[Dogpile]

another nice thing about having a mechanical short-term strategy is that you have a daily benchmark to outperform. you can see the signals it generated and see which ones you took and which ones you didn't and why... you also see when a mechanical trigger is about to go off and have to time to think, do I want to take this signal or not? does the higher timeframe technical structure favor taking this trade? is the location favorable relative to the support/resistance you have identified? is it a really choice set-up consistent with a full-size position or do you see a few reasons for concern and should only take a smaller position? or is the set-up really pretty balanced with no edge whatsoever??

Friday was an example of a difficult day to trade in my opinion... my strategies did not do well on Friday after having perfect signals on thursday. you can see how Friday was not really a good 2-way market. good traders, whether bullish or bearish, had plenty of opportunities to make good money on thursday. I made money on both days but underperfomed my ('dumbed-down') mechanical strategies on Thursday and outperformed on Friday (though I didn't make much on Friday, it was a green day). if I summed the 2 days together, my (single-timeframe) simple mech strategies were basically back to breakeven by the end of Friday...