Posts Tagged ‘ Horse Racing ’

End Of Week


Another early finish with trading today and pleased to have got out with a few pips profit, certainly not an easy day with GBPUSD being very up/down/up/down. It has been a successful week in terms of % gain and whilst a few areas need tightening up still, I am pleased with how this month has turned out. I said at the start of the month that it would be a make or break month and so far its been okay. I need another solid month next month to get my confidence fully back so I’ll continue to tread carefully and try to minimise the mistakes I’m making. Looking at myfxbook stats, I’ve clawed back a good amount on GBPUSD this month but still a lot of work to be done before it’s respectable.

Racing wise it has been a very tough week so far going into the weekend. Last week ended with an 8% gain but so far this week has been miserable. Down 12% with 3 days to go. If I can manage a good day today I might be able to squeeze a breakeven week but with the run I’ve had this week I’m not overly sure. However, like Forex, racing can be extremely tough and bad weeks often happen when laying horses to lose. You need an incredibly high strike rate and lay at respectable odds to make it profitable. Anyway, racing isn’t far away so I best get set up and ready to rumble.

Dubai World Cup tomorrow evening and a massive $10 million World Cup race, it does however make me wonder why they can’t afford to pay the contractors who helped build Meydan though?!

2010
03/26
CATEGORY
Forex
TAGS






Leave a comment

Filling


Haven’t felt like blogging too much the last couple of days, spirits are down at the moment with a few things outside of trading and a few things in trading! Confused? Me too.

Yesterday was a bit of a non event with a profit never looking likely and the small loss was fairly acceptable by my standards. I was hoping I could finally get some use out of SNW with the NZD GDP report but with zero deviation and the first time since Sept 08 it was a very uneventful release. Bit annoying waking up at 1.45 AM for nothing but gotta be in it to win it as they say. However, the unthinkable finally happened with the UK retail sales coming out a stonking +1.5% better than expected and I managed to get an order filled. Such was my surprise that my kneejerk reaction was to close almost immediately for +20 pips. A possible 40-50 was available but happy enough with my first result. What I wasn’t happy with was my stance on EURUSD. I had a short open since yesterday evening and I was targeting 1.3275.  EURUSD broke 1.3300 nicely early this morning but I didn’t close as I wanted the full amount, I really should have been happy with +35 and closed out to start the day off with a decent win. However, greed overuled and I left it open right to the SL. A very disappointing result and also a big hit to the confidence.

I’ve had some time to think about GG method and I have finally decided to drop it at the end of the month as it was rightly pointed out, the edge just isn’t there any more. You have 1 win followed by 1 or 2 losers, or vice versa. Times change and you have to adapt to the market to try to stay ahead. Hoping I can finish the month on a positive note and work out where to go from here.

2010
03/25
CATEGORY
Forex
TAGS




Leave a comment

Yo-Yo


I must sound like a broken record but it’s been a whirlwind of a Monday already and I feel like I’ve battled a force 10 gale. I didn’t start off particularly well with a loss straight off the bat with TUFXP GG that barely triggered and immediately reversed to the SL. Thankfully a Dubai strategy came to my rescue and got things under control; or so I thought! Whilst setting the TP and SL on the trade, I inadvertently set the TP at 100 pips further away than needed! Just a complete lack of concentration and attention on my behalf and it so very nearly cost me. It made its proper scalp but I was left with an open trade and also a minus position. A tense few hours later, GU finally did decide to break the resistance and I can only thank my lucky stars that GU decided to test that level again. I also made a complete hash of a trade on EJ and it cost me 20 pips which really did annoy me as the trade hadn’t officially triggered. Basically a complete comedy of errors by me. TUFXP GG continues to underperform (broken record again) with 3 losses today and no sign of it returning to form. It will be 3 months since any significant profit has been achieved come the end of the month and I think it might be finally be the final time to knock it on its head. It’s tough knowing when to let a strategy go; do you live in hope it will return to form or cut your losses and run?

Got to try to tighten things up as it could so easily of cost me hundreds of pounds today and that is very alarming. I’ve reprinted my trading plan and I have stuck to the side of one of the monitors so it is always in visual sight.

I had yet another trigger with SNW on Friday afternoon but yet again I was requoted by my broker. I’m going to try a couple of new brokers this week in the hope that I can get filled on these news orders, if not then I’ll have to cancel my monthly subs by the end of the month.

Racing was an up and down weekend also with a booming day on Saturday followed by a miserable day on Sunday but looking back on my stats, an 8% gain on the week was still very pleasing.

2010
03/22
CATEGORY
Forex
TAGS





2 comments

News,again!


It’s certainly been an eventful morning already! I was in a trade around 90 minutes before the UK data was due out and I was hoping I would either be out for a profit or a loss before the news hit. Unfortunately, GU went very quiet in anticipation of the news and I was left with an open trade come news time. I was short and I had a plan to take a hedge position for a slightly smaller lot size just incase the news hurt the short position. I didn’t take that trade as I felt it was breaking my own rules which I’ve been determined to keep to this month.  GU absolutely bolted up on the better than expected news and my broker duly slipped me 20 pips for my troubles on my short SL. -50 and feeling slightly peeved! Thankfully I kept my composure and managed to ride the after spike nicely for a 50 pip profit using my new strategy. The TUFXP GG method got off to a flyer on Monday but let most of those gains slip away yesterday which seems to be the norm of late. Almost like 1 step forward, 2 back.  It’s a real shame also to see the total lack of activity on Forextestube, it was a thriving community not long ago but almost all participants have quit using TUFXP or moved onto new things. Days sure are slow when you’ve got no one to chat to. My trading room is also pretty quiet but Les always gives me some value early in the mornings! 😉

Racing went very well yesterday with some nice short priced horses beaten and a solid gain of 2.1% on system 1 and 3.8% on system 2. Selections are thin on the ground today for system 2 and the few that are selections certainly trouble me as I can easily see them winning. We’ll see how they go anyway.

My next post will be about a piece of forex software I’ve been trialling the last few weeks, I had great expectations for it but so far I’ve been very disappointed…

2010
03/17
CATEGORY
Forex
TAGS





3 comments

Positive Day


A nice start to the week today despite me starting with a customary Monday morning GU loss. I was a little hesitant to enter GU on a long trade given my entry was right on the close on the last candle on Friday, 1,5200 had proven strong resistance slightly earlier in the evening also. I entered none the less and quickly watch the trade go in completely the wrong direction and I couldn’t help but smile. I’m keeping accurate notes of these trades with mechanical entries where I strongly dislike the entry for various reasons. So far I’d of saved quite a few pips if avoiding them.  It’s always a fine line when trading mechanical systems, you either follow them or deviate and that is a dangerous game as you can begin to miss several trades. Anyway, I ended shorting GU for a nice win but I also had two other signals to short it but didn’t take them as I wasn’t keen on tripling my risk on the down move. I had the opportunity for a very good entry on one of them but declined it and in hindsight I should have taken it given the risk:reward on offer.

I need to build from here and start making some gains that I thought were possible at the start of the year. It’s way too early to be getting excited but I am very happy with the recovery so far. I’m taking one day at a time and it seems to be working so I’ll try to continue along this path for the time being.

2010
03/15
CATEGORY
Forex
TAGS




2 comments

Clean Sweep


A little update for the racing fans amongst the few readers…

It was a very good weekend despite the lack of qualifying races for both systems I’m running. Plenty of amateur races on Saturday, Hunter Chases and NH flat races. System 1 went 8/8 over the weekend which pushed it over the 10% profit mark after 25 days.  Strike rate is up at 88% for now, but I expect this to fall to around 86% over the course of the year. I designed it in mind with it being a slow but steady earner and initial results go along with that theory. It certainly isn’t going to set any records alight but slow and steady never hurt anybody and an extra 10-15% a month is mighty fine over the course of a year equating to 400% in that time. Still early days though and the next few months should be interesting.

System 2 recovered very nicely after a blip on Friday where it dropped 4% but then immediately made it back and more on Saturday and a good day today took the weekend to 7/7 and an overall profit of 25% after 17 days. Strike rate is up over 91% and I’m absolutely certain that this will fall back also like system 1 to be around 86-87% over a year.

The beauty of both systems is the staking plan. Maria famously used it to turn £3,000 into £100,000 in a year back in 2005-2006. Maximum exposure is 4% but with the systems I’m running, average exposure has been 3-3.5%. It’s ideal for what I’m doing and hopefully something good can come of both systems.

I’m just hoping that the racing form can transfer to my trading this week.

2010
03/14
CATEGORY
General
TAGS


2 comments

Drama


A day doesn’t seem complete without drama when trading and yesterday was absolutely no different. No sooner had I posted my latest post that a couple of TUFXP GG trades come my way. Decisions, decisions…. I took them as I keep telling myself that this particular strategy will turn around soon and start making the gains it did so well throughout last year. Wrong. The same as the previous day, both lost and giving me the ever-present sinking feeling and wondering why I didn’t stop after such a decent start. Yet again though, another trade signalled and this time it did the business it fine style and a nice run on EURUSD took me back to where I was before all of the drama. So, absolutely nothing gained and a lot of head scratching for nothing. I can’t help but think though that some day very soon that it will all click together. The task of researching the SAW method is going to take a lot longer than I originally thought as I have so much data to go through but I reckon there will be something of use to come out of it. It’s keeping me busy in the days anyway.

I know a few readers are racing/sports bettors also and racing has long been my passion way before I ever discovered what Forex was. I’m running a thread on a forum where I’m posting all of my lays for horse racing on the UK markets. This is an exercise in discipline and also a chance to try out a new method I’m working on. So far the results have been extremely impressive in the short window that I’ve been posting and it’s nice to have some stability with the racing. I just need to replicate my racing results to my trading and I’ll be a happy man again. If you want to check out my progress, you can do so here.

2010
03/11
CATEGORY
Forex
TAGS




1 comment
wordpress visitor counter
TopOfBlogs