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!
Showing posts with label Waiting for trades. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waiting for trades. Show all posts
Friday, November 4, 2011
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!
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!
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