Me, Myself and Forex

Every once in a while I will get my hands on a new system or strategy. I managed to test most of them and also managed to discard most of them as not worth my time. I always try to find the best strategy or at least a winning strategy. After many hours of sitting in front of my computer, analyzing charts and indicators, I’ve decided the best and easiest way to trade is by calculating entry/exit points based on the price action.

I did not came by the weekly strategy by chance. In fact I purchased the system and analyze the formulas but then realized that I needed to further update and fine tune the strategy according to my needs until finally I came up with my own weekly strategy that I have been using for the past 16 weeks. As far as I’m concerned the system produced about 85% positive results for the past 16 weeks. So it doesn’t matter what type of system I use as long as it is profitable I will just keep on using it.

The problems that I faced for the past few month or so was my daily trades. As I said before, I have tried intra-day trading using indicators and even tried incorporating the weekly strategy formula to my daily trading. Well, it worked for a while but then the losses start becoming more often and have eaten up through the weekly profits. So, I stopped using those things and went back to a strategy that I actually had since last year but never get the chance to use properly. This strategy is called ‘The Big Ben Strategy‘. Some of you might know and have heard about this strategy. It is a very simple strategy and concentrates on the price breakout when the London session opens. I am not going to explain about this strategy here but if you do a google search, you can easily find explanations about this strategy across the internet.

Though the ‘Big Ben’ is quite simple, you cannot just rely on the strategy and hope to make tons of money with it. The most important thing is money management. Because of limitations in the knowledge of market movements, the strategy is good as a guide to predict where the market will go and with tight stop losses, hoping the market will eventually go to where we predict it will go and the breakout of the new highs or lows is what this strategy is aiming for.

But, I have found that the Big Ben strategy also have its flaws. Sometimes it works and sometimes it don’t. So, what do I do now? I actually don’t have all the answers yet, but at least I have other options to work with. The next strategy for me is also based on calculations and hopefully I’ll be able to lay it out in my next post.

to be continued……

The Sell order at 1.9827 was filled last night at 2030 Brunei time (12:30GMT). 24 hours later neither the TP nor the SL was hit. The market trend now is ranging sideways. It will be another 6 hours from now before the market closes for the weekend. I am not going to wait that long as at that time it will be 3a.m and I will be asleep. Also the spread will automatically increase to 10pips during the weekend and if I close the position then I will lose 10pips even if the price is at entry point. So, just a few minutes ago, I close the position at break even and this week performance is considered as a No Trade. Hope next week will be a good week. Just stay tuned for next weeks orders.

Ciao for now. Juf

It’s been three months now since I funded my account at Oanda and traded live. How much have I achieved so far? I can say quite a lot in terms of experience but not much in terms of dollar profits. Even though my weekly trades are profitable, my daily trades sucks and cost me the winning profits from the weekly trades. This is also due to the fact that I was on trial and error, testing strategies with the live account for the past three months but since last week I have been going steady with one particular strategy that I actually had since last year but only used once in a while.

There are tons of systems and strategies found in the internet. It’s basically impossible to test them all and find the best system for you to use. Sometimes different systems work for different currencies and different time frames or time zones. So, how do I come up with a good system/strategy of my own?

If you noticed, my trading is only based on one currency pair, i.e GBP/USD because in my opinion this pair is the best and easiest to learn. My belief is that in order to be a good trader I must first get to know the products that I am going to trade with and in this case the GU pair. In other words I have to specialized myself to just solely study and trade this pair before I can go on to trade other pairs. After almost a year of trading this pair I’m not saying I’m a specialist, but far from it because there are still lots more to learn.

In the past I’ve used systems with dozens of indicators. From simple EMA crossing’s to complex combinations of indicators with little success. In the end I went for a mechanical way of trading based on price action and calculations.The mechanical way proves to be profitable than using indicators and can be seen from the performance by the weekly strategy. As for the daily strategy that I am now using is what traders like to call ‘trading break-outs’.

to be continued……

On Monday we saw GU fell from 1.9760 to its lowest point of 1.9585. That’s about 175 pips. In between those price action, my Sell order of 1.9649 was filled at around 4p.m Brunei time (16:00gmt). Four and a half hours later the Take profit order for +50 pips of profit was hit.

So, this week is another profitable week. I have already canceled the Long order as I feel that GU will not be going through its new resistance level of 1.9760 this week. If it does, then it doesn’t matter. See you guys soon for next week’s orders and part 2 of my ‘A new chapter begins’ ramblings.

Happy trading. Juf.

Before I continue with part 2 of A new chapter begins, here are the weekly pending orders for week 15.

Go Short or SELL at 1.9649

For Weekly strategy TP and SL is 50 pips from entry point. Remember that I only trade GBP/USD pairs.

Good luck.

About nine months ago, late September 2007 to be exact, I created this blog and started a journey and mission upon myself to one day be a successful Forex trader. At that time I assessed my trading style and convinced myself that I am most suitable as a swing or position trader. Well, initially that was what happened. I did became a position trader but the only problem was that I traded on ‘Demo’ and not ‘Live’. After a few months of demo trading, I traded live with a few brokers (with high spreads and crappy platforms), which I had opened live accounts with previously and which I regretted to this day.

Now, with live trading, my trading style slowly changed from position trading to intra-day trading. I saw that I can grow my account more faster trading daily by compounding profits but resulting in having to trade more during the day. At first I was doing OK, but then I began to lose money. I started to worry and tried to find out what was actually happening. I then realized that I had fallen victim to a forex trader’s nightmare; ‘Fear and Greed’. Fear of a position going against me always lead me to close early potential high winning positions and the greed after winning a position earlier lead me to open many other positions after and caused over-trading and eventually losing not just the profits gained but also with it a lot of capital. I saw then the results of what Demo trading and Live trading can do to you. Before I lose more money, I withdrew whatever I have left in the live accounts.

Sometime in late February, I decided that the only way that I will be able to really educate myself in Forex trading is by trading live, so that I can try to discipline myself and control my emotions but I have to trade small. When I started learning Forex (over a year ago), my first demo account or first broker was Oanda. The only thing that kept me from opening a live account with Oanda then was that they don’t have fund deposits direct by credit card (and still don’t). I actually liked the simplicity of execution on its platform though the occasional lost connections from their servers are really annoying. However, in early March I wire transfered a decent but small amount of money to Oanda and a new beginning of my ‘live’ forex training slowly began to unravel.

to be continued………

I just reached home from watching ‘Kungfu Panda’ with my wife & son. That movie is better than I thought, even my son who is just 6 years old had good laughs throughout the movie. If you haven’t watched the movie, I suggest you go and see it. Enjoy it with your family or friends and just forget about trading for a while.

O.k. Now to update on this week’s trade. For those that follow my signals, they can see that the Buy order for week 14 was filled at 17:30GMT (5:30p.m Brunei time). GU then kept on climbing upwards for the next two and a half hours and finally reached the TP target at12:30GMT (08:30p.m Brunei time). So, Another +50 pips profit on the weekly strategy.

It’s approaching 12 midnight and I’m exhausted. Good night everyone. Hope to be able to update again for next week’s trade by this Saturday or Sunday.

Happy trading.

Week 13 gave me another win on the weekly strategy. If I left out the wins and losses that I incurred from the previous daily strategy, I would have now accumulate +410 pips on the weekly strategy alone since three months ago with 10 wins and 2 losses plus a +10pip win fluke. So, lets do a bit of junior maths here.

Lets say on every position you open is with only 1standard lot which is equivalent to $10.00 per pip. As per the weekly strategy, TP and SL is 50 pips apart from entry point. So with 10 wins and 2 losses so far how much have you earned?

Position for every trade is 1 LOT = $10 / pip
11 Wins = 10 X 50 = 500 pips minus 2 Losses = 2 X 50 = 100 pips
Therefore, Total accumulative pips = 400 pips
& in terms of Dollars = 400 pips X $10 per pip = $4000.00

So, in 3 months you would have earned $4k or about $1300.00++ per month of extra income.

The above is just an example if you were to trade one standard Lot (that unfortunately requires a good amount of capital). But many of you or us (retail traders) for that matter do not trade that much….yet, or are still starting out with mini or micro lots. It doesn’t matter because trading is more about self-discipline rather than who won the most. As for me, I am compounding my profits so that some day later I can also trade alongside with the big boys. When I say ‘the big boys’ I am not talking about those who trade only 1 standard lot for every position but those that traded at least 10 standard lots minimum per trade or position.

One more thing I like to add is that my new daily strategy have given me +160 pips in just three days of trading.

Enough with my ramblings, for next week trades as usual I have set two pending orders, a buy and a sell.

Limit SELL at 1.9343

For Weekly strategy TP and SL is 50 pips from entry point.

Happy trading guys.

This week we saw USD rallied against most major currencies and the same goes to the GBP/USD pair as well. After a bit of price correction yesterday, I’m speculating that the USD will still be going strong and the Pound will continue going down up to the weekend.

To update on the weekly trade, my Sell order was filled about two days ago and hit TP for a +50pips profit. I hope fellow pipsters following the trade were able to profit from that. Another thing to mention is that I am still working on my daily trades and have come up with a nice strategy of my own that have given me at least +110 pips for the past two days. I know it is still early to say and I will keep on testing until I am satisfied with the overall results before giving out the daily signals here.

To all, happy trading and see you again this weekend for next weeks trade.