sorry and all that

Sorry and all that - I thought i could but i just cannot be arsed to keep up with the blog .

I did try honest but I guess i'll keep on trying.

The experiment is still running and i'm gettinjg into it now. the statement of current positions below shows how it's going - there have been a few closes which lost and some which won so on closed positions i'm about flat - slightly negative.

Ive blanked out the gbp trade cos its a secret - the audusd ones are crappy firebird which i just cant seem to drop yet and the EJ trade is another expert - the rest - the euro, chf, etc are all a different system ive been trying on a 4 hour chart - so far so good. - quite a while since i saw numbers like that :)



Oh, my moral dilemma - I took the long cable, shoved the kids in an orphanage with a bag of nuts and a blood orange :)

MY MORAL DILEMMA

Afraid this test is again a bit bolloxed - found a bug in the code so i will have to start again next monday - here's what happened anyway and it lost money :(

we'll start again on Monday I think.



MY MORAL DILEMMA

here's a new feature of the website - every now and again I'll set you a moral dilemma and it's up to you to answer in the comments bit at the bottom of this message.

So, here's the first.

Sammy and Rebecca are 6 and 7 year old kids. Their mum and dad are a bit hard up this christmas however all their friends are saying that because they have been good that santa is bringing them a playstation and a plasma tv.



They think that they have been good too so they are telling you, mum and dad, that Santa will be bringing them the same.

They are so excited by this but there is no way in this world that you can afford such extravagant gifts - so what do you do:

1. Wait till Christmas day and tell them Santa's sleigh broke down just after he delievered their mates's presents and so he had to come around by foot and all he could carry for you was this plastic bucket?

2. Tell them their friends are misguided and that Santa does not exist and they will have to make do with a bag of nuts and a blood orange?

3. Buy them the playstation and Plasma going into massive debt

4. consider buying the gifts and going into debt but instead getting the money and blowing it all on a long cable position and thinking 'fuck the kids'

5. something else (answers required)

Have fun :)

first 24 hrs

ok,

been a sliught change on the takle profit and stop loss etc - the tp is dynamic but set at 50 pips max - most will not make it that far.

anyway, heres the first days results on closed trades - remember only one trade is open at a time



result so far -$50.00

delays

due to programming changes there's been a bit of a delay in getting edgefinder attached to charts that we can leave alone.

as a result the experiment will be restarted on Monday and results should flow from tuesday onwards.

Have a great weekend

late n' busy

sorry for the lateness - been so busy trying to find a hotel in NYC, booking flights and shit.

yesterday i cancelled the audjpy trades cos it was clearly going to sleep.

ive closed the euro trades for 45 negative pips cos i needed euro to place an expert on.

I closed eurocad for +8 pips overall, Gold for +12 and GBPAUD short closed for -200 ish lol but it does have some longs in which are in profit.

I'm getting very bored with this strategy and tired with it - might be a bummer or maybe it's just me that i dont have the patience to sit looking for ranges. - most likely the latter.

Yesterday i slipped into 'active daytrading' again - I was in a paltalk room and just got into the groove of looking at hilda charts. I made some good trades and a couple not so good but i didnt like it.

I got back into that fuckin horrible mental state where you are watching price all the time for the dips and peaks - studying the bloody indicators again and having to be riveted to the screen. Yesterday reminded me why i gave up discretionary trading and i'm not going to fall into that trap again. I want to do less not more.

so, with that in mind I have ressurected one of my old projects the edgefinder.

I kinds gave up on edgefinder a long time ago cos i didnt have the patience to just leave the settings alone. However this thing is a bit like a drug, there is something in it and i want to find out what it is and put it to rest.

The reason I couldnt make it work before was that the broker just rejected the good trades and kept the bad ones - on the tester it was fine but in reality it picked the tops and bottoms exactly - unfortunately as it was precise by the time the order got to the broker price had already moved.

So, to try and get around this i'm going to run it on a longer timeframe where the entries are not so precise - sounds weird doesnt it that you have to find a way to make it trade at 'not quite' the best price, but that's it.

So what i've done is place it on a Euro 15 min chart and we will see what happens. So far it's taken 2 trades and won 2.

The system uses a kind of band - it's a special one that our team have made. The band catches the tops and bottoms of price wiggles - a bit like firebird does but without the multiple trades - this has only one trade at a time.

So when it hits the top of a band it takes a short and vice versa for the bottom band. Take profit is small at 7 pips and a stop is 20 pips. - to make money at this the win / loss must equate to at least 75%. In tests it was nearer 89% so time will tell.

I'll post the days results every morning to see how it's going. even in the test it did have periods of non movement - you know, up a few down a few - biggest period was about 2 weeks in october so lets give it a full month and see shall we :)

in tests

new breakout

now placing a breakout on AUDJPY

swissy

closed the swissy's at 2455ish - 5 trades were in from 77 downwards total cumulative 26 pips

Getting bored - time to change!

Morning all,

Must admit that I didnt want these breakouts to be in for days and days . It's ok like but on those pairs that have a negative swap it can very easiy eat into your profits.

I also think that the reason for this is the size of the breakouts i'm looking at so it's time for a change.

Firstly lets recap on what is running and the state of play.

worst offender at the mo is GBPAUD which entered short on Monday with a first position at 2.4579 and is currently 200 pips in the red. at least this one is +ve intrest.

second is CADJPY - this one went short monday, long monday and has now gone back short - the stop on the long triggered so a loss of $153 to make up with the shorts of which there are now 3 positions running at about break even - this is a -ve interest position so hoping it will give a run today and get closed before the triple intrest tonight.

3rd up is EURCAD - thankfully this one has gone in a single direction :) North - again a -ve intrest position but not a large swap - it has 2 positions open but looking as slow as a busfull of mongs.

Gold still hasnt triggered and i might ditch it later - but for the time bring i'll hold.

So, what do i mean by making changes?

Well, im going to have a go looking at shorter timeframes and tighter ranges - this is how i did ok the first time i started doing this expert - you do get a few more losers but mostly you are in and out in one day.

So, the first one of these trades is on euro and looks like this



here's the close up



Second one is on Swissy - going to be a bit risky here and pop a gid of 5 pips on it - thats 5 pips between the trades - pic is below - catch you later or tomorrow.

Tuesday

Morning all,

Update on yesterday then - I played the news expert on GJ and nothing happened - then I played it again on cad at noon and nothing happened there either so no news trades.

the breakouts are still active - the CADJPY has one trade north and one trade south so we are now waiting for a breakout of that range.

GBPAUD has taken one trade south and gone back into the range. I'm happy its a short first because it's swap positive so happy to wait on that one.

Now then, for todays stuff. anything that has been stuck in a range since Friday is fair game now

First breakout addition is this one from EURCAD



this is on the 1 hour chart and it's nice to see the 200sma within spitting distance and within the range.

Also got to say i'm soooo tempted to short cable today - nice retrace happening to make a lower high on the 4 hr chart and then a drop - that's providing it's a lower high of course. Won't be doing that though cos i'm not mad on discretion anymore.

Final pick for a breakout this morning is Gold. Gold is in a tight range of just 10 dollars - see chart below.



catch ya later or tomorrow :)

Monday ... Ugh!

Morning all, Hope you had a fine weekend.

Ok, first things first - coffee!

I bought some of these dowe egbert things this weekend and ive just had one to kick start my day - why am i telling you about this? because if you havent seen these things yet they make a fantastic coffee without a machine - check em out here

Right - trading then :)

I always feel that after a strong NFP move that the market is a bit like one of those snow globe things - just in turmoil and not knowing what to do. So generally on the monday following NFP I keep away from the dollar pairs and look for something that shows a little more stability in the chart.

So, looking around for my breakouts today ive spotted this first off


I was trading CADJPY on friday with another system and quite liked it - but this morning on the 30 min a nice channel seems to have formed and although i'm a bit 'anti-trading' today I couldnt resist this one.

0.2 lots then, 15 up and 15 down from 104.8 for the top break and 104.15 on the bottom break.

Second Trade spotted is a longer term one and will possibly take the rest of the week to break.

Ive spotted this on a one hour chart on GBPAUD - take a look.







orders set at the usual parameters for a hibreak or 2.4892 and a lobreak of 2.4579 - quite a gap there but i think you can see a proper range setup there.

The focus this week will be on the UK intrest rate decision - it is expected that the BOE will raise rates by .025% and that is already factored into the market - the fun will be if they decide not to or they decide to go for .05% - the latter of which is highly unlikely.

Industrial production is out at 09:30 GMT and that could cause some fun - I'll be runnng my breakout trader on GBPJPY for that one i think :) - will let you know the results later.

Gordon Brown you Tosser

Well, time for a weekend rant :)

Yesterday I was watching the news at 10 and heard the story.

Bankrupcies in the UK are now at the highest levels since records began.

It really does not suprise me. This 'marvelous' economy that Gordon Brown is so proud of has been paid for on the never never. What does suprise me is that the vast majority of the brisish public cannot see it.

Think about this - when Labour came into power in 1997 they had a golden handshake from the tories with a positive bank account of billions. I don't know the figure exactly but it was a golden opportunity and Gordon Brown blew it.

Labour have always been 'tax and spend' but Gordon Brown has taken it to a new level. This scottish fool has taken that golden legacy and squandered it on hundreds of thousands of civil servant jobs, qwango's and silly initiatives that have not worked because they had thicko's like Prescott coming up with the idea. I mean come on! who in their right mind put a fucking cabin boy as second in command of the country. Prescott is for another day and another rant anyway.

We are now a country that is billions in debt - to the point that the world bank are getting very nervous about our future. Thanks a bunch Gordon.

I cannot believe how the majority of the country cannot see what they have done to us.

Credit has been so easy to get and as the intrest rates have been low they've just piled on the debt. The average briton is now £8,000 in debt - now that isnt a lot to you and me but the average wage in this country is around £20k pa IF you are lucky.

Gordons slimy smile has been paid for on a credit card - as has the british economy. He has done nothing to warn people of what they are doing - just continued to do that slimy smile and spend spend spend.

Ive been saying to the wife for the past year that things will be turning sour very soon. There is only so long that you can keep this up. Gordon Brown didnt plan for 3 terms in office - his plan was for 8 years and then to leave the tories with the shit to contend with. But he didnt realise how gullible the vast majory of this country is and they got voted in a third time.

He must've been crapping himself - that's why he's so trying to oust blair and claim the crown - it's the only chance he has because the cracks are starting to show - just as they did in 1979. The country will not return him to power at the next general election. Not through this but through Iraq - I dont care what the reason is as long as they are gone

Bankrupcies up, companies closing, hospitals being closed before they are even opened because they are in debt - the signs are clear.

The country is going to the dogs, i really hope that people see sense and do not return this scottish asshole to the biggest office in the land. I cannot think of anyone less capable.

If they do, will the last person out please switch off the lights.

closing Breakouts

Ok, my breakouts are in profit and hitting resistance so EURUSD closed on the 1hr 200 sma


Also closed swissy now - swissy's short from yesterday closed out for a loss but was well compensated for from the longs - see now how this strategy works? - heres the chf screen



Finally theres audusd which has two shorts running and leaving open a bit - see what happens


heres the winners and losers - can't show you the whole statement cos other stuff is running

The Wins


The Losses

Nice One

Ok, at NFP i tested out my 'newstrader expert' which worked but had a problem - becuase all the breakout trades were doing the oco bit it had problems processing the orders - however it did place them and the result is below - It opened trades at 117.35 - 45 - 55 - 65 - 75 - 85 - 95 and 05

I closed them all with my closer expert at 85 86 and 87 for 131 cumulative pips.

hmmm, next time maybe ill go a full lot on each one :)

ill update you on the breakouts soon but all are doing ok :)

suprisingly i had no slippage at all on any of the orders - Using MIG that is.

NFP Blues!

What a wank day and a wank week! Bloody NFP always makes for a shit week.

Anyway - got asked a question in the chat thingy. Bill asked me about the effect of midterm elections in the usa on the euro and the dollar as a whole - here's my answer.

I don't trade or have any interest in News bill. I aim to make all my trading as mechanical as it possibly can be and a mechanical system does not know when news is out, does not know if it is good news or bad etc.

So as far as the market goes i really dont know what will happen and don't care.

As far as personal thoughts. I don't like bush and think he is the most dangerous man in the world. I think a bad result for bush would result in a positive expectation for the rest of the world.

as for what it would do for the dollar i couldnt care less as long as i'm in the move, up or down :)

With all due respect Bill, you have the dumbest asshole of a president of all time. I love America and most of it's people but, like the majority of the UK, I hate Bush and the neo cons.

Now then - let me tell you all where I am in trading at the mo.

I still have a breakout on EUR/USD with points at 2810 for longs and 2733 for shorts - thats been there a day now so hopefully nfp will take it one way or whatever.

I have a breakout on USDCHF 2477 long and 2441 short - this has been in a day too and i made a boo boo - when i placed the break i had it on a 15 min instead of my usual 30 or above - so i have 2 chf trades live - one long and one short - the grid is still in place tho as you can see from the screenshot below

my third is audusd -7773 for longs and 7704 for shorts - again in for a day and 1 trade short triggered. lets see where it goes, if i get chance after nfp i'll update, if not then tomorrow or monday.

Trading The Break

Ok, sorry for the Delay in this - went out yesterday.

So, firstly thanks for all the well wishes and i appreciate em all except Baruch - he can piss off and drop from a great height LOL dickhead.

Denham nice to know you are still around, Todd thanks for the birthday message for grail and etc etc to the others :) Beer in NYC, hmmm not sure - when you hear what i think about your poor excuse for a president you might not want to :)

And Jonkris, nice to hear from you mate - another satisfied hilda buyer :) Hope you enjoy what's to come.

Before I start wittering on about trading and shit you may want to check out the grail blog which has just been updated.

So, what am i going to whitter on about on this blog. Guess i'd better tell you what i'm playing with at the moment.

Myself and a friend opened a MIG account purely with the intention of experimenting on systems and shit. we opened it with $18k (£10k) and have just played with potential systems - we played with firebird for a month or so which is a bag of crap - I developed one called Predator which was a bag of crap and at one point the account was drawn down to less than $7k LOL - but then that's what the account was for.

Anyway, a month later and some canny discretionary trading and the account now stands at $20k+ so it's time to play again.

This time I am looking at a breakout system of trading which is discretionary but is aided by an expert advisor.

So, let me explain to you how i'm doing this and how most do this.

lets have a look at a chart shall we.




This is the way most people identify a breakout and place orders. This particular example is NZDJPY today and although it aint the best example its the best i can do at the mo.

So what they do is place a long $10 @ 78.97 and a short @78.45

eventually one will trigger and they will close the opposite order. The stop they will generally place about 10 pips lower that the opposite breakout.

Ok, and that's fine - you would actually make money that way albeit sporadic. Breakout trading is a great way of trading - why? because it uses no indicators and only recent support / resistance - it's a price based system.

so, how do I do it different?

Well, firstly i dont go in 100% at the first break. Think about this - a lot of breakouts are false positives - ie they break out but then drop back into the range or worst case scenario they totally reverse and stop out your position -you then have a full stop out and sit there wondering if you should go the opposite way and miss the boat.

So my approach (and bear in mind this is merely an experiment that you are a part of) is that I build into a position $1 at a time. - this will be easier to show on a chart.



This is EURUSD on a 1 hour - I identified this range this morning and plonked the figures into my expert.

My expert then places 15 trades north and 15 trades south starting at the figures I specified. - the white line is a 200sma by the way - if i fancy a smaller timeframe breakout then i'll look on the 5 min for a chart where price is bouncing above and below the 200sma - that really will be a breakout as the market has no direction.

anyway, the 15 trades are all 0.1 lots each so lets analyse this - first though i'd better tell you exactly what the expert does - then you can build your own if you like

i put into the expert the hibreak and lobreak points - i decided on how many trades long and how many short and i decide how many pips between the entries. i can also decide a take profit if i wish and another 2 inputs - 1 of which is how many pips past the opposite entry the stop should be and finally an 'oco' closer - in other words if the trade goes in long then how many pips does it go long before the expert cancells the opposite breakout trades.

Got me so far?

so - here's the scenario using the euro chart above. - its placed 15 trades north and south - each trade is 15 pips apart and each trade has NO take profit. The stop for all the north trades are 20 pips below the south breakout level and vice versa for the south breakout trades.

whichever direction price breaks in, once it is 20 pips into profit it will close all opposite orders.

so, here are the scenario's of what can happen

Scenario 1

price breaks north or south - places 1 trade at $1 a pip, goes another 15 pips and places 2nd trade @$1 a pip - goes another 5 pips and cancells allopposite orders. cantinues to go in same direction. When trader happy all trades are closed by using expert no2 which just closes anything it sees on that pair.

Scenario 2

Price breaks and places a trade - goes another 15 pips and places trade 2 - price now retraces and goes the opposite way - you are at this point only $2 a pip as opposed to the normal breakout trader who is full in. Trade reaches opposite breakoutand enters one of your positions is no hedged. it continues another 15 pips and enters a second opposite position - you are now fully hedged. - price retraces here back into the range - you have a constant loss here and are waiting for a breakout again.

Price continues in direction 2 again this time going a further 5 pips which hits the stops on direction 1 AND closes all direction 1 orders - you have just taken a loss of $2 a pip on the first breakout BUT the second breakout is now in profit and running. Trade is closed when losses from breakout 1 are realised and some profit is made - basically discretion.

Scenario 3

This is the nightmare scenario and the worse that can happen - it does happen too and relatively often but how often we shall see as this experiment progresses.

The worst thing that can happen is this - breaks north 15 pips - reverses south and goes south 20 pips+ then reverses north again stopping out the south trades - then you have 4 trades on a full stopout the size of which is dependent of the size of the range. Probarbly about 60 pips top to bottom so 60*$4 = $240.

Think of the average breakout trader who is in $10 a pip - he just lost $600 one way and $1200 both ways if he plays that way.

So, there are several ways of playing this with regards to stops and oco cancels.

you could just have no stop and no oco - that way she goes north and takes you in say 4 positions and then reverses and takes you in say 12 positions and eventually makes more than it is losing. - this sounds great doesnt it - basically for you to lose money the following has to happen.



Now you prob think "there's not much chance of that" - well, think again - it happens often and the worse thing about it is that when you are in both ways you have to have a move double the range just to get break even. so if you have a 100 pip range that you are in from top to bottom you have to have a 200 pip rise from the top / bottom breakout to make money!

Anyway, absorb this and ask any questions you may have - im knackered now, been writing for ages and I haven't got a fucking clue why i'm doing this again?????