GBP/JPY Equity Building Profitable trading strategies

[pipsquito]

Yikes...the market hasn't opened with IBFX..not until 3 pm my time (Pacific). This will just be a watch and see sort of thing...I am so close to the edge it would take a gnat fart to push me over. So it is up to the forex Gods for now.

If it heads up without going to 200 I will be fine, if it gets to 198 I'm dead...or even 199.50. I am still open on a lot of trades and if I closed them all I'd have $2000 in the account. Maybe that is what I should do, but knowing me, I'll wait to see if the "good thing" happens. I can't fund my account until next week...and then it would be a week before checks cleared.

My demo account is doing well...ha.

Todd

[pipsquito]

So I am slowly being wiped out...thought there was a slight chance I would be saved. My last $9k is now being taken out by this drop... I have only $6k left now with negative margin.

I don't want to watch this so I am getting out of here for now. There is nothing I can do except close everything and then I would have about $40.

See ya...

Todd

[rrram2]

Its been an exciting night, first bad news for JPY then hours of up,
then good news for GBP hour later and more up.

I sure hope you held out as this is some pretty exciting up.

I think I made $10 LOL! I think microlots are too funny. I think I just closed one at 144 pips profit for a whoping $3!

Tomorrow I'll get some real money in my account, and sorry I missed the last nice leg up, this morning.

Originally Posted by pipsquito

So I am slowly being wiped out...thought there was a slight chance I would be saved. My last $9k is now being taken out by this drop... I have only $6k left now with negative margin.

I don't want to watch this so I am getting out of here for now. There is nothing I can do except close everything and then I would have about $40.

See ya...

Todd

[pipsquito]

We'll see if it holds up. I have a $10,000 balance...brought up from $6,000. My equity is low because my draw down is still over $2,000...my margin is only $1,700. So I could get creamed if it starts to go back down. I thought the run would continue...so I am in more positions than I probably should be in...

It is still all the previous longs that have me brought down. Some of them are closing, but many of them are up much too high...

Todd

[rrram2]

I have one long at 203.44 a microlot

I hope you had a chance to unload some longs for a profit.
If you can imagine I think today could be one of those 700 pip range (mostly)UP days.

I made $20 in the night, 200 pips at 10 cents each!
See if I wasn't a cowboy, I would NOT have lost the second 80%
And I really hope you did some serious recovery with those wild up moives.

Originally Posted by pipsquito

Yikes...the market hasn't opened with IBFX..not until 3 pm my time (Pacific). This will just be a watch and see sort of thing...I am so close to the edge it would take a gnat fart to push me over. So it is up to the forex Gods for now.

If it heads up without going to 200 I will be fine, if it gets to 198 I'm dead...or even 199.50. I am still open on a lot of trades and if I closed them all I'd have $2000 in the account. Maybe that is what I should do, but knowing me, I'll wait to see if the "good thing" happens. I can't fund my account until next week...and then it would be a week before checks cleared.

My demo account is doing well...ha.

Todd

[rrram2]

I've got a call to do this morning. Ive got 3 microlots at 203.59
203.50 and 203.44. I just sold my 203.19 amd entered and order at the same price.

I think we can learn from that last move down and if you had any in range you would have done well on them.

I think we should push above 204 pretty soon at which point if that holds, things will be looking up for some bigger moves up.

I've got to figure out which credit card has available credit on it.
They rejected my debit card BUT took my money and wouldnt credit it to my account because the name on the card was "management marks"
stupid bank and stupid forex broker DOH!

Originally Posted by pipsquito

We'll see if it holds up. I have a $10,000 balance...brought up from $6,000. My equity is low because my draw down is still over $2,000...my margin is only $1,700. So I could get creamed if it starts to go back down. I thought the run would continue...so I am in more positions than I probably should be in...

It is still all the previous longs that have me brought down. Some of them are closing, but many of them are up much too high...

Todd

[Bobkat]

Elijah,

I remain very enthused about your equity building trading! Yep...I suffered through last week's 700 pip slide, as well. I did not blow out my account, but I did suffer about a 25% loss of equity. (Regardless, one day's trades, do not a trader make, to paraphrase an old addage.) I had as many as 70 trades that were filled, and at one point, I had 12 danglers threatening my account and my sanity.

However, I escaped total annihilation by partially incorporating some of the features of the following tweaks. I am curious what you think of the following tweaks to your system in order to avoid oblivion in the future:

1) Decide just how much you are willing to risk per trade, and set a catastrophic Stop Loss...say, 1000 pips, for example.

2) Enter enough room in spacing the trades to cover both TP and dealer spread + a coupla extra pips to ensure that only one trade can be filled and profited at a time before the next subsequent trade is triggered. The number of danglers should be greatly reduced, thus less threat to equity.

3) Scale in the TP and scale out the SL going up the trading ladder. For example, if we view the pending trades starting from bottom up, the trade closest to current price is the lowest rung on the ladder. This trade would make us the most profit in an upward move, and the least loss on a market move down (compared to the other trades above this level). Conversely, the pending trade at the top of the ladder has the greatest potential for loss and the least potential for profit. I believe we need to weigh the trades accordingly. We could put say a 100 pip TP and no SL on the trade closest to current price or the lowest rung on the ladder. The next pending trade up the ladder would have say an 80 pip TP and 300 pip SL. The next trade up would be something like 60TP and 250 SL. Optionally, we could construct the grid with ever-decreasing smaller investment amounts, the farther the pending trades stretch away from the current price. This scenario would be repeated each rung up the ladder resulting in ever-decreasing TP and ever-increasing SL (and maybe ever-decreasing investment amounts).

Please provide your thoughts regarding these modifications. Be brutal if you need be.

Lastly, does thinking along these lines qualify me as a certified lunatic?

Bob in Wisconsin

[Bobkat]

Whoops! TYPO! My 3rd trade illustration above should have a ever-icreasing SL. The correction should result in an ever-increasing SL, say 350 instead of 250.

Sorry, y'all.

[rrram2]

It seems like there is no end in sight for service calls.

Bob sounds like lots of great ideas.

I made about 360 pips today pretty good. What is sad is my lot size of 1K instead of 10K. I didn't even have time to check credit cards.
The ones with the most available credit should glow or something

But I do feel good trading this system on a microlot basis maybe 5 microlots would be better after I get some money in there.

My commercial bank contacted me about some new deal with chase and cut off times on wire transfers. It seems now I can wire for free going out all the way up to 6pm. And they are changing the conversion rates and are talking about being able to lock some price ( on some yen,gbp, or whatever you want) through chase. I will share more details about this as I learn about it.
But immediately I thought there has to be a way to jip them 100% for sure everynight for some certain amount. My dad said I would have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to really get over on them (as I would be at 1:1 NO leverage). All my money is tied up in Real Estate in case you have guessed or I haven't actually said.

Its a rental market these days as home loans are MUCH harder to get
and you NEED some money down!@

GJ wise...I am buying all the way down to 197.99 I doubt we will get back to even 200 though. I have my lots spaced pretty far apart.

Iv'e got 3 up high at 203.59 .50 .44 next buy down is 203.19 then 202.99.
I am leaving 1/2 of my orders open and setting tp's on the others.
So a few times I am catching 70-150 pips. I am still willing to scalp them for 2 pips 20 cents LOL. I forget I am not playing with any larger amounts of real money like before, until I wiped out my account.

Maybe I'll have some free time tomorrow.
I've got an appreciation dinner tonight and they will have a fat check for me so I am out for a bit.

[pipsquito]

I have decided to put forex away for a week. While I wait for my new funding of my account I am going to cool it for a while. My other demo accounts are doing very well, although I am still holding a large draw down playing this strategy on my main demo. But the balance can hold it, for now, and my other trades are doing OK (that loonie is driving me nuts though...)

So I have put everything on hold and closed it all down so I am not even tempted to look. I figure this live account is either going to tank or the GJ will rise and not call the margin on me...if it does rise I will come out ok and will proceed from there.

Wish I could contribute to this forum. It seems all I do is just yak about my woes and my "situation." I love to trade!!! And love this market!! I am very sad I have lost this money as I feel rather silly that I did, but I am happy to chalk it up to experience and start over again. Maybe I have now joined an exclusive club of sorts. I wonder how many professional traders have blown an account...a real one!

I want some sort of safety valve for this system though. I like what Bob is talking about but I am not sure if I understand it fully and wonder if it is too complicated for me to justify a small return potential. I liked the idea of setting up some sort of shorting system to run alongside the longs.

The "system" I use that has been so successful for me (before I started trading rrram's system) has basically been to set up entry trades as a pair moves in a trending direction. In this case, as GJ goes down, I would set up a sell stop every 50 pips or so (this number could be adjusted...since the pair moves so wildly). As the next entry trade triggers I put a BE stop on the first one (which is now 50 pips in the green). As the next one triggers I move the SL up 50 pips on each open trade. If the BE gets hit, as it would many times with the GJ, I would re-enter trades as it fell again.

It may make more sense to make the interval larger...like 100 pips, or 75. As the pair moved down you could periodically cash in, or just leave them all in for insurance. I'm not sure how you would determine when to exit the shorts, as the whole point of the shorts would be for insurance and not so much for profit...or maybe they could be for profit...not sure.

Anyway...I wonder if Elijah has thought about the shorting idea he mentioned earlier. I will not trade this system live again until I have some sort of fail safe system in place that will make what happened to me before impossible, or much less likely.

Anyway...some thoughts.

Now that I have lost over $60,000 in real money I have to figure out a way to eventually get that back...trading forex is the only way, but I am in no rush. Working at McDonalds won't do it, even if I am a manager . Or, I could just get out of the forex business and figure I would have to die 6 months or so sooner than planned...I'll run out of money that much quicker.

Where is everyone? Did they get scared away??