How often do you approach your systems max drawdown?

By max drawdown I mean the actual drawdown your system produces, and not necessarily you're 'uncle point.'

How often does your system swing towards max drawdown? Once a month? Once a week? Once a year? Obviously it will depend on the time frames you trade so please explain how long your trades last. Perhaps answer the question by saying how many trades you place before you hit that bad string that brings your balance down.

This concept of a string of losers is confusing to me. I thought everyone did the smart thing and "just waited until there was money laying in the corner for you to go pick up?" Name that quote kids!

If you're having a "string" of losing trades, it sounds like you may want to step back and reevaluate your trading analysis. Did those trades later go on to profit at least 70-85% of the time? Did those trades reach a healthy profit but your exit was too far off and price reversed on you? Did you jump back in and make a positive trade after that shunt? Did you just plan that one move and not think two-three steps ahead? The thing I'm getting at is, if it's a string of losers, it sounds like you may want to try and start planning for the 3rd coming trade instead of the one in front of you. Much like how racing drivers train to think about the upcoming corner instead of the one they're already in. Give it a whirl. It's done wonders for my account.

In the example I mentioned, why not scale back on your profit exit and then set an opposing order at that price and ride it back down? And if you really believe that price will bounce once more back in the original direction, why not set a fresh order after the second one? It can be hard at first to try and think of things in succession like that, but think of it as turning two-three (or maybe even more!) into a single zigzagging position.

Good advice although I'm not so sure it applies here. Someone could very well say they trade the H4 charts and 70% of their trades win. Their max drawdown is 15% which occurs once a quarter. Their system is probably still valid and would remain profitable in the long run and it doesn't necessarily mean they should consider altering or ditching their system.

I'm just interested to know how often, on average, traders hit their max drawdown.

I trade off 1 min charts, and have hard stop loss of 50 pips. Has been hit 8 times in the last approximately 600 trades within 12 weeks. If averaged down with an additional trade, this produces a drawdown of approximately 75 pips on the account.

I ahve to ask the question, what does asking this question actually prove? Especially as you've pointed out that everyone has a different system and stop points.

I'm trying to judge the system I am using. I'm wondering how often others experience max or significant drawdown based on their time frame or however many trades they place.

Everyone can have a different system, but by detailing their system time frames we can calculate an expected drawdown frequency per trade.