Posts Tagged ‘ Trading ’

Tuesday Flashback


Excuse the naff titles but I’m on a roll so bear with me on that one!

Yesterday was a pretty remarkable day trading wise and whilst my TUFXP method missed trading I did manage to secure several decent trades and a handsome profit was made, it’s brought July well into the green zone and it’s always a good feeling to get on the winning train.

The original TUFXP method had a win but not before a big scare when Moodys downgraded Portugal’s status. Here is the chart:

I didn’t enter this trade as the 50 SMA was still trending down but I suppose an excellent entry was possible when the trade went to -25 or so before rising all the way back up. It seems to return to my dilemma last week when I was questioning whether to avoid invalid trades or take a significantly better entry. On this occasion I didn’t take advantage of the better entry but I have made annotations in my results.

I’m finding my results are an invaluable part of my trading as when I need to find something I know exactly where to find it. I’ve always been big on keeping strict results and it stems from my racing days. Ask your average punter their P+L and they’ll 9/10 reply with an inconclusive answer. I imagine it’s the same for a lot of traders. If anyone would like any help on how best to record trading results, just let me know, I’d be happy to help out.

So the scores for July for the TUFXP method are -25 pips for the original method and -14 for my method despite not trading yesterday.

2010
07/14
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Forex
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Too Cautious


Well NFP has just blasted off and a set of confusing figures were released. A loss of 125,000 jobs but a fairly big drop in unemployment to 9.5% when 9.7% was forecasted. These sorts of deviations usually confuse the market and EURJPY which is usually my prefered pair to trade NFP initially went up and quite quickly reversed  and is now slowly rising. Interesting week ahead next week I think..

A bit of a disappointing end to the week TUFXP wise and for the 2nd day running, my filter method came worse off. Whilst CM doesn’t trade NFP days, I’m willing to as I personally don’t think the markets quieten down until the afternoon session. A long signalled and it went against the 50 SMA trend so I declined to take it but said I’d take it if it went to -10 as the risk was 16 pips; my reasoning being a 6 pip risk for a gain of 30 was outstanding value and smart money management. It went all the way down to -14 before going all the way up to scalp! I guess I didn’t have full conviction in my thought process as I dithered around the buy button before refusing it.

A 2nd long then signalled and again the 50 SMA didn’t agree until the price had blown through entry and was well over half way to scalp which was just shy of 1.5200. Price took a pretty sharp u-turn off 1.5200 and gave me short signal and this time everything lined up….except someone forgot to tell the price to drop to scalp instead of SL! Whilst disappointing, I’m certainly not going to abandon my extra indicators as I think they have real merit. So a bit of a faltering end to the week but still happy enough with how things are going, my own EURUSD trade came home nicely last night for +50.

If anyone wants to join my trading room, you’re more than welcome, just leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll do the rest. Have a good weekend everyone and catch you all on Monday where I’ll just be trading the morning session as the US takes a holiday for Independence Day.

2010
07/02
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A Lot Like Golf


Trading is a lot like golf. You’re probably thinking I’ve lost the plot and the strange water down-under has turned me into a babbling fool. You might be right but hear me out..

I used to play golf a lot and when I was a teenager I had aspirations of being a touring professional and I managed to get my handicap down to +1 (below 0), I also majored in it at University. Playing for University and County meant there were occasions when the pressure was really on to perform; a clutch putt or a great iron from trouble. However, I always had a tendency to over think things. I’d say to myself, ‘okay make par here and the next two holes are easy birdie holes and then par in.’ Speak to any professional golfer and they’ll tell you that thinking ahead is a game killer. I’d try to force things and more often than not I’d end up with a worse score than my plan had allowed. I remember when I was 16/17 actually filling in a blank scorecard before a competition or match and then checking it throughout my round!!

What on earth does filling in a scorecard have to do with trading? Well, quite a lot. I have several spreadsheets with past results and current performance and I frequently use these as predictions for upcoming weeks/months. When these predictions don’t come to fruition I feel disappointed and wonder why my plan isn’t working. That is precisely my trouble; thinking ahead. My Dad used to try to drill into me to take one shot at a time and only focus on that particular shot, and let the round come to me. Whenever he caddied for me, I frequently played some of my best golf. So, from now on I’m going to do my best to focus on each trade as an individual event and try to not worry about how my week/month is going. It all boils down to staying calm and not rushing under pressure. It’s obviously a lot easier said than done but having a ‘one trade at a time’ mentality should help me keep on the straight and narrow and away from my trigger happy finger!

2010
06/26
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Forex
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Positive Outlook


I always find it amazing what some positive thinking can do to your outlook on trading and results. Whilst positive thinking will not turn losers into winners, it certainly gives a better mindset. For some reason before I started trading yesterday, I had a good feeling about the week ahead. Everything felt right, I had a pleasant day before trading yesterday and likewise today. By starting at 3pm, it means I have a fair wait to get trading and on occasions it is frustrating but on good days it is enjoyable. I might have to re read that tomorrow when I’m looking after Ava from 4pm til bedtime as my Wife is working a late afternoon shift!

The saga of our shipping is in limbo as I’ve been told it could be another 4 weeks BEFORE it actually leaves Dubai as it’s a part consignment. It struck me as odd as to why they were so much cheaper than other companies and I guess I now know why!

So a simple short win for TUFXP today and I’m ready to switch off and relax and watch Deal or No Deal until later this evening when I’ll look at my EURUSD trades. They’ve been in a frustrating pattern of late but I’m taking it in my stride and thinking long term instead of small windows of time. I’m also doing my best at keeping everything nice and simple, I’ve read quite a few good articles recently about traders trying to over complicate matters and getting caught out, which lead me to finding out about a guy called Dan Zanger. It the late 90’s during the I.T boom, he set a world record for the biggest % gain in a personal portfolio. Guesses? 29,000%!!! $10,000 into $18,000,000. The tools he used? A simple chart pattern and volume.

2010
06/15
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Forex
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First Week Over


Another week is wrapped up and my first full week trading in Australia. Some things don’t change such as how fast the week goes when trading!

CM doesn’t trade on NFP Fridays but I personally find them to be a profitable day if you can be done and dusted before a few hrs of release and then once the news has settled in, a significant trend usually forms. My first trade was a loss with TUFXP for 26 pips and I had to wait several hrs before my next trade which thankfully won, so a small loss of 6 pips for TUFXP yesterday.

One thing that has been troubling me is to which strategies to trade as I believe I have at least 4 profitable strategies now.  I have decided upon 2 strategies for my main bank and I will dedicate a 2nd bank for the other 2 in due course. One thing I did learn from my previous run was that trading all strategies on one bank isn’t ideal.

I got an excellent email from a friend regarding trading and I’ll expand on that on my next post but for the moment I’ll leave it here as I’ve got the house to myself for the first time this week and I’m going to take advantage of some P and Q.

Hope you’ve had a profitable week and have an enjoyable weekend.

2010
06/05
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Forex
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Live


Well after what seems an eternity, I am back trading live. I was going to start yesterday but a look at the Forexfactory calender saved my bacon as UK and US were both enjoying bank holidays. It’s been a very frustrating period but I’m glad to be back trading and it felt good to get the first win under my belt. I also sold 2 e-books this weekend which was a very pleasant surprise. As it’s nearly 6 months since the initial release, I’m in the process of updating it and adding in a further strategy in place of one of the originals. All members will be receiving this update within the next couple of weeks.

What I do not want to happen is the sheer cliffs of last time, I want to keep draw-down to a relatively reasonable level and avoid the severe swings I was enduring.  A look back over my previous stats showed a loss of over 500 pips in unnecessary trades that were not part of any strategy other than greed and bad discipline. I’ve setup anoher Myfxbook page which I’ll add to the blog in the next fewdays. I have daily reminders to keep things simple and I plan on doing just that.

Here we go then!

2010
06/01
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Forex
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Redemption


Normal service resumed today with TUFXP and whilst conversing with CM yesterday about his dubious winner, it did appear that we occasionally get different signals. He didn’t have the PTP on the 15th April that I did. It was still a bit deceiving to declare a trade pre 6am as within TESS you can set the start times and they appear as a green line. I have mine set to not show PTPs outside of trading hrs so whilst it was a winner it certainly didn’t fit the criteria I’ve been following. Anyway, a solid win today that recouped some of the lost pips yesterday.

My own particular Dubai Strategies are going through a mixed patch. One is doing well whilst the other is treading water, it’s neither performing terribly or well. At least one of them is still going well despite the trades being fairly rare of late. Overall I’m pleased with how my portfolio is looking, the usual downside being my discipline and trade management. It’s getting there but it is a desperate battle to stop myself from over trading. I am my own worst enemy by trying to hit a homerun everyday and as a friend mentioned, this attitude will lead to failure eventually. Slow and steady wins the day not sporadic mammoth days followed by mammoth losses.

Last few days now left for me in Dubai and I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my time here, I came here as a young 20-year-old without a care in the world and leave a married man and a  father to a beautiful girl and a whole heap of responsibilities. Time for the next chapter..

2010
04/27
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Forex
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Rocky


Yesterday turned into a nightmare. I can hear the groans already! Whilst I was content with my early +20 I did have one other trade and what should have been an elementary win turned into a farcical loss and a big loss. An errant lack of concentration when placing my stop cost me dearly. Without going into further drama I completely messed up the TP and SL levels and ended up taking myself out for -40 instead of a +20 win. I also failed to cancel a pending trade from much earlier in the day as I rarely have the terminal showing within MT4 as I like to keep as much space free for the graphs. It just touched the entry and spiralled to a loss for another -30. This all happened whilst I left to go and do some grocery shopping for literally 30-45 minutes and the shock when I came back was unreal. Needless to say I was pissed and went about trying to rectify it and make back the losses immediately. A further loss ensued and I was staring into the abyss before some sense got into me and I took a step back and evaluated things.

Mistakes can and will happen but it isn’t the first time I’ve got my SL wrong and more care and attention is clearly needed and I’ll be looking to do just that when I’ve completed the move to Australia. A couple of strong trades today have eliminated yesterday’s disaster and even a small profit. TUFXP hit the mark again today but took a little longer than usual to signal a trade. Very, very early days yet but I think this could be a decent replacement for my old TUFXP method. What is worth mentioning however is the fact that it is 99% identical to ATM-FX which costs 1/10th of the price. Unless you can find other uses for TUFXP which at the moment I do then I really can’t see the advantage of paying an extra £1,900 for the software. Sure it’s helpful having a nice little circle but with practice ATM-FX could equally become second nature and a few programmers could probably even organise an indicator to highlight a trade.

A quick note: It appears I’m using a different MA to CM. I emailed him last week asking which MA he’s using and he said standard which he thought was 20. I’ve tried various settings and I was briefly on 8 but now switched to 20 and looking at today, they appear to match. If anyone knows for sure if it’s 20 then it would be good to hear from you.

2010
04/20
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Forex
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Moving On


Time is rapidly counting down to leaving Dubai and I’m looking at leaving at the beginning of May. I’ve had to renew my passport so as soon as that is ready, it’s goodbye Dubai, hello Gold Coast.

It was nice then to get off to a good start and it means I can plot my course carefully today as TUFXP signalled an early winner. It’s a feast of economic news releases this week so fingers crossed I can get some action out of SNW. There are roughly 9 reports worth trading and I’ll be disappointed if at least 1 or 2 don’t provide action.

I’m going to pack the racing on the head for now as the time difference in Australia will be +9 hrs which means racing won’t be getting underway until gone 11 PM which is just to late in the day for me.  Trading will be a little out of sync also with me starting at 3pm local time and hopefully finishing by 9-10pm. At least it means I can get jobs done early in the day and then be ready for trading in the afternoon.

Well, I’ve got boxes to pack and things to sell so I best get to it.

2010
04/19
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Forex
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Thousand Things


I haven’t had too much time to trade this week with a lot going on trying to get everything organized for the move next month. My head is in a thousand places and it’s difficult to concentrate and it showed on Tuesday. A complete wash-out and a very disappointing result but Wednesday and today have seen my target met so I’ve quit whilst I’m ahead. I’m taking the dog to the vet this afternoon to get her rabies test done and a few other vaccinations that are required to be legible to enter Australia.

Amongst the list to do is to renew passport, organize garage sale, storage for items that we’re keeping and shipping, find a foster home for the dog and cats, the list just goes on and on!

I’ve noticed Cash-master is a running a trial of the upgraded The Ultimate Forex Predictor so I’ve decided I’ll run the same test following exactly his rules. My one hesitation is that the stop is always larger than the scalp meaning two losses and stopping will probably take 3-4 wins to recover. Anyway, should be an interesting comparison. I’m surprised he doesn’t use the pivot points available as I do actually find they are incredibly useful for exiting a trade or using as a guide to placing your stop-loss.

2010
04/15
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Forex
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