Not much regularly scheduled economic or earnings news tomorrow with a glint of fed speakers, only 2.

The Drawdown

Rather than doing a market recap today below is a brief I put together regarding drawdowns and the psychology of drawdowns: In my opinion, they are not a bad thing, in fact I believe that drawdown periods are a very sane and good thing for any solid strategy. Drawdown periods are very efficient to shake out weak traders from the strategy while smarter traders can pick up their money (which is the name of the game after all). The time that passes since the first equity high until we reach a new equity high is the drawdown period. So, a drawdown period has two dimensions:

The drawdown depth and the drawdown length.

Most people care about the drawdown depth as this is what is easier to see on back tests. However, the human the brain is much more affected by drawdown length. During live trading, it is easier to deal with a 10% drawdown for one week than with a 5% drawdown for five months.

• Detailed statistical information about the strategy: Expected profit, expected drawdown, maximal drawdown depth and length, average win percentage, reward to risk ratio, …
• Different scenarios and the actions to take (if any): intense and/or deep drawdown periods and what to do (or do nothing), whether to trade during Christmas time or summertime, whether to keep open positions during weekends or not, what to do after a losing year (or do nothing), funding and withdrawing plan, …
• A very clear worst-case scenario: it is basically the “line in the sand” where we know that the strategy has lost it’s edge and something must be done (stop trading the strategy, adapting parameters, …). There are many ways to calculate it (double the max historical drawdown, using Montecarlo simulations, using regression lines multiplied by x times the standard deviation on the equity curve, …). In the end it is a number. The important thing is to have it written in the trading plan.

When facing a problem that generates pain or panic such as a sudden deep drawdown, most of the time, when analyzed with rigor and care, the problem is not so important, and everything is within expected statistics. You will see that there were many periods in the past with similar characteristics.

Market volatility is here to stay for the foreseeable future with its ebbs and flows.

Choose your opportunities wisely. Today’s market swings were largely back to normal (pre tariff talk normal)

Tomorrow:

Econ Data:  ISM Services PMI, EIA Energy

FED Speak: 2

Earnings: Dollar Tree

Tariff news: Anything goes!