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!

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!

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!!!

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!

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!