Self imposed trading lockout!
Planned
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Nicky Jul 14, 9:27 AM EDT The loss limit feature recently installed is nice but only goes half way up the hill. I would hope that all trading know exactly where they are monetarily at all times. The stop loss order can be set so a trader can leave the screen and control the down side as well as the up side. I speak for myself but I suspect I'm not alone. The day trading for the s and p emini provides excitement as well an opportunity for profit. I have walked away from the screen declaring myself done for the day, either ahead or behind, and have returned to the screen against previous better judgment. I would love to see the feature enhanced to allow me the lock myself out absolutely for a period of time in the future, say up to 24 hours. Just another box to check if I want the lockout to be irreversible by my choice. Currently a trader can be locked out and allow himself back in. That's like telling the mouse who is guarding the locked cheese where the key is My algorythm starts at 10;30 EST and I find myself entering before then agianst my better judgment. Moreover, if I'm emotionally involved in a string of losses or winners and feel that a time out is necessary then I could circumvent my 'impulse" to return. My desire to have more discipline as a trader, which I cannot seem to provide myself, could help my overall account help. Locking myself out would allow me to regain my composure. I back track my trades and find that many wins comply with my trading theory and many losses occur when my theory is not executed. The better my theory works the longer I am a customer telling others that my success comes from Tradovate and their desire to meet traders needs. I consider this option crucial in making me a more disciplined trader and less of an action junkie. |
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a lot of us is having days when they know they should've not been trading, but they did
or days when they had a profit but gave it back
or days when they should stop trading after hitting a daily loss limit but they haven't
we can either work on our psyche and improving our behaviour
or we can use software to protect us from ourselves
guys from http://www.tradewatcher.ca have implemented a tool that will allow you trade only within Topstep Trader rules, and flatten any of your trades if it things that you should be done for the day https://youtu.be/YboWSzJLIfU
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I'd like to add further to this with a few points:
1) Most traders are rarely in the correct mental state when a certain loss limit is reached. I can only describe from personal experience that some kind of self-lobotomy takes place and I am not in a state to take reasonable/logical action.
2) Allowing discretion to widen the stop loss defeats the purpose of a daily loss limit as a rule.
3) Traders are likely to over-ride this rule in a less than optimal state. The most likely outcome is further losses
4) If there is no rule, then a loss on any given day is unbounded. A trader may intend to only lose $500 on a given day but instead drop $3000. This is so much harder to come back from than if the system just locked him/her out at -$500 and they start a new day afresh.
5) This is most relevant for day-traders whereby putting a good night's sleep over any bad day and starting the next session anew makes a world of difference.
6) There is no benefit to a subscription model like this to have a trader revenge trade his way out of trouble (where there might be a conflict of interest with a commissions-based broker). Capital preservation is much more important for everyone involved
Finally, the most important point is that, anybody who wants to preserve the right to change their daily loss limit can SIMPLY disable the function altogether. The option is there. Most systematic trading relies on always taking the "next setup" regardless of the losses on the day, every trade is independent etc and that's fine and under this, that trader should make a conscious decision to not have the loss function enabled. It's when a trader is part of his system (discretionary) that a daily loss limit rule is there for their own protection. The requested change from the OP would be able to serve BOTH types of traders.
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I agree we need a daily lock-out option and a lock-out to prevent users from modifying the new risk settings, end of session and 24+ hours. Timing lock containers are popular for food items, which have a similar but much less strong effect on biochemistry and dopamine than trading.
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