Managed Accounts - March

Before the managed accounts report just to let you know that there is now a voice chat room for serious traders who like a bit of company during the trading day. - hope to see some of you in there http://squawkbox.ivocalize.net/


A lot of people lost their shirts last month. Hedge funds crashing all over the place, Banks in meltdown, Bear stearns almost going to the wall etc and many traders have been unable to manage risk and are in big trouble.

Delta 7 made a small loss in March of around 7%. The volatility in the markets gave us trends to make money but that same volatility often triggered our safety stops. In a strong trend our stops remain untouched but these moves although strong also have opposite moves just as strong. as such we were unable to ride these trends and instead opted for safety and avoid excessive loss.

This is the first loss on Delta 7 since May 2007 and so is not to be viewed as a system problem.

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
J		2.0	-2.7	9.3	6.7
F		-7.2	12.0	-3.4	7.7
M		12.4	9.1	-10.3	-6.1
A		6.3	10.6	-1.6
M		-6.1	22.7	-7.0
J		-2.1	3.3	0.3
J		22	13.9	0.6
A	3.2	1.8	-4	9.8
S	13.5	10.3	11.3	11.8
O	5.1	-6.3	13.8	0
N	1.4	6.6	9.1	7.6
D	9.0	5.0	-11.1	5.6
Tot	36.4	49.8	126.8	22.3	7.9

Figures above based on 3:1 leverage.
Leverage can be customised to fit client risk appetite for an illustration
of various risk levels please email


Please email me managed@simpleforexsystems.com for full details should you be interested in managed accounts.

Managed Forex Accounts Update

Sorry for the lack of updates of late. Just been so busy with stuff like signing up with a new capital management company in the states etc.

Account wise i didnt do so well in the back end of 2007 - there were no large losses or anything, just no good gainers. November had a single digit percentage loss and december had very small losses also.

Cyborg was not performing as expected and so I took the decision to reccomend my clients to move the account onto my more successful and sedate Delta 7 programme before it eats away at the gains from August.

Delta 7 has much more historical trading and is my 'workhorse' trading method. Until recently i was tied to using this only with a single investment house in the USA but have since negotiated the right to place my own clients on the programme.

This past month Delta 7 produced 7.7% gain on the month which is about average for the method traded at a modest 3:1 leverage.

Please email me managed@simpleforexsystems.com for full details should you be interested in managed accounts.

Free MT4 Indicator for ya

Hi all,

I've got hold of lots of software for traders using Metatrader 4.

One in particular i've wrote myself :)

it's an info indicator - shows on the chart the swap rate long and short, the pip value per lot, the daily ranges, auto calculates the 2% rule and even gives the high and low for the day. I find it very useful.

If you would like a free copy of it and maybe some other stuff in the future then just send an email to forextraders 'at' getresponse.com sorry I cant give a link but the spambots pick em up like crazy.

October 2007 Comments and Managed Account Report.

For three weeks of the month I was unwell, with quite a lot of time spent at hospital.

During this period no client accounts were being traded.

The month finished off with a net loss of 10.3%.

There are two reasons I can cite for the losses this month.

In the second week of the month the mid term trends began to change to short and then changed back again to longs. As a trend trader I was trading short when it flipped long again and hence suffered the losses you see on accounts. The drawdowns were in accordance with the figures previously agreed and are acceptable.

Then there was almost two weeks on non trading whilst I was ill and tradingbegan properly again last week. Unfortunately the two weeks of non-trades meant I was unable to pull back the months figures in time for month end. I will not increase risk just for the monthly pay packet.

Since trading recommenced accounts have been steadily building and had I used the same leverage we would be back to break even for the month. However as the market was clearly in a state of confusion I took the decision to reduce leverage to safeguard capital.

The Coming Month.

At the moment many currency pairs are ready for a good retrace. Of course this doesn’t mean they will retrace but it does mean that we are at a higher risk than when our ideal conditions are met.

For the first two weeks of the month I expect to be short term trading again or even not trading whilst looking for the longer trades to appear

Some trades will develop early but I think the main bulk of the months trades may take a while to form.

If clients have any questions I am available as always via skype, phone or email.

From The Desk Of ...

Soultrader

September Comments

Managed Account Report

The first two weeks of the month were quiet for me with a steady decline into a drawdown of around 14%. markets were consolodating and doing nothing really.

The woes of the Sub Prime mortgage fiasco changed all that in week 3 with the virtual collapse of Northern Rock (NRK). Britains 2nd largest mortgage provider.

same old story as before, they were suffering liquidity problems all because of these clever American companies who thought it would be good to lend money to people who had no chance of paying it back.

Northern rock suffered first because mortgages were just about the only sector they were in - others have insurance business to fall back on. The bubble burst when the Bank Of England blew the whistle and told the world they had extended credit to NRK as the 'lender of last resort' - basically the death knell.

This of course caused widespread panic in the money markets this side of the pond.

Strangely enough I didnt make that much from the NRK effect but it did jolly up the markets enough for us to turn a healthy profit by month end.

The Coming Month.

I'm predicting yet more shocks in the market, in fact I think this sub prime effect will last into the new year - which is great news for us, bad news for the banks and hedge funds.

My methods thrive on volatility and we have that in spades at the moment, bring it on!

September Results:

Increase Percentage: 20.2%

Individual accounts may vary based on client’s comfort level of risk

The monitor account updates every hour and is live for the current month - you can see the last update time in the top right corner Have a look at it here

Please email me managed@simpleforexsystems.com for full details should you be interested in managed accounts.

August 2007 Comments

Managed Account Report.

August was unusually active. One week of this month was an anomaly due to the shocks in the sub prime motgage sector and it’s good to see an interesting August (a month usually devoid of strong trends due to trader holidays)

At a time when many were losing money hand over fist the small trader had an advantage. A hedge fund or bank cannot just dump a position in which they have been building for many months. It’s not easy to drop some billions into the market without it dropping like a lead baloon.

Smaller traders have the advantage in these moves as they can get in and out at will without the disadvantage of having to unwind large positions. Remember, when banks and hedge funds are losing money someone is always on the other side of those trades.

The turmoil in week 2 resulted in a drawdown bigger than expected along with a profit bigger than expected – rather strange to have both inside a week. Please note though that the figures for drawdown are misleading this month as when I was in drawdown on closed trades I had open trades of twice the drawdown level in positive. Therefore my system shutdown level of 45% was not initiated.

The longer term trend following aspect of the programme had great gains followed by a significant drawdown, whilst the shorter term trend aspect had massive gains previously unseen.

All my previous personal records were broken this month:

• Biggest ever single trade – 1287 pips AUDJPY
  
• biggest day 3531 pips on closed trades,
  
• biggest week 4480 pips on closed trades 13-17 aug 2007

Clearly I do not expect this kind of performance every month, but once every three years or so this kind of situation presents itself. The last time this kind of action happened was in December of 2004. And I was ready for it then too making my previous records of 485 pips in a day and 1856 in a week. Now smashed.

The Coming Month:

I see September as continuing the volatility and with increased risk. To cope with this my leverage will be reduced to protect assets from large swings into drawdown.

I have also initiated a new limit on exposure. For this month I may have a maximum of three positions on any single currency – so for example three yen trades, three usd trades etc – think about this – what this means is that usdjpy is 1 usd trade AND 1 jpy trade – this will limit my exposure to risk.

as for the fundamentals, well think of it this way - the fed providing liquidity and cheap loans will not in any way change the fact that hedge funds and banks aroiund the world are overexposed to debt from the sub prime sector. it may be just a temporary repreive.

On saying that all this debt exposure could just be rumour - and we know what rumour can do - sell the rumour and buy the fact.

In reality I don't give a toss about news items or alerts. If the market moves I will be moving with it in whatever direction it goes. If i am the wrong way around then i will soon be shaken out of the trade and going the other way. Thats what we trend followers do, we don't predict or make the trend we just follow it.

August Results

Increase Percentage: 128%

Individual accounts may vary based on client’s comfort level of risk

The monitor account updates every hour and is live for the current month - you can see the last update time in the top right corner Have a look at it here

I currently have only four places available for managed accounts. Please email me managed@simpleforexsystems.com for full details should you be interested.

Managed accounts

For those interested in my managed accounts and the performance.

At the end of june I began trading an account as I would the managed accounts so i have a record.
This is a real money account that started off at around $6,000 at the end of June 2007.

The account updates every hour and is live - you can see the last update time in the top right corner. Have a look at it here

I currently have only four places available for managed accounts. Please email me managed@simpleforexsystems.com for full details should you be interested.

Questions:

Following my post on The Grailtrading Blog i've been asked some questions. I'd rather post the answers here if I may because i want to leave that blog as a bit of history now :)

15 Aug 07, 02:31

jay: excellent lessons to have passed on soul - can you divulge any more of the legal stuff now? Cheers JK

Afraid not JK, all sorted now anyways and all parties happy.



Sgguy: It's been a real pleasure following your blog Soul......here's wishing you the best in your future.

Thanks very much SG Guy, stuff will continue over in this blog

Just sayin: I guess this put's to bed the whole 'mt4 backtester does not work' excuse, based on what is presetned here it would seem to be entirly accurate. Now there is a great question, allow me to share my thoughts with you The answer to that is kinda No. the first tests we did had to be conducted on an MT3 platform and even today that gives us the most accurate results. Eventually we managed to get the MT4 backtester working well enough to trust the results, but it's only been that way since around November 2006. even then it had to be a specific broker (Mig) and specific backtest data (alpari data dump). this was because the alpari timeframe matched that of Mig and that Mig is the only broker i would trust to deliver accurate real time data. So many of the others have many missing bars and ticks - just look at a one minute chart on most brokers and see the missing bars - this affects indicators an amazing amount. Mig has the least number of missing bars consistently. Then the programming had to be perfect. im talking about us making sure each line of code was needed and worked right - it must have taken us 3 months just to get the expert working good enough to backtest and at that we had professional programmers on board. eventually yes, the MT4 backtester was reasonably accurate - well, but that i mean within about 5% of reality. of course we had to verify this by eye to confirm before we could do any simulation tests - we eye tested every single trade for four years of data and can confirm that mig ran with alpari 1 min back data is accurate to about 95% - but note, the 5% is quite a difference, and it's always 5% worse in real life, not better :) Suggestion to those looking into backtesting would be to buy the new book The Way of the Turtle: The Secret Methods That Turned Ordinary People into Legendary Traders It has an excellent part about backtesting and the effect of randomness on a trading system - made me open my eyes i can tell you. The rest of the book is excellent also.

19 Aug 07, 22:59 dan: soul its great the way you are trying to help people understand what went wrong with the grail are you working on anything new thats looks promising best regards Hi Dan, thanks very much for the comments, just hope it's useful to you. Yes, good things happening right now and very happy. Grail took some time to get over emotionally and it took about 6 months. Recently been working on a system which is really great, getting back into my trend following roots and doing really well. That strategy netted me over 4000 pips last week! That was of course not the norm, was because of the sub prime thing, but it was nice to break personal records of 1 week and 1 day closes. My previous best was in December 2004 when i closed 485 pips in a single day and did 1890 pips in a week. This time is closed over 3300 pips in a single day and almost 4500 in a single week. More than the grail system made over two years in a single week! I just wish that i had been in the position i was in 8 months ago where I was trading 125 lots of client money and £120 per pip of my own - now that would've been some party! The system is robust now and is producing better returns than grail at half the previous leverage and I've recently setup an agreement with a broker to handle managed accounts myself rather than through the company I worked with before. My first client with $70,000 will be depositing in the next 2 weeks so all looking good to go. I'm also trading on Zulutrade.com properley now so you can watch the performance over there - just look for the soultrader account. Thanks everyone for your thoughts, keep the comments coming

Update

Hi all,

Thought i'd give you an update on what im doing.

Grail is still trading as a basket and just trickling along, not winning but not losing either, kinda stagnant.

The markets as a whole have constricted into much smaller daily ranges which makes it difficult for an intraday trend trading strategy to make money - that's why grail is struggling still.

My own trading has now taken a suprising turn. I started trading a mean reversion strategy taking 2-10 pips out of the market per trade 3 or 4 times a day.

I had an amazing run of 67 winning trades on the trot - sounds good eh?

Not so, the trouble with mean reversion is that you add to losing trades in the misguided hope that price will revert back to the mean.

A single trade wiped out those 67 wins and more besides. so much for a great strategy eh!

So, i'm back doing what i do best - Trend following. I used to do nothing but trend following on the dow jones and did pretty well and now it's back as my main trading system albeit on a longer term view.

My belief has always been that you cant make serious money in this game unless you let your profitable trades run and run.

Those who used to frequent the moneytec chat room back in 2004 will know that i would hold onto a trade for grim death, trailing the stop unti the trend was truly exhausted. - my motto was 'never take a profit manually, always let the stop take you out'. It served me well being the only person on there to take over 230 pips from a single one minute trade!

So, I'm back onto this but with a twist. Im now trend following using a four hour and a daily chart. I dont look any lower than that and so far i'm starting to get the feeling back that i'm in control.

Now just because i say 'you cant make money taking small profits' doesnt mean it's true. After all i don't know what i don't know and I have known people that make lots of money from small scalp trades - BBMac being one such outstanding trader and just about the only person i know that can make money from scalping.

Personally though I cannot, no matter what i try i cannot make money from small market moves.

So, you may ask why have i gone to longer term trading - the answer is simple. When we were flying high with grail the daily range of cable was usually around 110 - 150 pips per day - an average of around 138.

The last time the ranges were like this was in the back end of 2006 and they are just compressing and compressing. Grail was an intraday strategy which exploited trends but you cant exploit a trend on a daily basis when the market is only moving 70 pips or so and your system is designed to exploit a 130 pip range market.

So, what's to do - easy - extend the time of the trade so that you arent restricted by the daily range. and that's exactly what ive done.

I have trades running today that i opened last wednesday and are still running. They are with trend and are doing well. I have had losers, but they are closed quickly for small losses like 30 or 40 pips and the winners just run and run. Cad is being very good to me at the moment coupled with the dollar and aud - in total im almost 200 pips up on each trade.

Im trading flat money on each trade but can take multiple trades. For example a $10,000 account would allow you to have up to 10 trades at $1 a pip or 5 trades at $2 a pip. I generally have quite large stops to begin with but because the amount traded is small relative to the account size then it is very comfortable.

So, that's what im doing - just following the trend. I don't predict, i dont pick tops or bottoms, i just wait for it moving and hop on board until it stops. I have no idea when it will stop but whilstever its moving there is no reason to get out.

That's my reccomendation to you if you are struggling at the mo. stop fighting the flow and just slip into it. I couldnt believe the amount of money that has been buying into USDCAD this week - whilst all the time it's dropping like a stone.

People who pick bottoms get stinky fingers as an old friend Brad used to say :)

Valius

valius:

soul, how do you manage with winning streaks. i mean, when there comes 20 winning trades in a row, how do you fight with the feeling that finally you found the holy grail? Thank You.

Hi Vallius, thanks for popping in.

Firstly the answer to your question lies in your testing.

Let me explain.

I dont know if you've ever seen the 'Firebird' strategy. Its an expert advisor for metatrader which takes small profits with hugh stops - in fact in some cases with no stops. Last time I checked this thing took 6 pips on winning trades and lost 300 pips on losing trades.

For that to make money you have to have something like a 99% win/loss ratio to make money - ie in 100 trades you make 99 X 6 pips but one loser X300 pips = 294 pips profit per 100 trades - just one trade less winning equals disaster - 98 X6 pips = 588 pips but 2 losers = 600 pips.

People are often drawn by these strategies because they hardly ever lose - however the real drawdown is in the open positions and people who trade these often just cannot face taking a loss. You can run with this whilstever you have money in your account but it's not a sustainable strategy in my opinion, however i could be wrong and often am.

So, back to your question.

If you come across something that has 20 wins on the trot then keep testing it till you have a good sample size - I tend to work on a sample size of around 600 to 1000 trades for 'one a day' trades - 400 for swing trades but nothing lower than that. if the figures look good after that then I would have initial confidence in the system. Just dont get excited by 20 trades :)

Hope this helps

continued ...

Peter said...

Thanks for your reply, you have given me plenty of information to digest.

No worries :)

An issue I'm struggling with at the moment is finding a viable way of determining if my system does actually put the odds in my favour. My strategy is nothing flash, 34,55&200 MA for trend, S&R and reading candlesticks on 30min and 1hour. I either trade the breakout or trade the bounce. I use metatrader and have an account with IG index (who i hate but have yet to find better - recommendations of brokers would be greatly appreciated).

Ok, first of all IG is not a broker - it's a bookmaker - just to make sure you understand that. Although it's virtually the same as trading on a broker they do have different motives.

Because my system is largely based on identifying S&R and candlestick reversals etc it is hard to back test the data due to not having a clue how to actually transfer all this info into excel. As you say how can i repeat a gut feeling of where i deem a Support or Resistance line is identically correctly placed in a future scenario?

However you have presented me with an interesting theory, 1 that could definitely make my life easier and completely remove the discretion from my decision making process....

Theoretically, i should just scrap everything I've learnt this past year with S&R and candles etc, find a dumbass MA crossover strategy (which i always hated the thought of because of the sheer no brains simplicity of it), play with the MA's, stops and profit limits and backtest until i find the best probability and just trade away blindly to probability success.

Is it really that simple? Is that the holy grail? Am I talking gold dust or just crap?

Your time and thoughts into this are greatly appreciated.

Peter

thanks again

Ok, the last bit then.

Firstly let me say that some people (albeit a small number) can trade like that with s&r pivots etc and consistently make money, lots of it in fact.

But as it is gut feeling based and given that you can only develop gut feelings with experience - this method takes years and years to be good at. I can do it and it took me about 2 solid years of 12 hour days watching charts to get good enough. even when you are good enough your results are affected by outside influences like your health, mood, women etc.

There aren't many people who can do that and that's why they make the big bucks.

It's not how I personally choose to secure my future earnings. You have to understand something fundamental about me personally.

The way that i discovered trading in the first place was by asking myself a single question. and I still ask the same question every day.

"How can I make the most amount of money ... with the least effort"

To me trading s&r, Pivots, MA's etc etc is hard work and draining. what's more it's very hit and miss. This is why I do not choose to trade in this manner.

As for your question - is it really as simple as just testing ma's and money management - is that the holy grail?

My answer is yes it is. finding one that works is the hard bit, and believe me there is no moving average cross that works on any pair in any combination - how do i know that? - because i've tested them ...all.

But that does not mean you shouldn't test them - trading methods are like the notes in a song - despite the fact that every note has been used billions of times - every day someone comes up with a new song from the same seven notes. The same is true with methods of trading and you may just have the next winning system. But unless you have a way of measuring it then you won't know if you have a winning system or a bag of crap.

What I can tell you though is that systems that make little money are not super rare - there are many ways of making a little money in this game - however I can tell you that winning systems that consistently make money time after time after time with enough profit and consistency on which to place some serious money - are as rare as hens teeth.

My trading at the moment takes roughly 30 minutes a day - but i spend the other 10 hours doing nothing but research and testing. Testing a single system properly takes about 2 man months

Ive worked that way now day in day out for around 2 years , and it's not just me, there are several others in my team- 10 hours a day research and development for 2 years - lot of hours i think you will agree. How many systems do you think I've developed in that time that deserve real money placing on them - and I'm not talking a few thousand here ....

Well I'll tell you - two systems, that's all. and just one of them is plenty enough to make me millions and millions. see, - rare as hens teeth.

My team have tested hundreds of systems - but there are hundreds more that we have not even heard of yet. that's why we keep on testing and testing, day after day. When the systems we have have made us the money we want then we will probably stop but for now ... back to the grindstone I'm afraid :)

My advice to you for your next step? - learn to use Excel :)

Peter ...

Ok, nice first question then from Peter below - if you would like to ask anything then please use the comments link at the bottom of this post.

Hi Soul,

Ive had a real struggle with accepting that the forex is a neutral market and that anything can happen, in fact, so much so that i flip a coin every time before entering a trade to remind me i have as much control in predicting heads or tails as i do in getting the market to do what i want or predict. As tedious as that sounds it helps me to not take the loss personally and to keep my psychology in check.

Am interested in knowing what it took for you in your trading walk to switch your psychology to that of a winning mindset.

And yes i am a 1 year old trader trading $1 lots however sod it, I've learnt enough to realise that the key to being successful is by thinking probabilities and not searching for holy grails of signals and indicators.

Peter



Hi Peter, and thanks for the question, it's a very good one

Firstly if you are a year in and still at $1 a pip then well done, you are demonstrating that you have two of the most important things needed in a trader - Firstly determination in the fact that you've managed a year, and secondly discipline in the fact that you are still playing with minimum lot size.

Many traders would have a) given up by now and b) if they had not given up then they would have blown the account by trading higher and higher. You are probably already in a 20% minority so pat yourself on the back.

The lesson to be learned there is that if you cannot make money at $1 a pip that you will not make money at $10 or $100 a pip.

The revelation that you cannot control or predict the market is the most important one you will ever learn. and you can only learn it from the experience. No matter how many times you read it in books or articles makes no difference at all - to actually make it part of your belief system you have to prove it to yourself. It seems you are beginning to get there.

When you know for a fact that you cannot predict the market all sorts of wonderful connections begin to form in your head. How can you possibly beat yourself us for 'getting it wrong' if you had no control in the first place?

so, your question was how did i move into a winning mindset - the answer to this was in your next sentence - knowing the probabilities.

A winning trader can tell you exactly what the percentage of wins they have is. they can tell you exactly how many consecutive losers they expect, exactly how many pips per trade on average they expect and exactly what their average month has been for the past year.

Think about this - if you knew that you won say 60% of the time, that your winners were bigger than the losers combined - that even if you had a bad run that the method over time would bring you out a winner - how would your mindset be?

The important thing here are the words 'if you knew' - Most traders don't know. They don't do exhaustive testing and monitoring to find out these things. They have a feeling that they do OK and that their method works - but they don't actually know it for a fact because mostly they can't be bothered to do all the testing and logging stuff.

When things are going well it's fine not to have the tests that prove beyond doubt that you win - because you are winning anyway. But when a bad run comes along their belief is shattered and they start changing this and that, convinced now that their method does not work. Maybe it doesn't - but then maybe it does - but because they did not put in the testing they will never know.

These magic words 'winning mindset' bring up all sorts of pictures of the successful businessman in his suit, striding along without a care in the world. Traders aspire to be like that yet do not want to put in the work.

Having a winning mindset is akin to putting you feet out of the car after a journey - you know for a fact that there will be ground under your feet - you don't know if the ground will be muddy, quicksand or good solid ground - but you do know that if it is muddy and slippy that if you continue to move around you will get to solid ground. You know this for a fact because you learned as a child.

Of course there is always the chance that you will step out into a gaping chasm - but the probabilities are stacked way in your favor that ground will be there. even so, to make sure you aren't going into a chasm you always take a glance- and a check. winning traders do the same thing, constantly checking their perception is right.

When you take trades day after day unless you test those trades, log them, analyse them and explore them then you don't know that there is ground beneath your feet and you won't know if the ground is moving.

In the trading world you are a child and you have lessons to learn. but just like a child learning not all your lessons can be simple and some require work on paper.

A winning mindset comes from actually knowing that your method works and that the probabilities are in your favor. You have proved it by doing lots and lots of work.

A winning mindset comes from knowing that you can repeat your trades over and over again in a systematic way. This is why I've always tried to get away from discretionary trading - how can you repeat a gut feeling?

This is the real work of the trader. Being a trader is not about pressing buttons at the right time and watching charts - the real work of a trader is done way before those trades are placed. The real work of a trader is being hung over a spreadsheet for months on end and checking checking checking against a one minute chart. A trader with a winning mindset has done all this before trading and just has to go through the motions.

Once the work is done THEN comes the payback. The trading is easy - just button clicks without any emotions - repeatability again and again - then comes the rewards.

Forget learning to trade - trading is merely the process of clicking buttons.

Learn to test, log and analyse instead and the winning mindset you desire will automatically come.

Hope this helps

New Blog Purpose

Hiya.

This blog is now changing it's tack. It's basically a place where you can ask your questions to me as an experienced trader or just share your views on market shit etc.

I have decided to totally abandon the forums around the Internet and now agree with Dirk De Troit - they are social clubs for losers. well, we cannot all be winners in this game can we.

every time i go into chat rooms or forums it seems like I'm regressing into a former life and going into the dungeon of hopelessness.

it also seems that those who cannot trade to save their life want like crazy to give me advice, like they have the pearls of wisdom that i lack.

I'm always open for some serious discussion, but come on, a one year trader telling me that i should be using trend lines ???? There he is with his poxy $1 a pip trade and I'm trading over $1000 a pip and he's giving me advice??? what a crazy world.

so anyway, Moneytec, Strategybuilder, Elite Trader, forex factory etc - I've left em all and won't be going back so this is the only place you will find me from now on.

Its an open discussion for Q&A so feel free to comment or use the chat bit on the right - please though don't start giving me advice - what i don't know now i'll have to learn by mistakes and not by some newbie with an ego bigger than mine was :)

bring it on.

ok, did the analasys and so far it's like this.

aud -19, eur -87, cad -72, chf +441

so 263 pips so far - remember this system is designed not to make lots of money, but to be a nice smooth equity curve - there is a larger winning percentage on all pairs and it's hoped that when some are losing some are winning - thats exactly whats happening so far - actually better than i expected.

usd jpy has now been added to the mix making five pairs.

I'm afraid i cannot post the trades anymore as they just do not appear in the test blog - shame that but i will keep you posted.

Pointless

Sorry all, but this is pointless.

Half the emails are not getting through at all to the blog - there are trades in that it posted but never appeared and there are trailing stops in that have not appeared on the blog.

so it's just pointless continuing with the trident test log.

as it stands it's about break even, it had a skew of losers last week and some winners since - just about in profit i think but ive not done the analasys yet.

The new blog for the signals can be found at http://tridentforex.blogspot.com/

Hi all, thanks for having a look at this.

for some reason not all mails are making it through - they get sent but i think blogger does something to identify multiple emails looking the same - the onoly difference in mine is the prices so maybe it classes em as spam.

however, im now trying to put the pair traded in the subject line so lets try that.

results so far are like this

12 trades
10 winners
2 losers
222 pips

please try to keep track of trades yourself if you are interested cos i wont be doing this often.

I fully expect these results to worsen as the strategy is winning too often - ave win / loss in testing was around 55% and not what's been shown so far

Trading expert experiment 2 - Trident

Hi all.

Time for another automatic trading experiment then.

Ive been working on a new autotrading system which looks like it has real promise.

The tests suggest an up to 75% win / loss ratio complete with bigger winners than losers on average so looking good.

The system called Trident is to be traded on a live account and you can follow it's progress.

At the moment this is the information I am happy to give you :

1. The system is traded on the 30 minute chart.
   
   
2. Some trades can last days, some only minutes.
   
   
3. The system is exited via four ways, a stop, trailing stop, take profit or system closing signal.
   
   
4. Each pair has different settings, however this system does not use indicators and is mathematically based.

At the moment I have 2 pairs running on the system however more will be added as we progress to a probable 5 - 10 pairs.

The autotrader will post trades in real time to a new blog. this is done via email and sometimes for some reason they don't appear in the right order on the blog - I can't do anything about that and i'm buggared as to why it happens??? - any idea's anyone?

The autotrader WILL tell you when all the following actions occur:

1. trade enters long or short
   
   
2. The symbol traded
   
   
3. The entry point
   
   
4. The stop loss
   
   
5. The take profit
   
   
6. when the trailing stop kicks in a single post will say what the trailing stop distance is.
   
   
7. The trade closes on a close signal from the autotrader

The autotrader will NOT tell you when the following actions occur:

1. The trade closes on the take profit
   
   
2. The trade is stopped out
   
   
3. The trade closes on the trailing stop

So basically you do have to track the trade on a price chart to know when it's dead. However to help you there will never be more than one trade per currency pair running. so if you see a post 'New Trade' then you will know that the previous trade has ended.

there, thats about it - if you have questions please use the chat box on the right.

The new blog for the signals can be found at http://tridentforex.blogspot.com/

Test message

This is a test message.

TRADING COMMENT

COMMENT 16:29 innit marvelous - the wife wants taking to do some shopping and you miss the best trade of the day!

TRADING COMMENT

COMMENT 14:47 trade hit stop, closed for +17

Autoblog - Trade Change 14:23 GBPUSD at 1.96720000 stop is 1.96550000 Autocomment: moved to next level of resistance

Autoblog - Trade Change 14:21 GBPUSD at 1.96720000 stop is 1.96720000 Autocomment: stops to break even

TRADING COMMENT

COMMENT 14:24 never forget to add spread when in a short - its easy to look at a chart and see a peak and place your stop there - always remember that a chart price is BID

TRADING COMMENT

COMMENT 13:41 stopped out +17 pips

Autoblog - Trade Change 12:33 GBPUSD at 1.96450000 stop is 1.96620000 Autocomment: locking some profit in

Autoblog - Trade Change 12:17 GBPUSD at 1.96450000 stop is 1.96560000 Autocomment: locking some profit in

Autoblog - Trade Change 11:58 GBPUSD at 1.96450000 stop is 1.96450000 Autocomment: stop to break even - day is getting slow now

Autoblog - Trade Change 11:22 GBPUSD at 1.96450000 stop is 1.96290000 Autocomment:

TRADING COMMENT

COMMENT 11:19 last trade closed at -15 - took another long - got to be careful here - starting to feel like i'm trading erratically because of news. still have the feeling that cable will rise but then i shouldnt be acting on feeling - hmmm, not really felt like this for a long time. my main reasons have all been technical but I am breaking a few rules this morning so got to be careful

NEW TRADE

Autoblog - Discretionary Long Trade 11:6GBPUSD at 1.96450000 Stop at 1.96150000 Take Profit at 1.97450000 Comment: autocomment:

Autoblog - Trade Change 11:0 GBPUSD at 1.96570000 stop is 1.96420000 Autocomment: moving stop to obvious support

NEW TRADE

Autoblog - Discretionary Long Trade 10:43GBPUSD at 1.96570000 Stop at 1.96270000 Take Profit at 1.97570000 Comment:

Autoblog - Trade Change 9:53 GBPUSD at 1.96660000 stop is 1.96570000 Autocomment: stop moved up, please note timestamp is MIG time of GMT+1

TRADING COMMENT

COMMENT Trade stopped out for -9 pips

Autoblog - Trade Change 9:45 GBPUSD at 1.96660000 stop is 1.96500000 Autocomment: stop moved to first area of support

NEW TRADE

Autoblog - Discretionary Long Trade GBPUSD at 1.96660000 Stop at 1.96360000 Take Profit at 1.97660000first trade of the day then

TRADING COMMENT

COMMENT just noticed this blog has the time wrong - its showing the last posts as 8 31 and it was in fact around 8 23 - this one is being sent at 8.27 and i dont know what it will say - guessi will have to also put a timestamp in the comments

weird!!

now, as you can see from the attached picture the stop was moved before the trading comment mail was sent - but for some reason the first mail arrived after the second mail so it looks like i moved the stop after it closed.

i guess that's the problem with blog by email!

Autoblog - Trade Change GBPUSD at 1.96400000 stop is 1.96530000 Autocomment: stop moved up to next identified support level

TRADING COMMENT

COMMENT trade closed on stop at 1.9653 for +13 pips - nice little tester trade

Autoblog - Trade Change GBPUSD at 1.96400000 stop is 1.96400000 Autocomment: stop to break even, free ride now

Autoblog - Trade Change GBPUSD at 1.96400000 stop is 1.96330000 auto-comment: Moving stop up to next support level

NEW TRADE

Autoblog - Discretionary Long Trade GBPUSD at 1.96400000 Stop at 1.96100000 Take Profit at 1.97400000 autocomment:testing a long then - cant resist - trading starts proper tomorrow

Autoblog - Trade Change GBPUSD at 1.96400000 stop is 1.96210000 auto-comment: stop moved to close support

BACK TRADING

Hi all, I'm back trading with hilda againand this is soooo cool.

I now have a way of adressing the blog directly from my account with Mig Investments.

It uses an expert advisor that automatically emails the blog with my entries and stop moves and also any trades I close.

on each expert i can also add comments to go with the trade.

Ive changed the blog so it only shows one days posting on the home page so in theory you will only see todays trades.

what you will not see is when a trade is stopped out so you have to watch the stop levels i post.

Most of the time this is how a trade ends - I dont tend to close trades myself, choosing instead to follow trades with a moving stop - i will cover this for you sometime soon in an article.

In the meantime, as the trades appear please ask any questions using the chat box to the right.

I've just reset all the posts ive been experimenting with so from now on I should be posting only genuine trades. :)

expert changed

ok, boring in new york tonight (honest!) so done some programming - this willresult in most open trades being closed for a loss - just so ou know it aint the system that lost so much :)

closes so far

eurjpy on trail +184 pips

nzdjpy closed on trail +133

audchf closed on system exit signal as seen below -42 pips

cadjpy closed on trail +69 pips

not bad eh - another 417 pips in total closed.

there is a problem tho, usdchf should have closed at 1.2078 according to system - the expert failed to close for some reason and is now -140 ish, have to have a look at that when i get back in the uk

Autoblog - Plodder Short Trade Closed AUDCHF at 0.94690000

Autoblog - Plodder Short Trade CADJPY at 101.21000000 stop is 0.00000000

Autoblog - Plodder Long Trade EURCAD at 1.51960000 stop is 0.00000000

Autoblog - Plodder Short Trade USDCHF at 1.20080000 stop is 0.00000000

Autoblog - Plodder Short Trade AUDCHF at 0.94270000 stop is 0.00000000

Autoblog - Plodder Long Trade Closed AUDCHF at 0.94270000

trail in

cad jpy now has an 80 pip trailer

eurjpy now has a 60 pip trailer

eurcad stopped out 1.5197 for +28 pips

you'll have to track em yourself now for a bit - calls will be made automatically by the robot trader but i am too busy at the mo to add comments.

follow the calls - aint doing bad are they? - to date it's made +417 including some shite ones i started off with manually - thats in 3 weeks.



catch you soon.

closed cad chf at 1.0485 for +57 pips

have a good weekend

Ok, here is the state of play at the mo - numbers are in pips. Just $10k lots for the testing phase



and here's the swissy trade to prove it :)



Have a great weekend, catch you Monday

Autoblog - Plodder Stop Moved - long AUDCHF at 0.93980000 trailing stop is now in70 pips from price - Guaranteed winner

swissy closed

nfp took out swissy at 1997 for +442 pips - nice one :)

Autoblog - Plodder Long Trade EURJPY at 153.12000000 stop is 0.00000000

Autoblog - Plodder Long Trade NZDJPY at 79.38000000 stop is 0.00000000

Interesting.

Ok, this autoblogging thing is kinda cool - the posts appear very fast but maybe i should attach a timestamp to the mail too? dunno.

Anyway, it's live now - i might take some disc trades later today and the plodder is on auto mode.

That gold was a nice trade for 127 pips :)

currently running on plodder is:

usdchf short from 1.2439 - stop at 1.1997
eurcad short from 1.5225
cadjpy long from 100.57
audchf long from 0.9398

you should be able to track the performance from the mails now - only swissy has the trailer in at the mo. Note that if you get two posts closing a trade it's most likely a re-quote like the gold one below

Autoblog - Closed Short Trade XAUUSD 645.00000000 closed at 631.50000000

Autoblog - Trade Change XAUUSD at 645.00000000 stop is 637.70000000

Autoblog - Trade Change XAUUSD at 645.00000000 stop is 640.80000000

Plodder Long placed

Autoblog - Plodder Long Trade AUDCHF at 0.93980000 stop is 0.00000000

Trade Change

Autoblog - Trade Change USDCHF1.19540000 stop is 1.80010000

clever

clever - the modification email gets here before the trade placed email! typical; blogger that is!!!

I entered the trade, modified twice and thenclosed it and only one poxy email made it here! all four emails got through from my smtp server so it has to be the blogger end.

Trade Change

Autoblog - Trade Change USDCHF1.19540000 stop is 1.80010000

ok, fun time

Ok, listen carefully.

Ive now made my new robot trader so it will email the blog automatically when it does anything.

Ive also made one which will post my discretionary trades also.

Heres how it will work.

The new robot is called the Plodder - so called because some trades take ages and also because it's on a 4 hour chart. for example my short usdchf trade has been running since the 20th and is still in.

if you see a plodder email then that is a real live autotrade. you will see entries and exits and stop moves also - it emails the minute it changes, enters or exits a trade. - note that the plodder does not have an initial stop until it's trailer kicks in.

Please note that i already have 6 trades running and if there are any changes to those trades you will also see them. The only time the expert will not send an email is when the trade is taken out on it's trailing stop - i'm working on that though and hopefully it will do this in the future.

The discretionary trade expert operates exactly the same way - you'll get entries, exits and stop moves.

Lets hope it works right :) - first thing i'm going to test it out on a quick demo trade so ignore the first one - after 3pm trades will be real

New results soon

Hi y'all.

just an update then - this new idea i had is coming on, so much so that I 've been working on an autotrader.

The autotrader now works and i'm currently working on parameters for each pair. Once ive done that and got em all as i want them then i will probarbly start posting the results for you to have a look at.

It's not intraday though, more swing trading on a 4 hour chart.

Will speak soon, may the pips be with you :)

STOP PRESS - just setup mt4 to send trades to my blog so you may start to see some trade posts in here. - don't take em tho :)

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?????

Brilliant!

I Saw this on kittys forum and just had to share - never a better picture