We all struggle with it to some degree, Ray. No matter how long you do this the Good Ol’ Ego is still there in the back of your mind searching for perfection, wanting to be right, and trying to avoid facing the reality of occasionally being wrong.

This is why early on I like to take a more mechanical approach to a methodology for developing traders as it essentially forces them to have patience and discipline by sticking to the rules. When you do that you force yourself outside your comfort zone as you need to sit on your hands and wait things out but after you go through that a number of times and see your edge play out over time you realise that what was once an emotionally turbulent event (setup, entry or management) really isn’t the kind of situation where you should be having that kind of response.

From there it not only allows the possibility to be consistent in terms of sticking to your plan, with your decisions in regard to trade and risk management, and in terms of actual profitability, but it also opens up the next stage where a trader can now look to trade with more discretion and in a more intuitive way. Where that would have been a problem early on as decisions and judgements were clouded by emotion, the now more disciplined and patient trader can take more objective decisions based on their pattern recognition and market knowledge that allows further profitability overall.

It’s all a process and like I said earlier some of that stuff never really goes away and you will need to keep aware of it and working on it to improve but it does become much, much easier with experience and regular periods of introspection and review.

Hi Dim.

To be completely honest, I’m not really sure what the maximum would be. Right now in the summer with lower volumes the maximum threshold would be lower than at other times of the year or during highly active, volatile periods so anyone trying to trade the “maximum” size would be adjusting accordingly throughout the year. Many traders I know do adjust their sizing for market conditions or based on recent performance but this is usually within a defined range that they are comfortable with and within their risk tolerance so they’re not really pushing to take on the biggest position possible.

Most traders wouldn’t be anywhere close to what the Emini S&P 500 (ES) market could handle however, even if they are well-established retail professionals. The market is simply so large with such high volumes that unless a trader is taking on hundreds of contracts at a time they’re unlikely to see too many issues and even slippage will typically be relatively minor on market orders.

My experience and that of others I’ve worked with suggests that limit orders up to 50 contracts tend to be filled nearly as reliably as orders of 5 contracts. Usually you either get filled or you don’t. I have had experiences though where I might be looking to get filled on 20 contracts, for example, but only 8 of them actually fill in smaller chunks before price moves on into profit and then rest is left unfilled (and then cancelled manually). This doesn’t seem to happen all that often though as I mentioned before because we usually are targeting entry at or before areas of larger volume and order flow so generally price will slip through for a complete fill or not at all.

As for using >50 contracts in your limit orders, I can’t really say. I do know of traders who take on positions that are that size or far, far larger but they often accumulate or distribute over time in smaller pieces or will add on as price returns to favorable levels. Usually when traders get to that level the focus is less on maximising profits and more minimising risk, so the question typically asked is how do I keep drawdown to a minimum as opposed to how can I trade with maximum size immediately for maximum return.

That is prob a top two thing I struggle with. My ego gets in the way so much that I almost have a need to be right….and being wrong is so “painful” even in sim that at times it prevents me from taking good setups or even worst..moving my stop which leads to an even bigger drawdown. What’s worst is if I take a bigger loss from the moved stop…it’ll get into my head and I’ll miss trades on subsequent good set ups that would’ve resulted in positive expectancy. If I had just tightened up my stop or just let price hit the initial stop instead of moving it then take trades on the subsequent set ups instead of letting fear of being wrong or loss take me out…it would’ve worked out.