The trade quantity question is a broad topic and has many sub categories, however I will break down two aspects that traders should consider prior to identifying their average trade quantity.
Firstly, you must identify whether or not your style is swing trading or day trading, of course day trading will provide more opportunities given the intraday movements. Both styles are profitable but will depend on your lifestyle and time availability.
The second component is identifying whether your a conservative, moderate or aggressive trader, all of which have their drawbacks.
A conservative trader ( My personal style ) execute between 1 and 3 positions per week, scouring the portfolio looking for textbook trade opportunities that have the highest probability of success. By opening less trades at a higher strike rate will reduce drawdown and increase profits.
A moderate trader will execute between 4 and 8 positions per week opening positions that are a little more discretionary and not waiting for the perfect setups.
The aggressive trader will execute 8 to 15+ positions per week, although the trade quantity is very high it doesn’t mean they can’t be profitable, however it’s likely they have a slight edge over the market (55% / 60%) and requires high volume of trades to generate healthy returns.
All three categories above have there up and downside, you should choose based on your daily commitments, trading style and backtesting data.
Which type of trader are you? Conservative, Moderate, Aggressive.
Overactivety will crush you. Unless trading is your jobs you should only open a trade or two every few weeks and let the market movements develop. Overactivity is something you see from alot of novices. 80% fail to beat the market and 50%+ lose money
ecicic
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@ecicic, it's much easier to predict the general trend then attempt to predict every move
UnknownUnicorn180388
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@ecicic, Couldn't of said it better myself, there is two main reasons why traders fail.
Impulsive / Emotional behaviour and lack of consistency with their rules.
MrRenev
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+1 for the Conservative club.
Throught backtesting the strategies I know I found that's where there was the most potential.
High risk reward AND high winrate that's how I roll.
I think that's how all or almost all the successful ones have done it too. For example as far as I know Georges Soros spent alot of time doing research, hunting for great opportunities he was not firing at random but picking the very best opportunites, a few but that's all he needed to become a billionaire.
Also, being very lazy might have something to do with that choice :p
I couldn't agree more, become a sniper in the market not a man with a shovel.
rludvik
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I'd say I'm on my way from aggressive to moderate. But like you wrote, it depends on time one can spend on this. I tend to be in aggressive mode especially while learning and want to try to find some new pattern immediately on all known pairs! :) But for this I use demo account with fake money and I don't publish all charts.
UnknownUnicorn180388
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@rludvik, It's great to hear that your aware of impulse actions.
Always remember if you look hard enough, slant your head and squint your eyes you will always find a pattern, however it may not have a profitable edge.
everget
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Moderate
kiero
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@tomhall and others, how much time per day or per week do you spend analyzing markets to get your several high probability entries?
Thank you.
Great question.
I spend roughly 45 minutes building my watchlist ready for the morning, if the market fails to pull back to my entry zone then i don't check the charts that day.
If price pulls into my entry zone then i will continue to keep my eye on the charts until price either validates a trade setup or invalidates it.