GBPUSD closed, SL hit

No surprises, but the GBPUSD stop loss was hit a couple of days ago (that is the bonus of a SL). Mine was hit at 1.57043 - just below the SL. That gave me a profit of 37 pips in total (a profit of 7.48) a nice little week of earning money! Have a good rest of sunday!

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!

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!

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!

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!)

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!

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!

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!

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!

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 ;-) )

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!