Jan 24 Choppy with bond futures selloff

ZN- 10yr bond futures retracing after sharp peak


YM- Dow futures has a choppy up session


NYSE A/D remains to the upside


HPT: it's clear that you're a serial self-sabotager. You've clearly put in the research and screen time to hone your skills as far as far as entry patterns. As an analogy to driving a car, you've mastered how to put the key in and turn the ignition. These are your setups and strategies.

As to trading size, how much research and screen time have you devoted to assessing when to trade 1 contract, when to add contract, when to go hogwild and make it a 10 contract entry from the start? Do you have any rules in set in stone as to your sizing methodology? This would be knowing how much pressure to apply to the gas pedal. I fear you have no such rules and gas the pedal sporadically.

As to stop losses and targets, do you have a set methodology? Do you peel off contracts at pre-set targets or go by feel? Do you set a stop loss or wing it? This is braking. Well, you get where I'm going. Successful active traders are 5 tool stars. You can't make it to The Show blessed only with a great arm or as a slugging, no glove DH or as a platoon late inning defensive specialist. Unlike baseball, trading isn't a team sport. You can't specialize in one facet of the trading game, you need all the skills from entry to exit, and be ready on a dime to do it again.

Answer-
As for position sizing, I start out the day trading 1 contract with a set stop and only add to the first contract if the trade goes my direction. I then lower and trail my stop, but sometimes I have to widen my stop when trading is choppy, and that is where I incur a lot of churning and sometimes get frustrated. I agree that I need better position sizing skills. I will take suggestions from readers if anyone out there has advice. This is one area that I need improvement in surely. I know some people will go all in on there trade and then scale out. Some people scale into their positions like me. Some people keep a fixed contract size on every trade. I welcome all opinions on this subject and I know that this is a highly debated subject on elitetrader.

For the record I traded and lost money today. I was up over 1k and then I preceded to churn that profit into a loss. Perhaps taking my profit for the day once I've hit my profit target for the day is the best strategy.