Shane Blankenship
Defining Target for Risk Reward: Maybe you shouldn’t?
The trade plan is broken up into parts. We have an objective and consistent entry, stop, and exit plan. Here I will be talking about the exit plan and setting targets that will give you a particular risk/reward ratio. There are no absolutes when it comes to what risk/reward you should be aiming for, a lot has to do with how you handle risk and loss and your overall understanding of markets.
Defining the stop (risk) is relatively easy compared to defining the target (reward). Mostly you need a clean set of statistics on an objective method. This will give you an average distance that the swing will run in relation to your method. The reward part of the equation is a function of how far your stop is to your entry.
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to trading. For many, it may be best not to set a target, but instead use something simple and objective like a moving average to exit the trade. This way, you get what the market gives you while incorporating consistency and objectivity into your exit plan. Keep it simple, objective, and consistent, and learn as you go. In the video, I make something up on the spot that may give you some ideas. I use a 20ema as a profit stop only after the price has made a new high. It’s simple, principle-based, and it’s objective.
No matter what your method, knowing where you are in the swing cycle will help in defining entry, stop, and target, and this will directly influence the risk/reward ratio.
What Is an Expanding Swing?
Markets move in contraction/expansion. Small swings can be thought of as a form of contraction and the bigger swing is a form of expansion. An Expanded Swing is simply a reaction leg that is bigger than the previous reaction leg or legs. Its minor swings growing up to be major swings.
This represents a change in behavior that often causes confusion among the shorts and the longs. The shorts are fearful cause the market is now backing up on them and the longs are fearful cause they see a market now turning up and getting away from them. This confusion creates an opportunity for those that are sitting back with a plan.
To see this price action on a chart, it helps to have some simple and objective definitions for mapping the market and I show this in the video. First, we use market structure to read the market, and then we use a trading structure (trade plan) to structure the actual trade where we manage risk.
Review: Did You Make a Clear Plan? Did You Follow That Plan?
We can break up the review section of the trading into several distinct sections.
1. Review for discipline and personal insight
2. Review for performance (statistics)
3. Review for market insight
4. Review for method development
I’m going to do the first section “Review For Discipline”. We can keep this simple and ask 2 questions.
1. Did you make a clear and objective plan?
2. Did you then do what you said you were going to do in the plan?
These questions demand honest, yes-or-no answers. They force you to confront your trading discipline head-on, without room for excuses or escape. If the answer is no that’s ok, just start over with the commitment to keep at it and don’t spend too much time on regrets. You might need to make your plan clearer or simply learn the discipline to stay with it. Keep in mind that this isn’t about whether you won or lost, it is about learning consistency and discipline.
Position Sizing: Learning to Lose
Position sizing is one of the components of a trading plan, and it’s important to be just as disciplined and consistent with this as with all other parts of the plan. Position sizing is defining how much we will risk for each and our objective is to consistently get the most profit with the least amount of risk.
So, how much should you risk per trade? There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but to manage our risk consistently, we must establish simple, objective, and common-sense rules grounded in the realities of trading.
Let’s take a look at some of those realities
• As traders, we should expect to lose more often than win and must learn how to manage
losses effectively.
• At some point, we will face drawdowns with many consecutive losses.
• Successful trading results from a series of many trades and the compounding of gains,
not just from being right on one or a few trades.
In the video, I will show a simple guideline for calculating how much to risk per trade based on your risk tolerance over a series of trades and a drawdown number. I’m going to give you a default drawdown of 30 consecutive losses.
For example, if you have a $10,000 account and don’t want to lose more than 15% ($1,500) of your account in drawdowns, you would divide $1,500 by the default drawdown of 30 stops, which would give you $50 per trade (1/2% of the account per trade). This plan allows you to lose 30 times in a row while staying within your risk tolerance. This doesn’t mean you have to risk the entire $50 per trade; consider it a maximum amount.
If you are relatively new to trading or still fine-tuning your approach, I suggest trading very small amounts. Less than 1/4% of your account balance. Choose what feels comfortable and stick to it consistently. This allows you to make many trades while learning and not damage yourself. Be deliberate and create a plan to earn the right to size. For instance, require at least a small profit after two months and comfort with your method before incrementally increasing your risk per trade. Repeat this process every two months before increasing your size again.
It’s this kind of work that helps to balance your psychological mindset. You don’t get that from books about trading psychology, you get it from grounded and deliberate practice.
Use my position sizing calculations as guidelines and adjust accordingly. Once it is set, be consistent in what you do.