Big Ben on the FTSE100

Agreed, i'm still comfortably up from when I started so no panic. Just need to keep some discipline and stick to the rules that work...
 
Today's trade. Short @ 5822 s/l @ 5833.4 Limit @ 5805.8

Not had a big ben trade this week - one wasn't triggered and the rest of the week the BBR has been too large - so lets hope for a profitable end to the week.
 
Big Ben wins 2-0 this week, inching the 4-week performance up to 9-7. Ahead for June too, 3-2 so far. Nice way to end a week.
 
Some big moves this week. looks like I would have been:

M) Didn't trade (thought +40, would have actually been b/e), nearly +40
T) B/e
W) +15 (stopped out by 1pt and then went on to hit 40pt level)
T) B/e
F) - 15.

So actually no points for the week.. but M and W were very close to +40.

Clearly meaningless at this stage. Will try to get some back testing done.:whistling

Have a good w.end all :clap:
 
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Thoughts on position sizing.

It seems to me that a trade system that can only generate 1 entry signal per day, with a 60% win rate, on about 4 days out of 5, and whose positions can only last 4hrs, demands a hefty stake to be at all financially interesting.

The standard advice of course is that not more than 2% of an account should be at risk on any single position. For BB trades, following the logic above, that seems to demand a pretty big account or to remain BB trading for pocket money. Fixing risk per trade is very sensible, and 2% risk per trade should ensure that a string of losers does not damage the account to a degree that you can't trade back to b/e without increased risks. So what's the likelihood of a string of losers in BB trading?

Maybe someone can work this out mathematically but I don't know how to do that. What I can do is review trade records and use the past as a guide. Going back to when I started applying a fixed points target and stop (14/02/11) rather than the depth of the BB range the system shows a performance of 39-30 (57%). Over the period, excluding holidays and no-trade days, the maximum consecutive number of stopped out trades is 4: this has occurred twice. The worst periods of 20 trades showed performances of 10-10: there have been no losing periods of 20 trades, assuming 1:1 r:r.

This finding surprises even me, I have not worked this out before. However, I feel it does help justify my raising my position size to 4-5% of account.
 
Having a scout around the internet on probability:

It appears that heads and tails (assuming 50% of course) having a run of 10 in a row:

is a probability of 0.976 in a 1000 (or 1 in a 1000 of a 10 in a row run)

using 56% (well 44% as that is chance of losing each time in theory) I work it out to be 0.27ish or circa 1 in 4000 of 10 in a row.

Doing 5 losers in a row, it seems to suggest that you would expect that to happen about 4 times a year (with the assumption that the system is used 250 times in the year).

Interesting to work out
 
Not a great start to the week here, price tagged the short entry @5762.3 and almost instantly reversed to take out the stop. How did everyone else got on ?
 
My short entry was not taken this am and I am now in long. Though in the red, this does not look bad.
 
Broke my own rule to cancel all unexecuted orders at 1300hrs. Stopped out, making score in last 20trades 10-10.
 
It looked a very bad day to be trading any form of breakout strategy.. it looks like it just bounced around in about a 30 point channel all day. :sleep:

Good luck tomorrow all.:clover:
 
Broke my own rule to cancel all unexecuted orders at 1300hrs. Stopped out, making score in last 20trades 10-10.

Should that count though Tom', the system didn't fail as it told you not to trade as nothing had happened by 1:00pm. Of course there was a chance that the long entry would have worked if US market woke the FTSE up.

I am struggling with the automation of my system. I really want to use 'One Cancels Other' Orders and I am very keen to move to break even once 10 pts up. I think I may need to learn MT4 (as I believe it can do such things).

I need to do similar for other styles of trading and the only solution I can get at the moment is for one order to close and a new one to open (which isn't great as I would have to pay a second spread).

Oh well will ponder on. Going to read up on MT4, sure there must be stuff on internet.
 
Should that count though Tom', the system didn't fail as it told you not to trade as nothing had happened by 1:00pm. Of course there was a chance that the long entry would have worked if US market woke the FTSE up.


bangkoker - you are corect, thank you. In fact, the system says no trade to be opened after 1pm, so this knocks one loser off the perfomance record. I guess this emphasises the psychological aspect of trading - it was not a system error, it was the trader's.
 
Stopped out of my short here, that makes me 10-10 over the last 20 trades. Disappointing. This is not going to get that BMW on the drive is it?
 
I've only got a long order in the market and it doesn't look like that's going to get taken today.
 
stopped out too tomorton. Concerning stats over the last few weeks. Wouldn't give up just yet though! How are you performing over a longer term?
 
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