Friday, July 27, 2018

Trading in 2018 is Objectively Better

I computed my average gain per NQ contract traded in 2006-2008 compared to in 2018. In 2006-08, on average I gained 0.46 points per contract traded or $9.31. Commissions on a roundtrip were $4.80 then. In 2018 so far, I made 3.69 points per contract or $73.74. Commissions are now $4.10 on a roundtrip. So, my trading now is almost an order of magnitude better. The average is brought down by lots of small daytrades I've done. As I plan to do fewer of those, the average should improve, I hope. On the other hand, the level of the index is now nearly 4 times higher than it was in 2006-8 and so a given percentage price move translates to more points.


This graph shows the equity curve on NQ trades - the actual number of trades is half this as there is one data point for each opening or closing of a position. Initially in 2006-7 I had a reasonably good increase in profits, peaking around $10k cumulative profit. Then there was a long slow decline into 2008 of a series of small wins, punctuated with larger losses. The big jump is the start of trading in 2018,  when I had a series of big wins. Since then, things have gone sideways, with losses equal to gains.

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