Hey guys! At 15:00 in this video, it mentions "The Sizing Notecard" coming soon (about position sizing). I hope this is still on the backburner! Thanks for everything you do
I've re-watched every video I can find with Lance on it. This guy is very smart, not just in trading, but in being a successful human being. I really appreciate all the advice Lance and SMB. Thanks.
I don’t know who I love more, SMB for putting out these videos (especially w/ Lance), or Lance for putting himself out there for us to learn and grow from. Lance is truly gifted at explaining things in very understandable, bite-sized, relatable pieces. I’m so grateful to both SMB and Lance. Thanks you so much!
Well... the truth is...For a discipline trader they only focus on 1-2 setups, which means only trade on A/B trades. And they keep adding positions once market is on their side. Which method is actually equivalent to the "exponential position sizing" that you've just called. In other words, A-trades are the trades when market is proving you're right. So you keep adding to it, just like a opposite Martingale system, your size is "exponentially increased" but when you're right. But guess what, even guys here that you know this secret(keep adding winners), you're still not gonna to make it right here right now. You still got to learn start from 'equally sizing' to cultivate yourself to be a consistent trader(that's the first thing!). If you start by adding positions then your mind will drive you crazy and you will be soonly blow your account and give up to be a trader soon.
I think the point of the video is to establish a edge and see what trades are A+ plus for you, not adding to every winning trade or adding to a good trade I think establishing more risk from the start rather than adding as you are right isn’t really a effective way in maximizing a return on the trade
I agree. All trades have the same chances of suceedjng from the beginning. You can only identify good trades when they start moving in your favour . Trading is probabilities game .
@@georgekojoamissah347 to me it’s all about the best entry. That is my edge. If my entry is great I’ll let the market talk to me whether I’d add or hold or even close earlier
It is a probabilities game, but there are certainly some confluences and other indicators you can use that when aligned, can tell you that it’s a slightly more probabilistic entry point than others. I shared the same belief that the market was like playing the slot machine where we have 0 edge at all, but because we are given some information, I now look at it like playing blackjack or poker. Players card count in blackjack and when the true count is in their favor, they size up. Players with pocket aces bet more than they would with 27offsuit. The outcomes to both are still random and could equate to a loss after the hand plays out, but they bet more because they have found an edge that presents a positive expected value over a series of hands
"Bet big when the situation calls for it." - Lance B "Where other traders make an average trade, I can make my month on that." What a great quote on the crucialness on focus on A trades. That expected value chart demonstrating the outsized r/r of A plus trades is extremely valuable.
Nobody can or should ever question advice given by you, Lance. I do just wonder, however, if it would make sense to simply eliminate C and D trades and mimic an exponential approach on the trades you do take (A and B). This seems like it would be a less complicated solution, with the same result, for retail traders. Having the self control and restraint to stay away from C and D trades in and of itself would propel most traders into profitability. Regardless, the message of simply knowing your A setups like the back of your hand is priceless on its own. Thank you for this!
The reason why you should trade the C and D entries, is because of the great immersion and hours of screen time you must spend in the market to be able to correctly identify the A and B, if you only wait for the A and B and do not have hours of screen time you will simply miss them and will not have the agility to capitalize on them, it is as if you were an athlete like Messi, what sense would it make to play the matches that are "easy", simply in those matches you can acquire skills that will allow you to be lethal in matches with difficult teams.
Okay, I completely agree with what you are saying and this is shockingly analogous to card counting in blackjack, track a count to determine when you have advantage, based on the amount of advantage scale your bet up accordingly, flat bet normally (1 unit) then use the Kelly Criterion or a version of it for scaling as things swing your way, make sure you arent betting more than a couple percent of your stack (gamblers risk of ruin) and off you go - the video fails to make clear how you determine which bet you are looking at though - what makes one bet an A, B, C, or a D? how do you spot it in advance? in real card counting you want to be able to have the big money enter the game mid-shoe when the advantage is yours so that big money never even makes a C or a D trade. The scaling isn't the issue if you understand the true risk, its determining the risk or advantage and the amount of it just before or perhaps even during the trade. Tell me that part - the realtime trade grading part, the rest is just mechanical.
I hear the message loud and clear. It can take many years of experience, and thousands of trades (or more) to finally see the writing on the wall. Which is: too much trading and too many stocks or markets can make you spin your wheels and get stuck. My conclusion is that it is far better to spend much less time trading and being stuck in many positions, and far more time just watching, observing, thinking, and waiting. Being an active trader can make you your own worst enemy. I think it takes a very great dose of wisdom and restraint to resist overplaying the game, to keep most of the powder dry, and to really judiciously await and identify the best opportunity, and then hit that opportunity hard! I will be working towards that.
Things that jump out at me for this type of bet sizing is being able to correctly identify the different set ups strengths. If A+ set ups are so rare I'd wager that most people trying to implement this exponential sizing will incorrectly bet big on set ups they perceive to be A that aren't. If we could correctly identify this then we would just never take D trades to begin with. So this style of sizing is definitely suited for advanced traders. Which I don't disagree with at all. An advanced trader with years of experience can differentiate the strength of their set ups better but you'd think they'd be better at just not taking the D set ups to begin with... I think one thing to take account for besides ABC or D set ups is just market conditions. Certain market conditions are tough to trade and others easier. Sizing up during favorable market conditions and sizing down during unfavorable is just as important. In favorable environments even D set ups will perform more like C set ups. And in unfavorable conditions your B set ups are acting like C and so on. One last thing to add is I'm surprised he didn't mention anything about max size vs your account size. As in if your usual size is 1% of you total account then using a 50X increase in size on your A set ups is just asking to blow up your account. Your account can't tolerate swings of that magnitude. There still has to be a max risk % of your account for bankroll management. I personally don't know the magic number of what it should be. Maybe 10% of your account? Unless your usual size is only like .25% or less then I can see bigger jump ups in risk to justify the 25x to 50x size.
This is a very insightful comment. I've been trying to implement exponential position sizing based on this video. I think a good strategy is to make the D setups really tiny ... like 0.1%. I see your point that if the set up is so bad, why even bother. However, there may be psychological reasons to allow these setups. E.g. sometimes, it's very hard to let a trade get away, even if objectively it has a lower probability of success. Putting it in the D bin allows you to take the trade without it actually negatively impacting your results. And if it does work out, great, you can buy a pizza with that money. The result is that all the mistake trades that would have burned a hole in my account are now effectively 0. Also, I'm finding having the ability to have really low bet size trades also helps with reducing FOMO... If I appear to be missing out on a low probability move, if I know that even if I had taken the trade, I wouldn't have made much at all, then it's a lot less painful. Most the time, if I think it's a low-quality trade, it ends up failing in the end anyway. So, knowing that the stakes were always low makes it easier to skip the bad trades.
(Caveat I’m in an adjacent market, flipping a particular class of less liquid assets) “D” trades are important not only for psychology but also for strategic reasons because if they do well then you get the chance to look at them more closely to see if the success can be replicated. Basically they’re “feeler” bets that give you info without breaking the bank. Also, re optimal bet sizing in relation to your bankroll, check out the Kelly Criterion.
The most successful traders I know started small, focused their efforts on becoming consistent and disciplined, and the majority of their rules based trade work. Some may go most of a week without any trades then find a great one at the end of the week. You also have those who are suggested in this video who do well doing something completely different. They'll take a ton of losses and still make bank. Whatever your strategy is, know what you're doing and stay consistent.
But I disagree with the absolutest views in this video. No, you don't need to bet big. You can go for small gains (depending on your definition of small) and be hugely successful in the long run. That said, and I know that I'm about to sound contradictory here, I'm not going to discount the experiences of the successful traders who do the opposite. Maybe the traders I know are unicorns in the business, I can't know for sure. Just that they can replicate their results over and over while sometimes taking losses that are larger than their profit goal for that trade. Master your mind, master your system.
I love how Lance explains everything. All the videos posted in this channel are very educational and very helpful to all traders especially those who are struggling towards profitability including myself. I would like to say thank you all very much for your efforts on creating helpful content like this. God Bless You all! I hope you bless more than you ever deserve.
This is helpful… I now wonder I did reverse … After having a home run with big lot size and earning good amount I continued trading big size… Only if I could categories my trades I would have traded smaller amount on the next trades which were C and D category… I was only working on my Psycology but this is so simple and objective…. I won’t lose more by trading bigger lots anymore on C n D trades… Thanks a ton 👏👏👏👏👏
This is one of the most important videos on trading. Lance is one of the few legit traders who is sincere about helping traders succeed. 95% of the 'experts' are 1 hit wonders, Lance is not.
Exceptional video with invaluable information! I used equal size trades thinking it was moderating risk; and you've just helped me understand its actually higher risk and less likely to produce positive outcome. Your videos offer a point of difference, above most trading vids, so thank you.
Stay patient and out of the "unnecessary/aimless trades". This is the hardest discipline to achieve, but wait for your A trade and you will be successful.
@@smbcapital I've never understood what a "cashflow" trade means. Isn't the goal of any trade simply to grow the account? Also, I agree with Shawns comment here in that it sounds simple to simply swing hard on good trades, but first you have to be able to identify good trades.....easier said than done.
I guess what he's implying is that elite traders can identify prime (A trade) opportunities when they come around AND have the guts to place skewed bets on them. The two are separate skills, but deadly when combined. Having the latter skill but not the former is also deadly (in the wrong way)
The key is understanding A, B, C, D set-ups which is a challenge in and of itself. Also, when you are wrong on betting 27x on an A set-up. Oh my ouch!!!
@@watchmetrade6066 trader's equation is risk x reward x probability even if the RR is 1:1 but the probability is insanely high it could be someone's A+
You can't play only AAs and KKs in poker, but you can trade only A+ setups in trading. And if you don't trade Bs, Cs and Ds, you can use for your As equally sized bets.
Thanks for the video Lance , so interesting concept! I watched many of your videos and interviews on TH-cam and learned so much! For the retail trader , when talking about extreme exponential bet size on A+ setups , is there still a max risk% of the total account size on that trade that shouldn’t be exceeded? Assuming equality sized bets in your examples accounts for 1% of account , how much risk should a trader go for on A+ with extreme exponential sized bets ?
This is my testimony, i have suffered a lot trading with binary strategy and i lost much lat 2 years, but when i was introduced to nasser strategy i see good difference and his strategy helped me so much from grass to grace and i make a lot of profit from 30% to 99%.
I'm new to cryptocurrency trading and I've been making huge losses but recently i see a lot of people earning from it. Please can someone tell me what to do?😔🙏
Fantastic advice. A well-known trader here in Australia wrote a whole book on money management where he emphasised you make your profits on just a few trades that you ride for all they are worth eg if in an uptrend as the trend continues, you switch from intraday, to daily, to weekly, even to monthly management increasing position size as you go. Of course, he is mostly a trend trader and wrote books on that. The beauty of it was the technique worked didn't matter what time frame you traded. The only trader/investor it didn't really work for is buy and hold Warren Buffett types - but the idea of having your portfolio weighted to your best 'bets', Buffett certainly uses eg Apple.
I always felt this way about A trades, but everywhere I look people recommend the same thing over and over again of never betting more then 2-3% on a single trade..of course I never listened, and finally someone proffesional says it💪🏻
I would agree with increasing my trade as the market hits certain levels. I do a lot of scaling. I am a swing trader and trade options on the SPY. I always wait for a setup until I trade.
Right on. Appreciate it. The only reason im profitable is b/c i aggressively add to "winners." Specially if its a hot stock. Just had my worst day of the year on NVDA. Got short bias somehow, bunch of small losses that added up + revenge trading/commissions. Has been my most common reason for big red days lately. Gotta fix it!
I think "betting big" is great presuming you are professionally measuring your trading results and accurately know your win rate. This would be great to discuss. A loss has a greater statistical impact than a gain, which means your exponential chart has more application on the side of REDUCING position size for mediocre setups, as opposed to increasing your size for winning setups, especially as you mentioned that most traders have low overall win rates. Anyway, thank you lance/smb, really grateful for you and your videos.
If you're looking for consistency, betting big is a terrible mistake. You can mathematically prove at a certain time your chance of blowing up is 100 percent.
@@missininaction3680 Incorrect. If you win rate is higher than you loss rate and your average win rate is higher than your average loss rate, you can keep betting big. Why? The odds are in your favor in the long run and you will always come out on top. The casino does the same thing. The exact reason why the house always wins in the long run. The house wins more often than not and when the house losing in short term...the wins overtake those losses.
The problem is that many times we assume we know what is A plus, but it can be hindsight bias or even noise between the EV plus trades skewing some of them. So the risk profile becomes assymetric and the consequence in a lower Calmar Ratio.
Trading mediocre setups is a waste of energy and could easily enough keep you from seeing your A setup that you look for constantly. Trading for the sake of trading slowly fades away the longer your career goes. One great setup executed right makes your week/month. Great videos as always.
Can anyone help me on how to differentiate A and B trades? On what basis is a trade A or B? 1) On winning probability? 2) On risk-reward? 3) Or on expectancy? If this is the case, why bet on B trades at all?
I think it comes down to experience. If you haven't traded more than a year or two, your not going to know which setup is subpar vs. an A+ Definitely tracking and having criteria would help I guess... But my guess is screen time is what seperates someone who can identify an A vs. B -- assuming they've taken the trades, gained the experience, and gained the lessons/feedback from those trades. So not just screen time...
Amazing! As I'm here looking at a trading journal full of clearly labeled trades with a strength scale of 1-10.🤯 This was exactly what I needed to see! Thank you, thank you🤗
This is truly remarkable. I almost forgot this technique because I am facing a huge drawback right now. I knew this for years and used to make nice profit with my A+ setup. I switched from future coin trading to forex prop firm due to overtrade and emotional control in coin trading. Thanks. This will help me next week
I have a trading system to earn my living expenses and another one to bet in the way Lance explained. With this approach you put pressure off the vessel. By the way an excellent lesson!! Maybe you can make another video on this topic explained.
How does this work within a daily stop ? Is the risk still still equal sized but more units are put on or is there another system of thinking to it ? So say for a daily stop of $50, max loss of $15 represents 30% at which point I stop trading Given this context, how would one structure this risk allocation structure, which by the way makes complete sense and is actionable given all other factors such as edge/expectancy/variance and stats are known already ? The lead on would also be how to structure a risk bump which could be the topic for another video. Thank you SMB once again and as I always have said and continue to maintain, you guys are more like a charity where the gift to us novice minds are applicable and applied knowledge.
Dang.. this seems so obvious once you used the poker analogy. I was taught to use the same share size on each trade and increase it gradually, which I guess is good as a newbie, but I’m at the point of my trading career where I am able to define my A-A+ quality setups so I’m definitely going to bet bigger when I come across them. Thanks for the insight.
This is cool b/c I've been paper trading futures for a few months now and I take paper cuts all the time... but I've been trying to size up when it seems "obvious" that my thesis is proving right and it's making a huge difference. Very interesting vid.
I have a question. If we take a small loss on a specific trade and then get back into the trade, would that be considered a wash sale? Over time would those add up to a significant amount? Thank you in advance. 🙏
Excellent video, couldn't have been said any better. Very true that it is one's responsibility to bet big when things are in your favor since that means you are otherwise allocating more risk into lower probability setups. High probability setups are few and far between, and you would be doing yourself a disservice by not taking advantage and allocating accordingly to rare opportunities as they come up. This is very true in most areas of life as well, not just in trading and poker, but also decision making in your personal life, in sports like baseball and basketball, in military operations, etc. Allocating the correct amount of capital, time, energy, resources, etc. to opportunities that are more likely to yield the greatest reward is the key to success no matter what you do. Thank you Lance.
This feels like some kind of hindsight analysis based on outcomes. I'm sure there are lots of traders who bet huge on A+ setups that just happened to fail at that particular time. If you bet huge and won, then you end up being considered a great trader, but those who bet huge and lost, they end up being considered bad traders. But the reality is that one group just got lucky that the setup worked at that time, while the other group just got very unlucky.
Great video! I love SMB and I appreciate every upload but my favorite videos are with Lance! Great teacher, knows his stuff, and he really seems to enjoy it! A++ on this, thank you Lance!!
Great video and something to definitely implement. This will essentially allow you to bet smaller on less than ideal trades while sizing up on the perfect setup 👍🏽
A third, simplest option The simplest approach is to assume a) conviction doesn’t correlate with accuracy, and b) historical trading stats may not predict the future distribution of outcomes. Then, just bet a fixed percentage of your capital on each trade.
Excellent Excellent Excellent Video ... This info is beyond Valuable .. please let me add on to this perfect break down after my 5 years of trading experience. So thru all of the different up and down levels you go thru in trading .. when you finally get to a consistent win rate you still come to this conclusion in trading that was one of my biggest flaws ..... Even when my AAA trade as i call it would present itself I still would bet small and this was killing me in the long run because you realized like this video implemented that your AAA trades as i call it would only happen once in a blue and those are your real big money makers. So let me share an example ........ lets say you trade based on the daily candlestick ATR oversold conditions only........ lets say every week the daily candlestick ATR 14 value goes over 100% ... 65% of the time a week, and over 125% ... 30% of the time a week and only over 225% ... 5% of the time a week ...... do you trade the some amount when price goes over 225% the daily atr range only 5% of the time a week as you would when price is going over 100% .. 60% of the time every week? .. no you wouldn't ... because when price goes over 225% of the daily ATR candlestick range that becomes a high value AAA trade that becomes your job to buy big and cash out big. After passing a phase1 prop firm test and losing the phase 2 this was my biggest lesson. Me losing a prop firm test because of going over the drawdown limit will never happen because of my risk management but me not winning in the allotted time given would coincide with me not increasing my bets or lot size as we call it in forex is one of my main reasons of not passing. ... I was once lost but now I am found lol .. Thanks guy for this video .. Priceless
This presumes that you can assign a score to the trade before the entry. If you can do that, why not just eliminate the D trades (and the C trades for that matter)? But your overall point that one should add size to a perfect or near perfect setup is a good one.
Great point. Through experience, we develop the ability to do that. Every strong trader can differentiate the quality of a weak setup and an exceptional one. And Theoretically we do cut out the “D” trades. But reality is that most traders I’ve seen tend to wash out across much of their trading. Factor in commissions, fees, spread and those wash out trades become slightly neg. That was what I tried to model there.
Sometimes you need to bang out the “D”’s to get the bills covered in less than ideal markets. They definitely have a place. But more of a base hit…..if that.
Why would you give up a D trade when you can trade it green? You give up F trades that are low probability. For me these are starter trades and scalp trades, take a quick bounce and profit and wait for the entry on the trade to hold, then size up as it moves in your direction, if you really have conviction size in on the entry. I find I can weed through a few or bunch of little trades before I get "the trade to hold" that's my A trade. It only becomes an A+ trade if I can manage the exit for maximum profit. That's the hard part. Great concept! Thanks Lance! Same as you would do playing blackjack except the casino won't let you.
@Eric Fremd you cut the D trades because they take some time and effort to place and manage, time that could be better used to find an A trade and enter it at the optimal point.
Man that's good, I wish I heard this 10 years ago - but it helps. I think this is difficult to differentiate between A B C & D unless you get more practice and journal and think about it lol.
This is a lovely breakdown on the topic of sizing up, but I wish you'd have gone a little deeper into the psychological side of it!!! ONLY if you are an elite mental performer you will be able to execute heavily sized trades properly. Otherwise emotions like fear and greed etc. will quickly mess with your trade plan. So the secret within the 'secret' is actually being mentally able to pull this off. It's good advice to slowly work your way towards heavily sizing A/A+ trades, while getting a good idea of where your comfort level is at and pushing that level forward. Great videos recently guys! 👌
I agree. A good way to start implementing this would be to just to start slowly. For example if you're currently risking $30/trade then maybe only increase your perceived A or B set up trades to $50/trade and work your way up to more risk as you gain experience and the psychology and mental toughness to deal with larger size. Also trade journaling is key. You need to definitely be keeping track of your success rate in correctly identifying your set ups and whether they truly were ABC or D set ups. If your stats are showing you're correctly identifying them, that'll grow your conviction and it'll be easier to psychologically increase size more on your A set ups.
Been following SMB for over 3 years now and Lance definitely hit it out of the park with this video. He has an amazing way of breaking down the importance of bet sizing here and like Bella says "when you see that A+ setup, you got to swing the bat hard!" It's much appreciated to see this information broken down for any developing trader, thank you Lance!
I really thought that you guys would have discussed how to quantify an edge with a trading strategy to help a trader execute on the high probability setups and weed out the low probability ones. But you were right, I was very surprised to learn that all I actually need to do exponential bet sizing. But you guys are the ones making money in this industry, not me to any significant extent at least.
![[TH] VCT Masters Shanghai Playoffs DAY 4 // 100T vs GEN | G2 vs TH](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UkTGSxdCUQw/mqdefault.jpg)
SMB Capital's Free Workshop bit.ly/3PnK1s4
Please How can we get in touch with lance if we have questions for him. Thanks
Lance also said confluence of trades?
Hey guys! At 15:00 in this video, it mentions "The Sizing Notecard" coming soon (about position sizing). I hope this is still on the backburner! Thanks for everything you do
Hi. Does Lance mean bet size x27 to go all in or scale in/pyramid into strong trends or any other setups with high expectancy/reward. thanks
I've re-watched every video I can find with Lance on it. This guy is very smart, not just in trading, but in being a successful human being. I really appreciate all the advice Lance and SMB. Thanks.
I don’t know who I love more, SMB for putting out these videos (especially w/ Lance), or Lance for putting himself out there for us to learn and grow from. Lance is truly gifted at explaining things in very understandable, bite-sized, relatable pieces. I’m so grateful to both SMB and Lance. Thanks you so much!
kinda feel the same, and like Lance said, this thing right here probably is indeed the "secret" of 7+ figures traders
Well... the truth is...For a discipline trader they only focus on 1-2 setups, which means only trade on A/B trades. And they keep adding positions once market is on their side. Which method is actually equivalent to the "exponential position sizing" that you've just called. In other words, A-trades are the trades when market is proving you're right. So you keep adding to it, just like a opposite Martingale system, your size is "exponentially increased" but when you're right. But guess what, even guys here that you know this secret(keep adding winners), you're still not gonna to make it right here right now. You still got to learn start from 'equally sizing' to cultivate yourself to be a consistent trader(that's the first thing!). If you start by adding positions then your mind will drive you crazy and you will be soonly blow your account and give up to be a trader soon.
I think the point of the video is to establish a edge and see what trades are A+ plus for you, not adding to every winning trade or adding to a good trade I think establishing more risk from the start rather than adding as you are right isn’t really a effective way in maximizing a return on the trade
I agree. All trades have the same chances of suceedjng from the beginning. You can only identify good trades when they start moving in your favour . Trading is probabilities game .
@@georgekojoamissah347 to me it’s all about the best entry. That is my edge. If my entry is great I’ll let the market talk to me whether I’d add or hold or even close earlier
It is a probabilities game, but there are certainly some confluences and other indicators you can use that when aligned, can tell you that it’s a slightly more probabilistic entry point than others. I shared the same belief that the market was like playing the slot machine where we have 0 edge at all, but because we are given some information, I now look at it like playing blackjack or poker. Players card count in blackjack and when the true count is in their favor, they size up. Players with pocket aces bet more than they would with 27offsuit. The outcomes to both are still random and could equate to a loss after the hand plays out, but they bet more because they have found an edge that presents a positive expected value over a series of hands
They won't blow up the account with a stop loss, I would never trade with 100x on an A trade if there is no plan regarding when I take losses
What is the best strategy to enter crypto trading now for someone with more or less than 6k
It's essential for you to have a ProTrader to keep you accountable. I'm guided by Jared Brian Watkins
Crafting a trading portfolio requires expertise; choose someone experienced. Jared is quite good
Can someone share the easiest way to reach him
"Bet big when the situation calls for it." - Lance B
"Where other traders make an average trade, I can make my month on that." What a great quote on the crucialness on focus on A trades. That expected value chart demonstrating the outsized r/r of A plus trades is extremely valuable.
Nobody can or should ever question advice given by you, Lance. I do just wonder, however, if it would make sense to simply eliminate C and D trades and mimic an exponential approach on the trades you do take (A and B). This seems like it would be a less complicated solution, with the same result, for retail traders. Having the self control and restraint to stay away from C and D trades in and of itself would propel most traders into profitability. Regardless, the message of simply knowing your A setups like the back of your hand is priceless on its own. Thank you for this!
This!
Was thinking the same thing. Why waste money and mental capital on bad set ups?
The reason why you should trade the C and D entries, is because of the great immersion and hours of screen time you must spend in the market to be able to correctly identify the A and B, if you only wait for the A and B and do not have hours of screen time you will simply miss them and will not have the agility to capitalize on them, it is as if you were an athlete like Messi, what sense would it make to play the matches that are "easy", simply in those matches you can acquire skills that will allow you to be lethal in matches with difficult teams.
Okay, I completely agree with what you are saying and this is shockingly analogous to card counting in blackjack, track a count to determine when you have advantage, based on the amount of advantage scale your bet up accordingly, flat bet normally (1 unit) then use the Kelly Criterion or a version of it for scaling as things swing your way, make sure you arent betting more than a couple percent of your stack (gamblers risk of ruin) and off you go - the video fails to make clear how you determine which bet you are looking at though - what makes one bet an A, B, C, or a D? how do you spot it in advance? in real card counting you want to be able to have the big money enter the game mid-shoe when the advantage is yours so that big money never even makes a C or a D trade. The scaling isn't the issue if you understand the true risk, its determining the risk or advantage and the amount of it just before or perhaps even during the trade. Tell me that part - the realtime trade grading part, the rest is just mechanical.
I hear the message loud and clear. It can take many years of experience, and thousands of trades (or more) to finally see the writing on the wall. Which is: too much trading and too many stocks or markets can make you spin your wheels and get stuck. My conclusion is that it is far better to spend much less time trading and being stuck in many positions, and far more time just watching, observing, thinking, and waiting. Being an active trader can make you your own worst enemy. I think it takes a very great dose of wisdom and restraint to resist overplaying the game, to keep most of the powder dry, and to really judiciously await and identify the best opportunity, and then hit that opportunity hard! I will be working towards that.
This is a very eye opening message. Thank you for contributing and posting this.
Well said!!
Things that jump out at me for this type of bet sizing is being able to correctly identify the different set ups strengths. If A+ set ups are so rare I'd wager that most people trying to implement this exponential sizing will incorrectly bet big on set ups they perceive to be A that aren't. If we could correctly identify this then we would just never take D trades to begin with. So this style of sizing is definitely suited for advanced traders. Which I don't disagree with at all. An advanced trader with years of experience can differentiate the strength of their set ups better but you'd think they'd be better at just not taking the D set ups to begin with...
I think one thing to take account for besides ABC or D set ups is just market conditions. Certain market conditions are tough to trade and others easier. Sizing up during favorable market conditions and sizing down during unfavorable is just as important. In favorable environments even D set ups will perform more like C set ups. And in unfavorable conditions your B set ups are acting like C and so on.
One last thing to add is I'm surprised he didn't mention anything about max size vs your account size. As in if your usual size is 1% of you total account then using a 50X increase in size on your A set ups is just asking to blow up your account. Your account can't tolerate swings of that magnitude. There still has to be a max risk % of your account for bankroll management. I personally don't know the magic number of what it should be. Maybe 10% of your account? Unless your usual size is only like .25% or less then I can see bigger jump ups in risk to justify the 25x to 50x size.
This is a very insightful comment. I've been trying to implement exponential position sizing based on this video. I think a good strategy is to make the D setups really tiny ... like 0.1%.
I see your point that if the set up is so bad, why even bother. However, there may be psychological reasons to allow these setups. E.g. sometimes, it's very hard to let a trade get away, even if objectively it has a lower probability of success. Putting it in the D bin allows you to take the trade without it actually negatively impacting your results. And if it does work out, great, you can buy a pizza with that money. The result is that all the mistake trades that would have burned a hole in my account are now effectively 0.
Also, I'm finding having the ability to have really low bet size trades also helps with reducing FOMO... If I appear to be missing out on a low probability move, if I know that even if I had taken the trade, I wouldn't have made much at all, then it's a lot less painful. Most the time, if I think it's a low-quality trade, it ends up failing in the end anyway. So, knowing that the stakes were always low makes it easier to skip the bad trades.
(Caveat I’m in an adjacent market, flipping a particular class of less liquid assets) “D” trades are important not only for psychology but also for strategic reasons because if they do well then you get the chance to look at them more closely to see if the success can be replicated. Basically they’re “feeler” bets that give you info without breaking the bank. Also, re optimal bet sizing in relation to your bankroll, check out the Kelly Criterion.
Yes - what % of bank account is maximum size risk???🤔This excellent video misses this vital point.
The most successful traders I know started small, focused their efforts on becoming consistent and disciplined, and the majority of their rules based trade work. Some may go most of a week without any trades then find a great one at the end of the week. You also have those who are suggested in this video who do well doing something completely different. They'll take a ton of losses and still make bank. Whatever your strategy is, know what you're doing and stay consistent.
But I disagree with the absolutest views in this video. No, you don't need to bet big. You can go for small gains (depending on your definition of small) and be hugely successful in the long run. That said, and I know that I'm about to sound contradictory here, I'm not going to discount the experiences of the successful traders who do the opposite. Maybe the traders I know are unicorns in the business, I can't know for sure. Just that they can replicate their results over and over while sometimes taking losses that are larger than their profit goal for that trade. Master your mind, master your system.
I love how Lance explains everything. All the videos posted in this channel are very educational and very helpful to all traders especially those who are struggling towards profitability including myself. I would like to say thank you all very much for your efforts on creating helpful content like this. God Bless You all! I hope you bless more than you ever deserve.
I really learn alot from the SMB videos, but this is perhaps the most educational, most insightful one that I've seen. Thank you Mike and Lance.
thanks so much! Lance is a great addition to SMB
This is helpful… I now wonder I did reverse … After having a home run with big lot size and earning good amount I continued trading big size… Only if I could categories my trades I would have traded smaller amount on the next trades which were C and D category… I was only working on my Psycology but this is so simple and objective…. I won’t lose more by trading bigger lots anymore on C n D trades… Thanks a ton 👏👏👏👏👏
You're an awesome presenter. Thank you so much for the pep talk!
Wow!!! I learnt so much in this video, so much clarity and organizes my bets much better. Thank you SMB!!!
This is one of the most important videos on trading. Lance is one of the few legit traders who is sincere about helping traders succeed. 95% of the 'experts' are 1 hit wonders, Lance is not.
Exceptional video with invaluable information! I used equal size trades thinking it was moderating risk; and you've just helped me understand its actually higher risk and less likely to produce positive outcome. Your videos offer a point of difference, above most trading vids, so thank you.
Stay patient and out of the "unnecessary/aimless trades". This is the hardest discipline to achieve, but wait for your A trade and you will be successful.
Absolute gold! Thank you so much Lance, and also to SMB, for getting this across to everyone!
The key is being able to tell the difference between the different trades. And if you can do that, why not just stop making D trades? Patience.
sometimes those D trades can be cashflow trades. A+ trades don't come around often
@@smbcapital I've never understood what a "cashflow" trade means. Isn't the goal of any trade simply to grow the account? Also, I agree with Shawns comment here in that it sounds simple to simply swing hard on good trades, but first you have to be able to identify good trades.....easier said than done.
@@smbcapital "A+ trades don't come around often" - so trade less :)
@@macdaddy1291 Credits: sell high, buy low (or let expire worthless)
I guess what he's implying is that elite traders can identify prime (A trade) opportunities when they come around AND have the guts to place skewed bets on them. The two are separate skills, but deadly when combined. Having the latter skill but not the former is also deadly (in the wrong way)
The key is understanding A, B, C, D set-ups which is a challenge in and of itself. Also, when you are wrong on betting 27x on an A set-up. Oh my ouch!!!
definitely tim! that's why we playbook our A+ trades so when you see them you know immediately!
is it really an A set-up if you aren't getting amazing r/r though
@@watchmetrade6066 trader's equation is risk x reward x probability
even if the RR is 1:1 but the probability is insanely high it could be someone's A+
You can't play only AAs and KKs in poker, but you can trade only A+ setups in trading. And if you don't trade Bs, Cs and Ds, you can use for your As equally sized bets.
Thanks for the video Lance , so interesting concept! I watched many of your videos and interviews on TH-cam and learned so much!
For the retail trader , when talking about extreme exponential bet size on A+ setups , is there still a max risk% of the total account size on that trade that shouldn’t be exceeded? Assuming equality sized bets in your examples accounts for 1% of account , how much risk should a trader go for on A+ with extreme exponential sized bets ?
I need to watch this again, and digest it to my soul. Thank you!
Thank you Lance like always appreciate your time & effort sir !!
Would you be using the Kelly criterion (as a %) or mainly as you say in 11:40 the high probability set-ups
This is my testimony, i have suffered a lot trading with binary strategy and i lost much lat 2 years, but when i was introduced to nasser strategy i see good difference and his strategy helped me so much from grass to grace and i make a lot of profit from 30% to 99%.
I'm new to cryptocurrency trading and I've been making huge losses but recently i see a lot of people earning from it. Please can someone tell me what to do?😔🙏
With him I've been making $26,000+ weekly trading
Does he use only A+ setups?
@@press..here.tochat.cardoneforgive me, but how will a professional broker make him a better trader? sincere question
Fantastic advice. A well-known trader here in Australia wrote a whole book on money management where he emphasised you make your profits on just a few trades that you ride for all they are worth eg if in an uptrend as the trend continues, you switch from intraday, to daily, to weekly, even to monthly management increasing position size as you go. Of course, he is mostly a trend trader and wrote books on that. The beauty of it was the technique worked didn't matter what time frame you traded. The only trader/investor it didn't really work for is buy and hold Warren Buffett types - but the idea of having your portfolio weighted to your best 'bets', Buffett certainly uses eg Apple.
Smh
I always felt this way about A trades, but everywhere I look people recommend the same thing over and over again of never betting more then 2-3% on a single trade..of course I never listened, and finally someone proffesional says it💪🏻
I would agree with increasing my trade as the market hits certain levels. I do a lot of scaling. I am a swing trader and trade options on the SPY. I always wait for a setup until I trade.
Right on. Appreciate it. The only reason im profitable is b/c i aggressively add to "winners." Specially if its a hot stock. Just had my worst day of the year on NVDA. Got short bias somehow, bunch of small losses that added up + revenge trading/commissions. Has been my most common reason for big red days lately. Gotta fix it!
I think "betting big" is great presuming you are professionally measuring your trading results and accurately know your win rate. This would be great to discuss.
A loss has a greater statistical impact than a gain, which means your exponential chart has more application on the side of REDUCING position size for mediocre setups, as opposed to increasing your size for winning setups, especially as you mentioned that most traders have low overall win rates.
Anyway, thank you lance/smb, really grateful for you and your videos.
If you're looking for consistency, betting big is a terrible mistake. You can mathematically prove at a certain time your chance of blowing up is 100 percent.
Use Kelly criterion helps with this
Use stop losses... You can't control your upside but you can your downside.. You might get stopped out, just wait to re enter when the time is right
@@missininaction3680 Incorrect. If you win rate is higher than you loss rate and your average win rate is higher than your average loss rate, you can keep betting big. Why? The odds are in your favor in the long run and you will always come out on top. The casino does the same thing. The exact reason why the house always wins in the long run. The house wins more often than not and when the house losing in short term...the wins overtake those losses.
I was betting 3x for A+ trade and 1x for all other, but this is complete gamechangere, Thank you for sharing
The problem is that many times we assume we know what is A plus, but it can be hindsight bias or even noise between the EV plus trades skewing some of them. So the risk profile becomes assymetric and the consequence in a lower Calmar Ratio.
Trading mediocre setups is a waste of energy and could easily enough keep you from seeing your A setup that you look for constantly. Trading for the sake of trading slowly fades away the longer your career goes. One great setup executed right makes your week/month. Great videos as always.
Can anyone help me on how to differentiate A and B trades? On what basis is a trade A or B? 1) On winning probability? 2) On risk-reward? 3) Or on expectancy? If this is the case, why bet on B trades at all?
I think it comes down to experience. If you haven't traded more than a year or two, your not going to know which setup is subpar vs. an A+
Definitely tracking and having criteria would help I guess... But my guess is screen time is what seperates someone who can identify an A vs. B -- assuming they've taken the trades, gained the experience, and gained the lessons/feedback from those trades. So not just screen time...
Thank you to create these videos... watching all of them!
Nice thesis and information Lance, much appreciated
Thanks for the advice.
Amazing! As I'm here looking at a trading journal full of clearly labeled trades with a strength scale of 1-10.🤯 This was exactly what I needed to see! Thank you, thank you🤗
glad it was helpful
This is truly remarkable. I almost forgot this technique because I am facing a huge drawback right now. I knew this for years and used to make nice profit with my A+ setup. I switched from future coin trading to forex prop firm due to overtrade and emotional control in coin trading. Thanks. This will help me next week
I have a trading system to earn my living expenses and another one to bet in the way Lance explained. With this approach you put pressure off the vessel. By the way an excellent lesson!! Maybe you can make another video on this topic explained.
Thanks so much for the great videos . This what I was missing in my journey ❤❤❤
Excellent video. Thanks for posting 🙏
How does this work within a daily stop ? Is the risk still still equal sized but more units are put on or is there another system of thinking to it ?
So say for a daily stop of $50, max loss of $15 represents 30% at which point I stop trading
Given this context, how would one structure this risk allocation structure, which by the way makes complete sense and is actionable given all other factors such as edge/expectancy/variance and stats are known already ?
The lead on would also be how to structure a risk bump which could be the topic for another video.
Thank you SMB once again and as I always have said and continue to maintain, you guys are more like a charity where the gift to us novice minds are applicable and applied knowledge.
Thanks a lot Lance and SMB capital!! Way to go...
QUESTION: Doesn't changing your bet size change your stats that your startegy/edge is built on?
Dang.. this seems so obvious once you used the poker analogy. I was taught to use the same share size on each trade and increase it gradually, which I guess is good as a newbie, but I’m at the point of my trading career where I am able to define my A-A+ quality setups so I’m definitely going to bet bigger when I come across them. Thanks for the insight.
Best video for trading I have ever seen!
Great wisdom from Lance!
This is cool b/c I've been paper trading futures for a few months now and I take paper cuts all the time... but I've been trying to size up when it seems "obvious" that my thesis is proving right and it's making a huge difference. Very interesting vid.
I have a question. If we take a small loss on a specific trade and then get back into the trade, would that be considered a wash sale? Over time would those add up to a significant amount? Thank you in advance. 🙏
*How does one properly identify which will be the A/B trades, have skewed edge, and then to go big? What's the technical criteria?*
Thank you! this is very eye opening
Thank you so very much. This is golden.
I really needed to hear this, thank you very much. This video gets an A+ in my book.
That's brilliant, thanks Mike and Lance!
Lance is brilliant ;)
Nailed it!!! Thanks!
Excellent video, couldn't have been said any better. Very true that it is one's responsibility to bet big when things are in your favor since that means you are otherwise allocating more risk into lower probability setups. High probability setups are few and far between, and you would be doing yourself a disservice by not taking advantage and allocating accordingly to rare opportunities as they come up. This is very true in most areas of life as well, not just in trading and poker, but also decision making in your personal life, in sports like baseball and basketball, in military operations, etc. Allocating the correct amount of capital, time, energy, resources, etc. to opportunities that are more likely to yield the greatest reward is the key to success no matter what you do. Thank you Lance.
Mike B Thks! Appreciate your videos and methodologies! George
thx George!
Straight to the point. Thanks
Good tips for sure, I only use a couple setups and occassionally when the trade is right sizing is a huge factor.
This feels like some kind of hindsight analysis based on outcomes. I'm sure there are lots of traders who bet huge on A+ setups that just happened to fail at that particular time. If you bet huge and won, then you end up being considered a great trader, but those who bet huge and lost, they end up being considered bad traders. But the reality is that one group just got lucky that the setup worked at that time, while the other group just got very unlucky.
True. Potential survivor bias risk.
This video is worth a Million dollars. Thanks Lance
Super information. Thx!
Helpful, thank you sir.
Good AM/PM SMB Capital I would like to ask how do you make exiting rules when you trade? How do you approach those trade if it goes against you?
Thanks Lance
Great explanations, Lance - thank you. Would you share some criteria how you determine which trades are A or B? How do you know?
Wow this is great information love to see the mathematical proof in the pudding. I will implement this asap
Excellent clip and I agree. Important clip. Thanks gents. Kirby
thx Kirby!
That makes sense alot, when the conditions are most conducive, just go big and provide yourself with wid caution for weak conditions.
Great video Lance keep ‘em coming!!
lots more to come!
Great video! I love SMB and I appreciate every upload but my favorite videos are with Lance! Great teacher, knows his stuff, and he really seems to enjoy it! A++ on this, thank you Lance!!
thanks Gullaum! just don't let Mike see this one haha
Thank you!
really got my education today..
SMB never disappoint
more to come!
do you reccomend only trading C trades or above
Thank you Lance. It makes sense
thx Lionel!
Great video and something to definitely implement. This will essentially allow you to bet smaller on less than ideal trades while sizing up on the perfect setup 👍🏽
absolutely John!
A third, simplest option
The simplest approach is to assume a) conviction doesn’t correlate with accuracy, and b) historical trading stats may not predict the future distribution of outcomes. Then, just bet a fixed percentage of your capital on each trade.
Thank you
you guys are great thank you
Excellent Excellent Excellent Video ... This info is beyond Valuable .. please let me add on to this perfect break down after my 5 years of trading experience. So thru all of the different up and down levels you go thru in trading .. when you finally get to a consistent win rate you still come to this conclusion in trading that was one of my biggest flaws .....
Even when my AAA trade as i call it would present itself I still would bet small and this was killing me in the long run because you realized like this video implemented that your AAA trades as i call it would only happen once in a blue and those are your real big money makers.
So let me share an example ........ lets say you trade based on the daily candlestick ATR oversold conditions only........ lets say every week the daily candlestick ATR 14 value goes over 100% ... 65% of the time a week, and over 125% ... 30% of the time a week and only over 225% ... 5% of the time a week ...... do you trade the some amount when price goes over 225% the daily atr range only 5% of the time a week as you would when price is going over 100% .. 60% of the time every week? .. no you wouldn't ... because when price goes over 225% of the daily ATR candlestick range that becomes a high value AAA trade that becomes your job to buy big and cash out big.
After passing a phase1 prop firm test and losing the phase 2 this was my biggest lesson.
Me losing a prop firm test because of going over the drawdown limit will never happen because of my risk management but me not winning in the allotted time given would coincide with me not increasing my bets or lot size as we call it in forex is one of my main reasons of not passing. ... I was once lost but now I am found lol .. Thanks guy for this video .. Priceless
I think this is going to help me a lot. Thank you.
This presumes that you can assign a score to the trade before the entry. If you can do that, why not just eliminate the D trades (and the C trades for that matter)?
But your overall point that one should add size to a perfect or near perfect setup is a good one.
that's the thing. you learn your a+ setups over time and by doing and studying. read his book called the playbook.
Great point. Through experience, we develop the ability to do that. Every strong trader can differentiate the quality of a weak setup and an exceptional one. And Theoretically we do cut out the “D” trades. But reality is that most traders I’ve seen tend to wash out across much of their trading. Factor in commissions, fees, spread and those wash out trades become slightly neg. That was what I tried to model there.
Sometimes you need to bang out the “D”’s to get the bills covered in less than ideal markets. They definitely have a place. But more of a base hit…..if that.
Why would you give up a D trade when you can trade it green? You give up F trades that are low probability. For me these are starter trades and scalp trades, take a quick bounce and profit and wait for the entry on the trade to hold, then size up as it moves in your direction, if you really have conviction size in on the entry. I find I can weed through a few or bunch of little trades before I get "the trade to hold" that's my A trade. It only becomes an A+ trade if I can manage the exit for maximum profit. That's the hard part. Great concept! Thanks Lance! Same as you would do playing blackjack except the casino won't let you.
@Eric Fremd you cut the D trades because they take some time and effort to place and manage, time that could be better used to find an A trade and enter it at the optimal point.
Man that's good, I wish I heard this 10 years ago - but it helps. I think this is difficult to differentiate between A B C & D unless you get more practice and journal and think about it lol.
This is a lovely breakdown on the topic of sizing up, but I wish you'd have gone a little deeper into the psychological side of it!!!
ONLY if you are an elite mental performer you will be able to execute heavily sized trades properly. Otherwise emotions like fear and greed etc. will quickly mess with your trade plan.
So the secret within the 'secret' is actually being mentally able to pull this off.
It's good advice to slowly work your way towards heavily sizing A/A+ trades, while getting a good idea of where your comfort level is at and pushing that level forward.
Great videos recently guys! 👌
I agree. A good way to start implementing this would be to just to start slowly. For example if you're currently risking $30/trade then maybe only increase your perceived A or B set up trades to $50/trade and work your way up to more risk as you gain experience and the psychology and mental toughness to deal with larger size. Also trade journaling is key. You need to definitely be keeping track of your success rate in correctly identifying your set ups and whether they truly were ABC or D set ups. If your stats are showing you're correctly identifying them, that'll grow your conviction and it'll be easier to psychologically increase size more on your A set ups.
You wont because your trading pretty much all other trades 27x less then that, basically warming up pre working out in the gym
Well i See one interview with this man but now i open my eyes 😮Thank you smb for this movie.
Awesome, thanks!
Been following SMB for over 3 years now and Lance definitely hit it out of the park with this video. He has an amazing way of breaking down the importance of bet sizing here and like Bella says "when you see that A+ setup, you got to swing the bat hard!" It's much appreciated to see this information broken down for any developing trader, thank you Lance!
BRILLIANT!
Its like saying only take winning trades. Thank you for magic idea, i am going to do it starting tomorrow
I really thought that you guys would have discussed how to quantify an edge with a trading strategy to help a trader execute on the high probability setups and weed out the low probability ones. But you were right, I was very surprised to learn that all I actually need to do exponential bet sizing. But you guys are the ones making money in this industry, not me to any significant extent at least.
Another amazing video from Lance. Just one question, had 'The Sizing Notecard' Video come out, I'd love to watch that one too....?
What is the risk management you are taking in case of exponential size bet
Is it percentage or some fixed amount.pls explain
Great Insight!
Thanks, Lance!
I loved it !!
Great coaching