Diary of a position trader

[Cyco]

This account started with about $1000 in it when I went from short time frame discretionary trading to long term mechanical trading. My initial margin requirements on my account mean that my current minimum lot size requires a risk of approx 2.5%/trade.

I do not use risk/reward ratios as I have no definite pip goals. I will exit a trade as it tells me to.

I look for entry points using several systems: Courtney Smith's Conqueror; 55/20 Channel system, Ichimoku and Inside days. Roughly in that order are the number of entries to the market I have made. All systems have a exit indicator set, but not all are the same. At this stage I have not made multiple entries to the one currency pair using different systems, as my risk would be too high - even though they all give you different entry points.

Attached is a pic of my current open positions and stops.

Based on the fact some of these trades have been open since early December don't expect too much action in this thread!

[hnk]

Hello Cyco, looking forward to more details from you regarding your trading setups. Meanwhile, your attachment is bit to small and little blurry to figure out the details shown. Do want to know more about your way of trading especially the money management part.

Thanks,

hnk

[Cyco]

Sorry, didn't realise it would be quite so low res.

Positions open now (2 more this morning):

Conqueror-
EUR/CAD 6/12/11 1.36184 Short
EUR/USD 6/12/11 1.33946 Short
EUR/AUD 22/12/11 1.28848 Short
GPB/AUD 3/1/12 1.50883 Short
GBP/NZD 10/1/12 1.90610 Short
GBP/CAD 10/1/12 1.57332 Short
AUD/USD 12/1/12 1.03373 Long
EUR/GBP 16/1/12 0.82613 Short
AUD/NZD 16/1/12 1.29505 Short

Ichimoku-
USD/JPY 4/1/12 76.722 Short

Channel Trading-
EUR/JPY 2/1/12 99.484 Short
EUR/NZD 2/1/12 1.65657 Short
GBP/JPY 9/1/12 118.54 Short

[Cyco]

New trades entered today

Conqueror-
NZD/JPY 18/1/12 61.491 Long
NZD/USD 18/1/12 80.088 Long

[Cyco]

Stopped out on EUR/GBP for loss of 88.4 pips.
Closed EUR/JPY for 70.8 pip gain
Closed EUR/USD for 525.8 pips!

Can see me getting a few other EUR shorts stopped now my stops have moved in close

New trades:

Conqueror-
AUD/CAD 19/1/12 1.05434 Long

[Cyco]

Stopped out on GBP/JPY for loss of 54.2 pips
Stopped out on EUR/CAD for gain of 525.8 pips. Exactly the same gain as I had on EUR/USD

Closed EUR/AUD for gain of 436.3 pips
Closed USD/JPY for loss of 36.4 pips
Closed EUR/NZD for gain of 412.7 pips

[Cyco]

Stopped out GBP/CAD for 19.7 pip gain

The late week strength of the Euro has seen me exit all my shorts with it, but I don't think its too long before they will be back on my list of trades.

[toposwope]

Hi Mate,

You are trading multiple pairs simultaneously I was wondering how you keep track of all the signals and rules of the conqueror system. Do you have an indicator that you use because although its a pretty simple system it is time consuming to manually check each chart for signals?

Good luck with it seems like its going well so far...

[Cyco]

I'm only trading the daily charts with it. I have vertical lines set up as well as the SMA and then ATR as a sub-graph.

With that in place all I need to do is change currency pair and then skip to the next, enter or move stop depending on what the chart shows.

I can check all the listed currencies in about 40 mins a day (whilst having breakfast).

I had a bit of trouble initially as it was very time consuming, but after some time on the phone to my broker (GFT) they helped me set it up this way and it is now much faster. Unfortunately not fully automated, but close.

[toposwope]

Ok cool thanks. Yeah i am not a fan of EAs or full automation because even when following a system I use discretion, but a well built custom indicator can save loads of time when you are trading so many pairs. GL