Monday, December 19, 2011

Upcoming trades

There are a couple of potential trades on the horizon, there was nothing last week except one I missed when i was on holiday which was on the EURCHF.

When we could have got in, there would have been roughly about 120 pips in profit.

Again though, I decided not to trade as the set up was not ideal, and as mentioned over and over again - I would much rather be 1 or 2 pips in profit than have a bif drawdown and look back saying that it was not a perfect setup! This will be waht distinguishes a trader from a gambler...

I know what bracket I would rather be in!

Happy trading!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Time off

Just a quick message to say that I took last week off from looking at the markets due to other work commitments, which meant that I could not update my blog, and it also meant that I was not able to follow the markets that well.

With that in mind, I shall endeavor to let you know BEFORE I take a leave of abscence - of course sometimes that will not be possible, but I will endeavor to do so just so that you need not keep checking back all of the time.

Anyways, this does bring up a good point - I do feel refreshed coming back to looking at the markets, and it is important to have a life away from them. There is nothing better than a trader who is fresh and able to bring energy to the markets... It may sound strange, but energy is what is needed. You need to spend some time going through the markets each and every day, and It can quickly get quite tiring... taking time away can renew and refresh, and just remember, the markets are ALWAYS there (although some currencies may not... EURO !!! ;)

It is a worrying time in all seriousnes though, as the Euro zone represents the largest economy on Earth... 3 times as big as the US banks... that is certainly food for thought. If the Euro were to fail, there will be massive implications on all the markets around the World - not just currency, but equities as well as futures and the whole shabang.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will the Euro fail? I would say probably not, but who thought Enron would fail, or Lehmann brothers or Northern Rock, or the (now) publicly owned banks in the UK....

Nothing is certain, but keep your eyes open for opportunities!!!

As it is, there is nothing on the horizion at the moment in terms of trades, but will be looking for them this week!

Happy trading

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Another trade taken

This one was on the USDCHF. I actually took the trade yesterday evening, but was not close to a computer to update the blog to let everyone know.

I bought at 0.92133 at 17:15 and it was closed out just a few minutes ago at 0.92200 (again I raised my stop to break even, but managed to take a couple of pips in the process.

I have started using a spreadsheet called DDSM which is an automatic spreadsheet that gives you lot sizes against risk. It looks to be very handy, as over the course of 20 trades, if you win 10 trades at 100 pips each, and then lose 100 10 trades at 100 pips each - you will come out with a hefty profit. Likewise if you lose 10 then win 10 you still come out ahead. A very useful tool indeed - it ensures that you have every chances of earning money over the long term.

Anyway, my lot size on this occasion using this spreadsheet and using past performance would have been 0.13, and the account balance would have been $1387.93! Quite a bit more than my other bank balance without using the spreadsheet... This small pip gain would have netted me $9.45,, which for one trade at a very low balance is great!

I think what I will do, is set up another account using the DDSMM money management spreadsheet to track how this spreadheet works - as anything that works well can add to the arsenal!

Happy trading!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Stopped out last night

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, I was not wholly convinved there woudl be a massive move upwards, and thought I would put my Stop loss at Break even as quickly as possible. Good thing I did, as the trade woudl be in quite a bit of draw down.

Out of the trade with zero loss and zero porfit - my Break even was set at the entry price of 0.91988, so a good result in the end. The max profit I could have acheived would have only been about 4 pips, so it was a bit of a speculative trade that did not quite go to the 20 pip proift I was going after.

Happy trading!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Another trade

This time on the USDCHF (again!).

The charts say to opem up on this strategy, so it has been opened, although I do have some signals which say that it will go the other way... as it is, the startegy is such that I need to follow it to the letter...

So USDCHF is a buy @ 0.91988.  I have set the stop loss at about 90 pips to start off, but as soon as I am in profit on this one, I shall be going to break even as I am not entirely sure that this one is going to pan out the way I would like...  Time will tell, and we have been on a very good run these past 4 trades, so I am happy to take the trade, but will be interesting to see how this one pans out!

Cross fingers, and trust in the trading Gods as such!

Happy trading!

Stopped out

Well, The trade I took this morning was stopped out with another profit!

This time I was stopped out at a profit of 46.9, as I moved by SL to 1.34000 over the course of the trade.

I should point out that I considered halving my position and putting the SL at 50%, so I would have had some profit, adn the ability to let the remaing half run.

I chose instead jsut to move the SL up when i was in profit by about 65 pips, as I am more than happy to take the full profit early as it means less of an effort in tracking the trade over a course of a few days.

What I am trying ot do at the moment is to reduce the maximum stop loss but keep the risk the same, so when I am in profit, I earn a lot more.

I have detailed this bfore, but by halving the maximum stop loss (from say, 150 to 75) I can double my position sizing (from 0.1 to 0.2 for example). This means that I do not have as much wiggle room in terms of price movement into drawdown, but at the same time I DOUBLE my profits.

So far I have not documented original stop loss levels and position sizes, but maybe I should?

Anyway, another profit!!

Happy trading!

New trade on EURUSD

A new trade was opened on the EURUSD about half an hour ago.

I got into the trade - a sell @ 1.34469.

I have already moved the stop loss to break even, so I now have zero risk on this trade. It is good to let these ride... The great thing about this trade is that it has broken some really massive resistance, and the next major support level is at about 1.31... so we could be looking at quite a nice little profit on this one (although the cliche 'famous last words' come to mind)....

Already I am in profit, and with the safety net of the stop loss being at break even, I am kind of feeling pretty good about this trade.

Putting the stop loss at break even straight away is a major psycological boost to your trading, and yet it could easily swing back and take away any proifts, but the major thing is that I have absolutely no risk - zilch - to my account, so even if this took a massive reversal, the most I could lose is nothing... How brilliant is that!!! This has got to be the single most best thing I have ever learnt.... and that is no lie. The strategy itself is great, but once I am in proift - I can not not lose. A similar thing can be used by using trailing stops. Although very very useful, I am taking more of an active look at the trades, and trying to determine what should happen with it. It is all a learning curve of course, and in the last two trades, the stop loss was put at a level that meant they were stopped out for relatively small gains when the trades themselves could have gone on for many more pips... HOWEVER, they were stopped out at what was a pretty huge resistance/support level, so despite the fact they were stopped out, I made a profit on something that could have easily gone the other way and wiped out those profits and could have easily gone on to be a loss.

Something I learned a long time ago was never complain about a profit. This means taking small profits despite the fact that a trade goes on to make HUGE gains. If you always make a profit, that is great, if you make 1 or 2 losses, you could be in huge draw down which is not good!

Anways - here's to happy trading!!!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

This weeks trading

So things have started out a little slowly this week, however the markets seem to be getting into some direction. We have the potential for a couple of trades this week - just waiting to see if they are viable or not.

I think that because we have some fairly good trends at the moment, it would be very easy to dip in and out with little fear that everything is going to go against you. As I have mentioned at length, the trades that are taken on this blog are only to do with 1 selected strategy - my own creation (which let's face it, is doing pretty well... if i say so myself!) so it is pretty obvious that there are lots of money to be made in the markets, but on this blog you only get 1 of them! This is one of the reasons why trades are not taken everyday. These trending markets are such that there are plenty of opportunities out there - but you need to have a few weapons in your arsenal to ensure that you are always have the opportunity to make good solid trades.

As always, I will keep you posted of any additional plays.

As for my other little investment with JSS Trippler (which is located on the right of this blog) I am starting to really ramp up the amount that I am making, and was talking to someone the other day who showed me how much he was making - $200 a day. He has just bought a top of the line computer, and was still investing more. I am hoping to start withdrawing and adding to my forex account. An additional $50,000 should not really go amiss...!!! I really woudl reccomend that you take a look at it - it is free to browse after all. Check out JSS Trippler through the link on the right and I will be your sponsor and guide you to what you need to do.

As always happy trading!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Forex strategies revealed are always the buzz words that are mentioned in any email I get, promising the easiest way to earn money in Forex. How many do I get? At least 5 a day. This is largely due to my first tentative steps into the World of Forex, and looking for a broker etc... You give them your details, and then pretty quickly you are left with a system that is shoddy at best, downright dangerous at worst. And on top of that, you are bombarded with the next great big thing in the World of Forex. Talk to 99% of people, and they can not resist the temptation to find out what it is and discover if this really is the hidden gem that has been missing from their lives for so long.... Let me give you a hint... It is not!!!
The good thing though, is that if you implement and test these strategies, after a while you will be able to make something up yourself that you can actually make work! Yes that is right, if you are willing to put the effort in, you can be successful. How successful? That is down to you and only to you. This can either be daunting, or empowering. Your failure is in your hands, but counter intuitively, more worringly, so is your success.

So how do you go from buying the latest fad, to creating a winning strategy that will actually work?

The process is easy, but very time consuming. If I could give you a guarantee that you would be earning a million pounds, how long would you dedicate to it? A month, a Year, a decade even?

Forex promises riches beyond your wildest dreams, and you can start turning that £10 into £1 million within 3 months (yes they actually expect you to believe that) and I am sure for that 1 person out of millions has been able to do that very thing – the laws of probability says that it can be done, but the laws of probability says that it probably won’t be you...

The most important thing to do is to start on the higher time frames – more people can lose more the lower the time frame they use. There is nothing glorious in losing your hard earned cash within a week... staying in the game is key! This is why Demo accounts are available.

I will say that demo accounts have their pros and cons. What you want to test out on your demo account is simply the strategy that you use. You are testing to see if the mechanics of the system are repeatable and are successful. You are not demoing to become a millionaire, on a live account things change dramatically. What you need to know is that if you were to lift the system from demo to live, the system would work. This is also why using the higher timeframes are key, as profits should be greater, which means that you will not be lulled into a false sense of security when you see only profit – live accounts come with a multitude of fees that are not shown on a demo account.

So you start on a demo account, what should you be looking for? I always start my demo account with an amount of money that I actually have to play with. If you have $1000, why demo an account with $50,000? Is that going to give you realistic expectations? It also trains you to accept that, certainly at the beginning, you are going to be trading with a view to earning $5 per trade as opposed to $1000. There is nothing as disheartening as demoing a huge account, and then start dreaming of what you could spend your money on, and then to start only making a couple of dollars on your real account – human nature says that you will start to take bigger risks as you try to fulfil your expectations. When you do this, say goodbye to Mr. Account!

So you now have your demo account at a level that you can afford, you now need to start thinking about how much you can risk on each trade. This would generally be between 1% - 3% per trade. Your goal is to make 2%-6% on each trade to cover your losses and still be in profit. So how do you go about this?

1 standard lot = $10 per pip
1 mini lot (0.1 of a standard lot) = $1 per pip
1 micro lot (0.01 of a standard lot) = $0.1 per pip
1 nano lot (0.001 of a standard lot) = $0.01 per pip

If you have a $1000 account, each trade should have a maximum risk of $30.
You position your stop loss, ie 150 pips, and then work out how much you can afford per pip – $30/ 150 =0.2.

So your lot size would be 2 micro lots... $0.2 per pip.

A handy formula would is:

#lots = Acct_ size$ x %risk_per_trade x 0.1 / stoploss_pips

So, with a $1000 account X 0.03 X 0.1 / 150 = 0.02 (which is the micro lot)

You could halve your stop loss to 75, and you would be trading with $0.4 per pip. Your risk is still $30 though. Hopefully you can see how this works. If you want to compound your earnings, you can feed the new account details into the above formula. Or you could set this for a week, and then change the levels.
Either way comes with pros and cons, but this is down to the individual as to how they would like to play it.

The change from demo to real should be within a year if the testing is going well (why would you go live with a system that does not work?). The biggest problem that you have on a live account – is YOU! You have to deal with the emotions of seeing your account showing minus numbers. It does happen, and you have to accept that it is something that will happen. Don’t deviate from your max stop loss, as if you were doing everything right in your demo, then this would just be a normal fluctuation. At the end of the day, you would only be losing a max of $30, and should be able to easily grab that back on the next trade..

Happy trading, and hope this helps a little way!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Stopped out on both trades

well, I had moved the stop loss up on both trades to ensure that i did not pick up a reversal that I was actually quite worried about - knowing that both were at Support/resistance levels, so really happy with the quick in and out nature of these trades.

GBPUSD was stopped out at 1.58760 for a 24.3 pip profit

USDCHF was stopped out at 0.91400 for a 54.4 pip profit

Here's to some more porfits in the next few days/weeks!

Happy trading!

2 trades opened last night

So late last night, there were two trades that opened - one on the GBUSD and one on the USDCHF.

The GBPUSD was a sell order at 1.59003

The USDCHF was a buy order at 0.90856

So far they are both in profit, and what's more important is that I have moved the stop loss to break even. This is something that I will be doing more and more of - moving to breakeven as soon as possible. What this will ensure, is that I will very rarely have a losing trade.

Just a bit of commentary on the trades as they stand -

GPBUSD I am up about 50 pips os far, and it is reaching new lows over the past. It has hit some major support levels, so I will monitor the trade to see whether I will get out or not - if it were to break the resistance, then it could signal a very nice profit! I have locked in 25 pips profit on this trade.

USDCHF - Nearing it's high from September, and I am already in proift by about 100 pips. Again, there are some major resistance levels which will need to be monitored. I have locked in 50 pips aleready on this trade, so regardless of what happens, I am guaranteed a proift which is great!

If for nothing else, this does make the system look better - the more winning trades, the better (but I guess that kind of goes without saying!

What is really heartening about this though, is that in the very very choppy market we have experienced lately, we have not been in it. This is such a major factor - that if you do not knwo how to proift in a market - DON'T GET IN! There are always going to be trades in the market place, so why take rubbish trades??

Anyways- happy trading, and I will keep you posted on how the trades pan out!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Possible trades and to take them or not?

So last week was another one which went by without a trade. The important thing here, is that there were some trades which I could have taken. As it turned out, I decided not to take them.

Most people enter into the markets thinking 'This is a great trade set up' and can only see the positive side to the trade with little thought about the potential downside. It is all very well setting stop losses and and position sizing accordingly... that is money management 101, but at the same time, we want to increase the probability that a trade will be successful.

Stop losses and position sizes only control the maximum we are willing to lose - and will not increase or decrease the chances are of winning the trade.

I go into trades thinking 'This is a terrible trade set up' and I try to convince myself that it is a good one.

Stop losses give you a maximum loss per trade - which is great, but minimising the amount of times you lose can be an even more powerful weapon in your arsenal.

If you go into every trade with your guard up - you can look at trades subjectively. I know we all want to have profitable trades, and we want to be in the market to make those profits, but certainly not at the expense of our account. Being subjective and having the mind set that you DO NOT want to trade is key to choosing the correct trades, and the high probability trades. You need to be convinced before you take the trades. The great thing is, is that over time you will be in many trades. Over the course of 5 - 10 years, you will have lots and lots of trades. And the key thing is that if you preserve your capital, you will make more and not lose it. It is far better to be in the game for 20 years with your core capital in tact, than out of the game seeing it sore 100, 200, 1000% percent, only to see it dissapear as quickly as you over trade on 'B' or 'C' trades.

The markets will always be there, but will you? Longevity equals success. That is the bottom line!

Onto the forecast of this weeks trading, the EURO should be settling down a bit after a bailout was agreed, although Italy's prime minister has quit (more uncertainty) and France are possibly next up to default. We are certainly not out of the woods yet, but cross fingers we come out of the other side in tact.

What this means for us, is that we should be getting better trades, and they shoudl be bankers in the next week or so. Here's hoping!

Happy trading!

Monday, November 7, 2011

Forthcoming week in a nutshell

Well, here we are again - a new week with some new trading opportunities.

The first one that I can see straight off the bat is some major resistance on the USDCAD on the 4 hour chart and all the charts below that, 1h, 30 min, 15 m, 5m and 1 m. The only chart that does not have this resistance is the daily chart. In fact I have taken a sell position in this already - it is not part of this system, so it will not go to the results, but there is a really solid resistance line that it should be a gimme.... although we all know there is no such thing!

As for the other pairs, there is a potential trade on the EURUSD... although I have not taken it. It is not a brilliant set up - ie, it was overbought to long ago to believe that it even fits into the system - it is touch and go at best, so I am leaving this trade. If you wanted ot take a position, it would be a sell, but if it were taken, t'were best be taken quickly and brought to Breakeven point very quickly to lock in profits and limit the losses that could well come from it - it is quickly moving to oversold, so you can probably expect a bounce back.

The issue we have at the moment is the ongoing crisis in Greece that is having a major impact on most of the markets. Greece still does not truly know what it is doing, and from going from a place of security, the PM called a referendum and caused chos through out the Euro zone. No one truly knows how this will play out, so apart from the EURCHF, the waters are very choppy at the moment and hence why there has been no trades recenely - that is not to say that things will not pick up, but certainly I do not want to get into anything until I know which way the trend is blowing.

As always, I will be updating any trades as they become apparant, but expect nothing in the next couple of days (certainly on this strategy, as it will not be producing anything for the time being that I can see...)

Happy trading!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Review of the weeks trading

Well, in a nutshell, there has been none... or so it seems!

The time frame is such that I do not expect trades everyday, and having those expectations means that I am not wanting to trade every day. If the indicators line up - then I will take a trade, if not, I will not!

One of the key reasons people fail at Forex is going in on substandard signals, and trading too much. By trading less, you improve your chances of success. On top of that, you should also be able to adapt to market conditions, and use all the availale tools to help you succeed. What this means, is that this method relies on a long time frame, and all indicators lining up. In the current market conditions, we have had massive trends with no retracements, which means that this strategy has not produced any trades. However, at the same time, you could have taken a trade on one of these heavily trending markets and still been very profitable. I do trade away from this method, but what I want is a method that is low impact in terms of time, is very proiftable and is stress free. The signals are for the most part automated - there is only a discretionary piece of the jigsaw to decide on the trend - is it strong enough to sustain itself for another 3-4 days where we know that this system will be successful? If the answer is no, then a trade is not taken - depsite all the indicators effectively lining up.

Some of the best guitarists know that it is not what you fill the song with, but the spaces in between which make their tunes great - the same applies with trading. It is not the trades that you are profitable with that makes you a success, it is all the other trades that you did not take that makes you successful.

Trading does not start and end at the charts either. To be a full rounded, confident trader, you need to be reading around the subject (which I have been doing a lot of in the abscence of any trades) and understanding the market drivers. This can only help you make the correct decision in the future to make the trade or not.

Quite frankly, anyone can come onto this blog and look at the open trades, take them, and then come back and close them when I do. They (hopefully) should make a profit... but why settle for that? This is only one strategy I am running, there are plenty of other opportunities out there on shorter time frames - and longer time frames. Reading through this blog will actually help you understand my thinking which could help you to make better calls.

The major things I have been looking at this week include Price action - trying to get a deeper understanding of why things happen, what are the market drivers, and from a couple of simple changes in thought could have netter in man many more pips than is seen on here - and this is a scalable model on time frames too. Bringing the stop loss figures closer to the entry point (which means more profits).

The strategy I use here is very conservative - 3% at risk per trade with a stop loss of 150. This means that the lot sizes are very low for a small account - at the most 0.01, looking at gaining $0.10 per pip. Granted when you hit the 200 pip moves, it is some very stress free ways to make $20, but let's face it, you are hardly going to be able to live on this. But what happens when you have a s/l of 75 pips... suddenly you are onto 0.2 lots... but then again, what happens when you have a stop loss of 50, 25, 10 or even 5 pips... your lot size goes up dramatically, and suddenly those small proifts turn into some very big profits risking the same amount - 3% of your account. Using price action is one way to do this, and catch it right, and you can make lots more cash (which is why we are in this game). This is doable, but takes lots of practice, but that is the position I want to get too.

We shall see!

Here's to next weeks trading, and may it be successful!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The markets this week

So far this week we have had one potential trade on the EURGBP, however, the trend direction was not sufficient enough to warrant getting into the trade, so I decided to leave it be. It could have easily pinged straight back up, so better trade trade on the better side of valour to save our cash! So far, I think we could have made about 60 pips on when I would have been able to enter the trade, but the potential downside outweighed the risk much more.

The rest of the currency's are either in consolidation mode or have been trending so much, there has not been a pull back good enough for us to enter with confidence.

I am still on the look out for some good trades, and there may be one setup on the horizon, but the trades I am looking for generally have a set up over about 8-12 hours, so depending on how they go, I should be alerted to them pretty early... It is only a problem when the set up lasts longer - as I am generally in bed when they do happen. Happily however, we do tend to long runners, so getting in a couple of hours late is not so much of a problem.

I have been doing lots of reading recently regarding getting better entries to fully take advantage of a move. This would work for this, but the only problem is that we woudl only get an extra 1 - 5 pips. It is certainly something I shall be implementing as those couple of pips will soon add up, but at the same time it is not core to the strategy. It would only represent beteen 1-2% of the total trade, so I won't get too hung up about it.

An additional note on the table for the running bank balance - I am having issues with putting a table in the gadgets on the right hand side (basic stuff I know, but still...) so this is taking a back seat at the moment. I am going to look at trying to have a feed of the trading account, but it will start from $800 again, and I will trade only on MT4. The issue I have, is that I trade on propriety software, mobile software and MT4, so the results I would be able to post would be sketchy at best, and not sure if they would be able to be consolidated into one... No isssue, as the trades as I see them are posted up each day as they happen in any case, and are clolsed when they happen (except maybe for a couple of hours delay due to not being able to update the blog), so at least there is verifiable trades that are occuring which is most important to me. How many times do you see trading services that propose great returns, but then you only get half the returns when you sign up!

I am not selling anything, so that should not be much of a problem, but verifiable proof is most important for anyone who wants to follow the trades I make.

Anyways, I have gone on for quite a bit, so I shall leave it there!

Happy Trading!

Friday, October 28, 2011

review of the weeks trading

Well, what a week it was. We had one trade that netted us 90+ pips. That is a great result. However, my prediction came true, and the USDCAD pair dropped like a stone, and we could have picked up additional pips - the trade set up was actually perfect - but I missed the boat by a couple of hours, and by that time, the opportunity passed. This would have turned into a potential high risk low reward trade. It is easy to look back and say that it would have been a good decision to jump in the trade, but at the time, you do not have the liberty to see what happens in the future!

What was not so great is that we had a trade setup on about 4 different charts which would have netted over 1000 pips all combined (mainly off the back of the Euro). I missed these as I was simply not in time to take the trades and be 'guaranteed' the profitability I was after. I think I could have jumped on the bandwagon and tried to pick up 10 - 50 pips, but the risk was simply not worth it. It does seem a bit silly to try to force these trades. We could happily do 4-8 a month, and with that we should see some nice returns. The trades we are taking are all high percentage trades with high profits attached to them.

All in all, I am pleased with this so far, and hopefully any one who wants to jump on the bandwagon will be pleased as well.

I have been looking at shorter time frames to ramp up the proiftability of my trading, but at the moment, I have not got the time to dedicate to it, although it would be great if I could have the time as I would certainly give it a go. At the same time, the results here would still be strictly for this strategy.

The success and failure of a system is judged on results - so far we are winning more than we are losing, and we are gaining more pips than losing. This is certainly a great start, but I am trying to stay rooted to the ground here, for the very fact that a trading strategy is judged over the long term - hundreds and thousands of trades- so this is still very very much in its infancy.

The trends are very strong in the markets at the moment, so away from this strategy, you may want to jump on the bandwagon and seek a few pips on the ride.

As an aside, if you can use nano lots on your account (1 pip = $0.01), then starting with a $800 account (about £500) you would be now sitting on 881.35 - an increase of just over 10%. This is taking into account the losing trades as well!!!

In actual fact, I am going to add another widget which will show an $800 account (i prefer to work in USD as the pips are easier to calculate).

Anyways, here's to a relaxing weekend, and some more....

Happy trading! :)

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

USDCAD Trade closed out

Well, the USDCAD trade has closed, and I was filled at 1.00292 due to my trailing stop, I had shortened it this morning after the run downwards, so quite happy that I did, otherwise I would not have made as much profit.

As it stands I achieved a profit of 94.2 pips on that trade, not too bad at all.

One thing to note, is that I can see it making it's way back down again, but I am not too concerned with direction AFTER I am out of the trade.

The main thing is profits, and we are getting plenty of them!

Happy trading!

Monday, October 24, 2011

back to guaranteed profits

Well, the USDCAD trade has tipped itself over 50 pips porift, so the trailing stop has now kicked in, and we are guaranteed profits (again!). It is nice to return to profitability since the last trade was a negative (but subsequently went into some big profit!).

Trading rules are there for a reason, and by abiding by them, we will win more than we lose, and win more bucks than we lose!!

As an aside, there were quite a few great trade setups for lots of different currencies, I missed these as they came at times I was not expecting. This probably means we won't get some trades in the next few days, but it is always better to under trade than over trade, so let's not worry too much about that!

Also, I have decided not to use the strategy on the metal trading. It may be that in a few months time it will be reinserted, but at the moment I do not understand the margin levels, and how it works in the software of my choice... So we will see what happens over time, but I am closing the trade (although this was never going to count against the Forex trading account).

Happy trading, and keep it up!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Back in with the USDCAD

We have had another trade triggered with the USDCAD. This time it is a sell. I got into this about an hour or two ago at 1.01234 (seriously!).

This has a strong trend going downwards, so I am a little more confident about this than the EURCHF. I think that was the major problem with the EURCHF trade, is that for a start it was whipsawing, and because of that, there was no strong trend. On that note I would say that it was me being wrong to get into the trade rather than the strategy/charts with the wrong signal. It is a learning point, and one I will be remembering. The strategy is supposed to target trades with a huge chance of going to profitability, and some of that is paying a little more attention to what the charts tell me!!!

Any way, here's to some more good trades, and hopefully more profitability!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

First loser

Ok, so last night, the charts went against us, and they told us to get out of dodge...

It was only a 50 pip loss, so no disaster, and you have to expect losers and hope for winners - that is just the nature of the game. Following proper money management, this will not be a big issue... After all, so far for every loser we are having 2 or 3 winners.

The stop loss was not hit, but the technicals on the chart says to get out, so that is what we have done - it was ironic that it came out at exactly 50 pips (I only put a trailing stop of 50 pips when I am guaranteed a return of 50 pips...).

What is really reassuring, is that the strategy is working - exits are the most important thing, and the ability to mechanically get in or stay in is a big bonus.

Looking at the chart, I was hoping for a breakout, and we got stopped around resistance, so it all adds up... The EURCHF is whipsawing a bit, we had a bit of a runup, and at the moment it can not decide what it wants to do, but no worries, I am sure we will be back to winning ways very soon.

Happy trading!

Monday, October 17, 2011

XAGUSD triggered

Just a quick update, another trigger has happened today, and this is on the XAGUSD. This is a metal trade - silver to be precise. At the moment, this is to see if the stratgy works on here, and how it all plays out, but thought that I had better mention it.

The trade was open as a buy @ 32.21985.

Happy trading

EURCHF triggered

Late on Friday night, we got the trigger to buy the EURCHF - Again, I am not sure whether this will go to profit or not, but the trade is such that the rules say to follow it! Stop loss is 150 for this, and 3% risked.

I only bought this this morning, so some of the move might have already happened - we will have to wait and see, but time will tell us.

So, we have bought the EURCHF at 1.23965 - so at the moment of writing, it has gone into loss of 45 pips, but the good news is that it is massively oversold, so I would expect to see a bounceback.... although what I expect, and what the charts says does not always mean that what you expect will actually happen.

Should be an interesting trade to see what happens.

It should be trailed quite closely though, as the chart is turning...

Happy trading

Friday, October 14, 2011

Another week down

So, another week has passed, and so far we have had 2 trades which have been taken and profited, and zero losers.

while on the surface of things, it looks a little bleak - only having two trades, what is important to remember is that overtrading is the worst thing that we can do. Forcing trades=losing trades.

I am actually glad that we have had no trades this week - I know it sounds strange, but the way the markets are moving we are best being out of them at this time - we are looking for high probability trades that have next to no risk. At the moment the system is working. This is the nature of this particular strategy - one thing though, With my broker I can trade gold and silver - these have been added to my watch list, so do not be surprised if I start talking about these - they will work exactly like any currency pair.

I have also set up a bit more of an agressive system that trys to get in a little earlier which will ramp up the profits. Backtesting it, it looks promising, but forward testing is the real litmus test. This is found on

101percentforex.blogspot.com

This is only a demo, and I am not really paying heed to money management - I am only taking small positions, and seeing what the win ratio is - not the risk reward at the moment.

Happy trading, and will see you next week!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Nothing on the horizon as of yet

Well, Wednedsday is here, and we still have no trades worthy of taking - in actual fact, there is very little going on that I would be happy to get into at the moment. The markets seem to be going a little bit crazy, but my eye is firmly on the CHF at the moment.

Both the USD and GBP pairs with the CHF show some promise, but little else at the moment. It is certainly not a certainty of which way the trade woudl go if we got in right now. The CHF had a big dip and I am expecting it to rise again - how much and if it meets the criteria to trigger a trade - I am not sure. The best thing traders can do is to enter into trades without emotion.

If you have fear going into a trade, a couple of things will happen:

a) You will close the trade because it goes negative, and your initial thoughts were proved true - except that it goes to massive profitability... the fear meant that you got out of the trade against what the trading plan tells you!

b)The trade goes into profit straight away, has a little retreat and you close the trade with a small profit. Although this is not the worst scenario, again it goes against the trading plan which is bad for traders. I always say that you shoudl never begrudge the profits you make, but the whole point of being a trader is to follow your trading plan. This is your trading bible, and it is imperative that it is followed (otherwise you may as we try your hand at gambling).

Your trading plan is the one thing that puts you ahead of all the other traders out there, and the ones who follow the trading plan will be the ones who succeed in the long run. This can not be stated strongly enough.

Money management is the next level. If you have a trading plan, money management should be part of this in any case. I am going to look at putting something on my blog that can be downloaded for everyone which details what a trading plan should look like.

This is the most boring part of trading... but it is also the most important and vital thing. Ultimately, trading should not be exciting. If it is, you are opening up yourself to emotion - and most scarily greed. If this is the case, you will lose money. There is very few ifs and buts about this. As I mentioned in an earlier post - check out market wizards - this is a real eye opener in terms of mindset of traders (proftiable ones, and very successful ones at that!!!).

Anyway, here's to picking the RIGHT trades, and getting in (and out) at the right times!

Happy trading, and look out for the trading plan manual in the coming weeks or so.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Back to business

So, I am back from the Czech republic and I am looking forward to this weeks trades to come.

So far, looking through the different currecny pairs, there is only one which potentially has the chance to go into an acceptable trade in the near future - that is the USDCHF pair. Not a massively common one when you compare it to the likes of the EURUSD, or the GBPEUR - but I am not going to complain if I can make money from it, and neither can you. The great thing about trading on a longer time period means that we can trade on more exotic currency pairs - it gives us a lot more scope to buy and sell on things other traders woudl not and can not consider. If you look at some of the exotics, they have a pip spread of 20 pips or more - try making money off those when you are scalping!

Of course saying that, I do believe that you should have lots of strings ot your bow, so I am certainly not against scalpers... far from it. So far, I have just found nothing that could make me consistent returns - which is ultimately what I am looking for!

So anyway, back to the USDCHF...

Basically it has been trending upwards for a time, and it looks like there has been a pull back, and in the next few hours/days, I would expect it to bounce back up again. Just have to wait to get the signal that says to buy (this is going to be a buy signal if anything!)

So keep an eye out, and we will be in a trade before we know it.

One thing I would say, is that anything with the EUR would have been a good thing to buy on fundamentals. Look at the charts, and you will see them ALL rising by a good 3-4 hundred pips over the last few days (of tradable times that is). If I was able to have traded them I would have done (although not part of this strategy).

Ultimately one strategy will never catch all movements, and it is important to understand when you could or should break from a winning strategy... or at least have multiple strategies, but split your accounts up accordingly to trade monies from certain accounts, otherwise it makes it very hard to track your progress for each individual strategy..

As it stands of course, this blog is only about my own strategy, on the longer periods - trying ot catch what seems to be between 150-350 pip moves.

Anyway, keep alert, and watch for those trades - they will come eventually, and when they do we will be on board the train to happiness!! (very corny, but very true!)

Happy trading!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Another money maker

Well, the trade closed after the trailing stop was hit with a profit of 231 pips. We got out of the trade at 1.0524.

It is quite difficult getting all the info, as I do not have access to my charts, and what I can access is really quite limited.

Anyway, we have increased our bank by 8.8% in total. Our last trade hit 4.6% which for one trade at our conservative trading, is great - 3% with a stop loss of 150!

If you wanted to be a bit more aggresive, you could double your lot size to 2 micro lots, and you woudl have increased your bank by 16%! This however does come with a downside, as you would have to increase your risk (to 6% per trade) or halve your stop loss... neither was attractive on this trade, as I believed that there was a good chance that this could have gone against us quite a lot. However as it is, I am very happy with the results so far. I hope the above shows just how versatile you can be with your risk, but there are pros and cons to both. I think that in the first trade, there was a big move downwards in one period, and it dropped by about 100 pips, so it could have left you out of a trade that went on to make a nice profit... of course, it does mean that your risk reward is increased, but if you get more losing trades... It all adds up in the end.

Happy trading everyone, and I will start back up next week. The rest is a holiday (albeit a working one at the moment!)

Monday, October 3, 2011

Away for a couple of days, but the trade is still going strong

Well, the USDCAD has now run up gains of about 200 pips, so we are well into profit which is great news.

Unfortunately I am on business in the Czech republic, and I can not access most of my accounts (and even Blogger is now showing up in Czech, and I do not know how to change it... I can not read it!)

No big drama, the trailing stop will kick in so I won't lose much cash if it were to go against me, but that is ok in any case as we are well into proift and have added at least another 3% to the bankroll. I just wish I could see my charts to know whether I should be in another trade... You just watch, i will come back to the UK, and will be telling you how I should have been in loads of trades and would have earned X amount of dollars ;). The annoying thing, is that I could see a change in the markets... whether that led to a trade setup, I do not know though, but hindsight will always be 20/20.

Any way, I might not be posting this week because it is tough trying to get the information... although, I may post something about Forex in general at some time this week... just to get it off my chest.

Happy trading all!

Friday, September 30, 2011

Some more guaranteed profits

Well, I have a trailing stop on the USDCAD, and as I am writing, it is up 167 pips, so that is a guaranteed 117 pip profit with no risk of losing it.

The strategy seems to be catching some really good moves that will pay us really quite well.

I will keep up the good work, and I am still looking out for more moves in the other currencies. There is a good chance that this will roll over the weekend, but that is not too much of a problem. 2 weeks, and 2 good profits (although we are still running with this one as it stands!)

We are still only risking 3% of the total account (seriously a drawdow of 3% max on any one position is fantastic)and yet we are still making some really good money. It will work out that we will have been able to increase the account size by nearly 10% by the end of 4 weeks trading if this keeps going.

Do not believe the hype that you can double your account in a month. This will mean that you are risking far to much, and you will be saying bye bye to your account very quickly.

I would have hapy to be banking $50 a month knowing that the risk of me losing $500 is next to minimal.

In a years time, the account could well be up to $5000 making me $500 a month. That is a holiday every month if I were to withdraw!

Risk a lot at your peril!!!

It is still early days for the strategy, so we will see where it takes us, but so far even I am impressed with the results I am getting. Sticking to the trading rules is proving very very important, and more importantly proving that they are valid signals that I am getting.

Do not get me wrong, I m sure that there are some other people out there that can get much better results risking the same amount, but so far I am very happy with the results - it is very low maintenance, and so far (fingers crossed it carries on) I am just banking money every time I put a trade on...

Happy days!

Happy trading everyone, and hope you have a great weekend!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

New trade activated

The USDCAD trade has been triggered at 1.02930 for a buy.

I don't think that there will a massive profit here, and it will need to be monitored quite closely, but here goes for trade number 2! Let's see if we can get some more profit on this one.

I have been monitoring this currecny pair since the last time we missed it. It has taken a massive move, so whether it can maintain it - not really sure, but we will know in the next couple of days!

Happy trading

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The times they are a changing

Well, it looks like the markets are starting to change, and we are starting to see EUR improve a little bit.

So we are still watching the EURGBP andadded to that a few more currencies. Nothing is going to be triggered anytime within the next day or so, but I am keeping my beady eye out for them when they do come.

I have been looking into my margin call requiremenets, and because I will only ever be looking to risk about 3% on each trade, I could quite happily have 10 open positions going to full loss at any time - this would be 30% of my capital lost, and I would still be very far away from ever receiveing that dreaded margin call.

Money management is key. Minimising your risk is the most important thing in Forex. It is not a case of getting into trades, it is a case of having money availbale to get into trades tomorrow. There is no point in trying to make lots of money. If you commit 100% of your money in each trade, regardless of how much mnoey you make, you will end up with zero. You may be absolutely correct in all your analysis, but the markets do not listen to your analysis!

Some sobering reading in that if you risk 50% of your bankroll and lose, you have to increase your bankroll by 100% to get to the point you started off at.

This is not a get rich quick scheme- that is proven by us not having loads of trades (I want to trade when the markets tell me I can, not when i want).

This is supposed to be striving for financial independence over the long term.

Some stats (based on the trade the other day)

If we started off with a bank of $500, after 10 trades of winning 3% (and compounding the wins to the next trade) You would have $682 - an increase of $182, or increasing your account by 35%.

However, after 20 trades, you would have $903, a profit of $403, that is an increase of 80%,

After 40 trades, you would have $1631, a massive increase of 262%.

This of course does not look at losing trades, however, a 3% increase per trade is well doable (as an average, considering that we increased our account by 4.4% on one trade, and the USDCAD trade we should have been in would have represented an increase of 6.6%!!!)

Hopefully this will give you some idea of just how powerful money management is, and that risking the house on a gamble is not neccesary to get big returns.

Happy trading!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Watching GBPUSD

Well, most of the markets are trending quite strongly at the moment, and have done for the past week. It would be very easy to get into quite a few trades and make a tidy little profit - however, that woudl take a lot of time sitting in front of the computer, making sure that you can get out as quickly as possible if the trade did go against you - which is why I am not getting into any trades at the moment. If i were to do that, then I woudl not be following my strategy rules effectively.

With that said, there is a good chance that in the next couple of days we could have a signal to get into the GBPUSD (To sell which is contrary to where the currency looks to be heading) I think that this is more of a little false peak, and it will soon turn downwards again. Even if I am wrong, it would be no disaster, as I will only get into the trade if the indicators say I should - this will almost guarantee that the trade will go to profit (looking at the backtesting in any case... which can be very misleading in my opinion - but it is still nice to be able to look back saying that the strategy has never lost... )

I can not see anything else on the horizon as of yet, but the markets will change, and I will be there to try to catch them.

Just a reminder, that the last trade was +220 pips, and the other one I pointed out (but focused on the other trade so missed the boat) went to about 380+ pips that woudl have given us a 330 pip profit (with the 50 pip trailing stop).

That would mean that we woudl have had about a 10% increase in one or two weeks!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Trading rules

So after yesterdays closing result of +220 pips, we now need to look to the future.

Looking at the charts, most of them seem to be trending quite strongly, which is great for getting on the band wagon, however this does not suit with the trading rules of getting into a trade - all the analysis is off at the moment (well except for one indicator, but I need all of my indicators to line up before I enter a trade - which makes this strategy so powerful). This means that we have 2 options:

1) Look at shortening the timeframe of the charts - I am trading on a 4 hourly time frame, which means that I have lots of opportunity for the trade to go in the direction I want, and also for it to get the maximum profit while at the same time minimising my risk- this marying off the best profit conditions, with either the ndicators pointing to get out of the trade due to sudden movements - this will actually mean we get out before a stop loss is hit, or if it is a slow moving turn in the charts, we simply go to the stop loss and get out automatically.

2) Wait until the markets change.

There is a great book called market wizards, which goes into detail about incredibly successful traders and their ability to ride the highs and lows - it is a really intriguing read (you can get it from Amazon - see the link on the right. The reoccurring thoughts in the book is that trading has to be emotionless, and the more greedy you are, the more you will lose. For that reason, I am not overly bothered about jumping into another trade, especially one where the trade is on a shorter timeframe where I am not prepared to sit in front of the charts waiting for something good - or bad to happen.

From this, the option 2 is the prefered solution. We will wait until a good trade comes our way. This system will make money regardless if we have to wait 100 more days for them to change (which lets face it, it won't happen). This was shown with my earlier analysis on the USDCAD pair, where, if I had not been so focused on the EURUSD pair we actually traded, We could have been up about 500 pips by today (although I think we would have been stopped out at during one of the previous days...). Out of two trades - one actual, and one promised, but not executed, already the system is looking good. I still will not be drawn into believeing that it is foolproof just yet, but the signs are looking promising at the moment.

Anyways, here's to a good weekend, and let's hope that next week we can get even more winners as the markets hit their peaks and bottoms and start to look to change (of course, in this climate, who can say if that will happen?....... ok My strategy can ;-) )

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Trailing stop triggered

My trailing stop was triggered - I had it set at 50 pips, and it was stopped out at 1.34356.

This gives us a massive profit of 220 pips for a 4 days being in the trade.

A great first result i think all round. This has increased my account size by $22 with a max risk of only $15.

So we will now wait until the next trade. I am going to create a table to show all the trades (winners and losers when (hopefully not though!) and if they come.

A great first effort, and gives us a running total of +220 pips.

Normally, I would increase my sizings as my account goes up, but I will only give points results on here for eases sakes for looking at winners and losers. In real terms it is even level stakes.

My belief is that this was on the high side of what I would expect, but certainly not what i want. The EURUSD was in a massive down trend, so when we get these - and we will, we canreally look to proift handsomely off them.

Good trading!!!

The profits are coming in and guaranteed

So the EURUSD has sunk again, and we are firmly in profit on our trade, 100+ pips. All this and not risking 3% of our account. With an account of $500 (which i have) I had a stop loss at 150 pips, so this would equate to $15 in real money (as i am only using micro lots - 1 pip = $0.10). It did get a little bit hairy yesterday, as there was a massive jump, but the real point is having firm rules to get in and out of trades is a must.

As of writing, the EURUSD is sitting at 1.35272, and is on a downward trend (although I expect it to bounce back up and then continue it's downward trend further). Due to having a guranteed profit, I want to let my profits run, and especially because the recent trend, and the breakthrough of the resistance says it is going to go lower. This is where having a trailing stop comes in very handy. The trick is choosing by how much you let it trail to allow enough room for you to get more profit, without losing all your gains. I have my own rules, and expect there to be more to be had out of this trade.

I could have been in another trade on the USDCAD, but missed the boat through one reason or another, so we missed out on that. Not the worst thing to happen as there will be more trades. The first and most important thing is to be making money, and this has been achieved in this trade.

Heres to some more profit in the next couple of days!

Happy trading!

Monday, September 19, 2011

First trade activated

Ok, the great news is that we have our first trade that has been activated.

This will be to sell the EURUSD.

We will see how this goes, but the trade was executed when the rate was 1.36552. so anything below this we are in profit (minus the spread of course, but for eases sake as already mentioned, I am not taking this into account. Hopefully the wins on this will make the spreads pointless (because we are looking at a decent size profit, although it does of course mean that it will not be 100% accurate (although it will still be 98% accurate give or take a percent). The reasons for doing this is to prove it works, and show that there is undeniable profit potential in this strategy.

One thing to remember, I am not aiming for the highs and lows, to predict them 100% is impossible, so if we go in the red, that is not a problem, we are looking for the trend here, and there will be some ups and downs, as long as the downs and ups get lower and lower, that will result in a profit for this one trade.

I have decided that, the $250 starting bank is not going to be adhered to. I am going to do this on a points basis as it will make it a lot easier to present and will be easier on the eyes when trying to compute the information... Needless to say, depending on the lot sizes you want to use, says how much you win or lose, so risk and the rest can be assesed on that basis.

Happy trading!

Friday, September 16, 2011

EURUSD to watch

My next currecny to watch is the EURUSD. I hav eseen some movement which may be profitable. Obviously over the last few days, the EURUSD has been falling quite substantially and I would not be suprised if it had just about bottomed out, however, my charts are telling me that it could continue a decline.

If I had started this test a few months ago, I could well have been quids in, and increased my account by about 100% by holding this one currency alone. As it stands though, I might be coming into this party once all the good alcohol has been drunk, and I am left with the non alcoholic drinks... refreshing but not quite satisfactory!!!

Any ways, whether I make a lot of profit or a small profit, the main thing is making a profit. Getting plus numbers is the only name of the game here.

In actual fact, I woudl not be surprised with some interesting movements in the next few weeks, and certainly trades will offer themselves over time. Patience is definately a virute, although the excitemtn and impatience to just place a trade is sometimes a tad overwhelming, having a great trading plan, with firm rules in place will stop silly trades being entered into.

Happy trading as always!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

The first currency pair to look at

Well, I know that I have just posted the first blog, but time waits for no man.

The first currency trade is almost set up. This is on the USDCAD currecny pair. I am only waiting for confirmation, and then we could be in our first trade. I am also looking at trying to get some easy spot currency widgets on the blog to make it nice and easy for everyone to see what the current prices are- this would give everyone visiting an easy reference guide to when I am in profit.... and I suppose when I am not!

The great thing about this, is that all my results are there for everyone to see, and hopefully in the future, if I were to sell the strategy, I will have lots of backed up 'live' results for everyone to see.

Happy days!

What is it

100percentforex is a new blog that I am creating to show how having a good strategy in Forex will make you money.

I will be starting off on a demo account to show the basics. Moving to a real money account is slightly different, as there are a lot more fees to pay which will muddy the waters in terms of gross profit for the strategy.

A few ground rules:

1) I will not reveal my signals, so please do not ask. By all means follow the trades, I will post what trades I am in, however, it may be that you get in too late so any losses you experience, I will not take accountability for! I want this to show you that making money on forex is not pie in the sky, but tangible.

2) I base my trades on technicals, although fundamentals in the market will of course play their part - for example, the uncertainty of Greece's debt will affect the Euro, however, the fundametals play into our hands, as the technicals I use will catch these movements as well

3) I use stop losses to manage my risk. Forex is all about stayin in the game. Profits are nice, avoiding big losses is key. I am confident that my strategy will provide lots of winners and only a few losers, but this is a forward test. I can look back and see that all the trades would end up as a winner... of course they would, or I would not be forward testing it! Losers should be expected, and they will happen. This does not mean that it is a losing system.

4) I will be starting with a 'deposit' that is in everyone's reach. I have thought long and hard about this, and I will be using $250 as my starting point. The reason being is that anyone who is serious about making money, needs an investment that matches the ambition. However, not everyone can deposit $1 million to make money with. What this emans fundamentally, is that the profit and subsequent losses will be on the small side in terms of actual money. What we shall be focusing on however is the percentage return (again this is gross starting out, as it is a demo account and will not take into account the taxes and so forth that a real money account will do.

5) After a successful period of testing, I will go live with a deposit in the region of c. $800 (£500 in GBP - although that depends on the markets!)

6) I shall stick as much as possible to the majors. The reason for this, is that broker spreads are less on the majors, although if there is a good trade set up, then I would rather take the spread than the loss of not being in the trade!

7) I shall not be trading every day. I have a fixed set of rules to get into a trade, and these shall not be broken. These are part of my trading plan, and if I were to break these - even to keep the interest of this blog up and going, I will find that I have a losing system. There will always be trades to be had as long as I have money to put into them - missing a poor trade is better than losing!

8) My time frame for a trade will be quite long. I will be using the H4 (every bar on the chart is 4 hours) so I will be in trades for approx. 5 - 20 days. I have tried testing this system in other time frames and it does not seem to work particularly well. What this does mean, is that I will go far down into a drawdown (per trade not against the overall account) but at the same time, my profits should be that much greater as well.

9) Taking profits shall be from the chart. I have firm rules to get out of a trade-either it goes to full loss because it was never in profit or the rules I have set out mean that it has a small loss or a small gain - or it has a gain somewhere in between a lot, or a little. I will also be making use of trailing stops so that if a trade were to go against me, I am protected (although I would prefer not to use them to let the profits run. Saying that the Trailing stop will be quite big).

That is it really. I will give some commentary of the markets as I see them, and will be back from time to time. This blog will proabbly not be updated every day, but I will give information on the trades - when i get into them, What lot size I am using, the max risk to the account what currency I am long/short on and all the other data you will need to either trade them or simply to verify the trades I am making.

What does the future hold for 100percentforex?

Well if this is successful, I would like to aim to sell my system - Afterall, why not? The first 10 followers of this blog will get the strategy for free, and if i release any products, then they will get 50% off. The strategy itself is pretty simple and straightforward, but as I have found out, the simple strategies are often the best when it comes to making unclouded decisions. Just because it is simple does not mean it will not make money!