Consistent Strategy - Consistent Results

Most traders get obsessively focused on entries somehow believing that the entry is the most important aspect of trading. However, in doing some simple math it became apparent to me that one can make money in trading even if one is not very good at picking entries. I am sharing here two tables and before getting into my analysis of the data, I’ll explain what each table column means:
Win-percentage of winning trades
Loss-percentage of loosing trades
# Trades-the total number of trades evaluated in this row
R Value-the maximum amount of $ one is willing to risk (and loose) per trade
#R per Winner-is the average number of Rs won in the 10 winning trades
P&L-profit or loss for a given row



Although the math in the tables is very simple, it is quite revealing. A trader that performs with only 40% of winning trades can still make money. If the 40% winner trader was risking $100 per trade and was getting into trades that yield 2Rs, he can still make $200 every 10 trades. And if his winning trades yielded 3Rs, then he can make $600 every 10 trades. Amazing, isn’t it?
Normally, we would say that a person in any field that performs well only 50% of the time is not very good at what he does. However, if you manage to stay at 50/50 in trading, you can do very well. A 50/50 trader that risks $100 per trade, if his winning trades yield 2Rs average, he can make $500 every 10 trades, and at 3Rs he can make $1,000 every 10 trades.

So, I think that entering trades that have a the potentially high ROI and never loosing more than 1R are also very important, and maybe crucial, to the trading game.

Achilles’ heel

From wikipedia
“An Achilles’ heel is a fatal weakness in spite of overall strength, actually or potentially leading to downfall.”

Friday’s session provided me with a clear, raw view of my own Achille’s hill: I loose psychological control of myself when I have a loosing trade; I start trading with anger and frustration and ignore my setup rules and every new loss clouds my judgment more and more.
I rather ignore this fact. I rather pretend it is not there. I rather sweep it under the rag. But I cannot. I know that if I want to grow as a trader, I need to face this.

When I started 2009, I defined my main trading goal as: to gain a deeper understanding of price action. I cleaned my charts from indicators I was not using, and started studying the many rules that comprise the mechanics of price action. But now I realize that I need to set an equally or even more important goal:
To use the loosing trades as a psychological trigger to awaken the wining mental power and focus that allow me to be the trader I want to be.

I view trading as an extremely competitive endeavor. And when I am partaking in a competition, I am very, very competitive. When I was younger I played volleyball for the national team of my country, so I know what being a high performer means. And I also know the psychological struggle that goes on when you are down, and you need to pull the very best in you to come back and win. I now need to apply this to my trading. I need to exercise the psychological muscle that allows me to come out a winner after being down.
Yesterday, at the Australian Open, I witnessed two inspiring comeback stories: Safina, who was down 5-3 and 40-15 with Cornet serving for the match, rallied to win 6-2, 2-6, 7-5. Safine could assume the top ranking if she wins this competition.
Also, Roger Federer (one of the best male players in the world) was down 2-0 and ended up taking the match from Berdych. That was another amazing match, and this is what Federer had to say:
"It's great satisfaction," said Federer about winning a five-set match. "I don't play five-setters every day so it's a very nice feeling. I guess especially coming back from two sets to love when you feel like everything is going your way in the end and the other guy is all of a sudden under pressure. After you felt one way for one and a half hour, then to be able to turn it around and then be leading all of a sudden is a great feeling."

I also find interesting that most of the conversations among traders are centered on the subject of entering trades or market analysis. And considerably less is spoken about trader psychology. Even the successful traders I know (most of them do not blog), they hardly every speak about the psychological obstacles they had to overcome to become successful. I would really like to hear or read some of those stories.

Building Success

I sometimes have very ambitious goals with my trading and that makes me neglect certain setups just because they are not so "grand." That is totally stupid. I think that success comes from building on the small and simple strategies that work for oneself.
Imitate while you learn. Innovate when you become yourself.
I like the work that Tyler is doing with his trading.

Stages of a Trader

This is a very cool read from Bo Yoder and posted by Stewie. Also, Stewie's comments are very insightful. Enjoy!

Trading to win vs. trading not to loose

I am bookmarking a few resources that I found useful regarding the concept (new to me) of Trading To Win vs. Trading Not To Loose.
In the comments section of this post, Jamie made a very precise and interesting description of these concepts. Brett Steenbarger has a blog post on the subject. And I also found this article about Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory that I think is quite relevant.