June


Did you make any changes to your style of trading?
Adopted LESS is MORE

What was the most important insight you gained this year, that you could pass on?
Takes no ones advice but your own.
When actively trading, stay away for all boards and threads, focus and concentrate on the job in hand and explain yourself to no one (except the missus) hehe.

How was the year overall in terms of profit?

So far the best out of the 4 :smart:

Which month, or period was most profitable?

Made +50% in July

What was the most important insight you gained this year, that you could pass on?

Don't get discouraged by occasional drawdowns which can last quite "long"

may june was a shambles

I thought the first 7 months of trading were the hardest since 2004 where we only had a +/-12% range all year. However, the last 5 months were great and ended up being pretty good.