The more right you are about your trade setup, the less likely you are to get filled

By extension, getting filled actually lowers the Bayesian probability that you are right

Should I sacrifice some RRR to get filled more often?
The eternal dilemma of contrarian trading

I haven't seen this tradeoff articulated on CT. Allow me to explore this, starting with an example of trading with limit orders:

Suppose that for a given setup, price hits target before it reaches invalidation 70% of the time. Great, right? But getting filled is not guaranteed.
Scenario 1: If 100 out of 100 limits get filled, expected hit rate is 70%
Scenario 2: If only 40 out of 100 limits get filled, expected hit rate is 25%

Both scenarios have 30 losses in expectation, but the hit rate in the first is >2x better simply because more trades were taken
Then we have RRR. Setting entries closer to invalidation increases RRR but decreases the probability of getting filled, since entries are further away from the current price. And as above, getting filled less often results in a lower hit rate. So RRR trades off against hit rate.
Where to place the limit orders though? The optimal place to enter maximizes the EV of the setup, where

EV = hitrate * avg_win_R + (1-hitrate) * avg_loss_R

So we want argmax(EV), and we can compute this by seeing how hitrate and avg_win_R affect the EV of the setup.
The optimum lies where the marginal +EV benefit from increased RRR is perfectly offset by the -EV cost of decreased hit rate. This is like optimizing output with MR=MC in economics - we want to find the best combination of two related variables. There may be multiple local optima
Of course, actually determining the optimal place to enter requires good data and quantitative analysis. It doesn't have to be in a spreadsheet; for instance it could be based on past charts logged in a journal.

Here's a real example where I completed this optimization.
This shows the tradeoff. As "Entry" gets closer to "Inval",
- the average win R tends to increase ("W:PR")
- the number of losses ("L") stays constant at 31
- but the number of trades taken decreases ("#")
- so the hit rate decreases, from a max of 67.7% to a min of 11.4%.
The highest EV in terms of R ("EVR") of 0.72R occurs not at the extremes where RRR or hitrate are maxed out but somewhere in the middle. It turns out that the extremes where RRR or hitrate were maxed out actually exhibited the lowest expected values.
In conclusion:
- Understand the tradeoff between RRR and hit rate. I talked about limit orders in this thread but a similar relationship applies to market entries too
- There are no easy answers here. Only the prospect of hard work collecting good data and learning from it.

💪
Tagging some people who I think would appreciate this:
@Captain_Kole1 @melodyofrhythm @ape_rture @realadamli @7ommyZero @voicelessFvoice

More from Trading

Fake chats claiming to be from the Irish African community are being disseminated by the far right in order to suggest that violence is imminent from #BLM supporters. This is straight out of the QAnon and Proud Boys playbook. Spread the word. Protest safely. #georgenkencho


There is co-ordination across the far right in Ireland now to stir both left and right in the hopes of creating a race war. Think critically! Fascists see the tragic killing of #georgenkencho, the grief of his community and pending investigation as a flashpoint for action.


Across Telegram, Twitter and Facebook disinformation is being peddled on the back of these tragic events. From false photographs to the tactics ofwhite supremacy, the far right is clumsily trying to drive hate against minority groups and figureheads.


Declan Ganley’s Burkean group and the incel wing of National Party (Gearóid Murphy, Mick O’Keeffe & Co.) as well as all the usuals are concerted in their efforts to demonstrate their white supremacist cred. The quiet parts are today being said out loud.


The best thing you can do is challenge disinformation and report posts where engagement isn’t appropriate. Many of these are blatantly racist posts designed to drive recruitment to NP and other Nationalist groups. By all means protest but stay safe.

You May Also Like

MDZS is laden with buddhist references. As a South Asian person, and history buff, it is so interesting to see how Buddhism, which originated from India, migrated, flourished & changed in the context of China. Here's some research (🙏🏼 @starkjeon for CN insight + citations)

1. LWJ’s sword Bichen ‘is likely an abbreviation for the term 躲避红尘 (duǒ bì hóng chén), which can be translated as such: 躲避: shunning or hiding away from 红尘 (worldly affairs; which is a buddhist teaching.) (
https://t.co/zF65W3roJe) (abbrev. TWX)

2. Sandu (三 毒), Jiang Cheng’s sword, refers to the three poisons (triviṣa) in Buddhism; desire (kāma-taṇhā), delusion (bhava-taṇhā) and hatred (vibhava-taṇhā).

These 3 poisons represent the roots of craving (tanha) and are the cause of Dukkha (suffering, pain) and thus result in rebirth.

Interesting that MXTX used this name for one of the characters who suffers, arguably, the worst of these three emotions.

3. The Qian kun purse “乾坤袋 (qián kūn dài) – can be called “Heaven and Earth” Pouch. In Buddhism, Maitreya (मैत्रेय) owns this to store items. It was believed that there was a mythical space inside the bag that could absorb the world.” (TWX)