Trading Results - Series II

Series II included 13 trading days. There were several gaps between the periods I actually spent trading during the series. It turns out that trading on the road, especially when I'm working long hours, can be exhausting, and I quite simply did not have the willpower to get up in the middle of the night to trade during a couple of the trips I took. I made a couple of trading errors along the way (and I include those in the results). One example: bailing out of trades before my rules told me to do so, and thereby taking a loss instead of gaining a profit.

And I got discouraged when I hit losing streaks lasting several days -- despite telling myself that drawdowns are normal and sometimes just have to be tolerated. I found it depressing to get up in the middle of the night, tired, and trade for two hours with a negative result. I worried at times that I really had no edge at all, that I was just wasting my time.

Overall, I suffered a 9.1% drawdown during the series. It was tough.

Total trades: 23
Winners: 10
Losers: 13
% Winners: 43.5%
Avg. Win: 18.4
Avg. Loss: 16.6
Avg. Trade Size (pips): 17.4
Pips Won: 183.8
Pips Lost: 216.4
Net P/L (pips): 32.6
Max Winning Streak: 2
Max Losing Streak: 3

This series produced results far below what I had experienced in paper trading, backtesting and my Series I of actual trades. In reviewing the trades during the series, I discovered that I had unconsciously introduced a change in my method for setting targets and stops. It was a subtle change, but enough to turn a handful of winning trades into losers.

As of the beginning of June, I started on a third series of trades, and have gone back to my original stop/target setting methodology. I have again missed periods of trading, but the results so far are in keeping with the backtesting results, and I have more than made up for the losses incurred during Series II. (But obviously the results aren't final until the series is complete.)

Since beginning trading with real money at the end of March, I am still comfortably positive, so viewed in that context, I remain encouraged that this is worth doing. Taking the longer view has helped to keep the bad days in perspective. I think it is possible that as time goes on, I will come to expect periods such as Series II to occur, and (understanding that these periods are inevitable, but transient) will be able to traverse through such periods with more equanimity.