The strategy that worked so well on weeks on end has suddenly stopped working. The reason is simple. The strategy is profitable in breakouts/trending markets but since the market has been paralyzed, I have lost a lot of money in fakeouts.
I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that it’s impossible to have an edge in this market. I have always believed that as time tends to infinity, all trading systems approach $0 and now I understand why. But I never give up. I never quit.
While it is impossible to have an edge, it is possible to make money without having an edge - by gambling. Of course you’ve got to be smart with your gambles and so I believe this is what my 18 months of trading have been leading up to.
This is my opinion of the forex market. This is my story. I am now a bonafide forex gambler. I’d update on my journey as a forex gambler without an edge.
So I think I finally re-found my way after a little blip.
This week ended on a bad note as the Canadian CPI screwed me big time, but there are a lot of positives. Not least of which is that I currently have 3 trading strategies that seem market-proof. I finally settled on a 100:1 leverage since it allows me to be able to take an 80 pip hit before closeout. I am banking on the fact that with my current plan, taking an 80pip hit should be rare and so I should well be in profit if and when it occurs - [B]if I follow the plan[/B].
Now, I put that in bold because after a winning run on Thursday, I was so on top of the world that I opened a trade that did not follow the plan since I was expecting a weak Canadian CPI the next day. Oh how tough it is to stick to the plan even when it’s a winner aha.
The next week should be a big one for me. It’s got my least favourite event of the year with the Canadian MPC speech. I know Poloz is a dove but the Canadian CPI has been the best of any of the G7 for a few months now, so it’d be interesting to see what happens. Either way, I hope he does nothing or else he’d knock me out of trading for the rest of the week since the canadian crosses are some of my favourite. Hint hint maybe it’s because i live in Canada.
Also, with the success of my trading plans recently, the idea of going full time as a forex trader has come back strongly. I had this feeling a year ago when I was still a newbie before the market screwed me up and told me to stay in school haha. My current capital is about 1000 but I figure if I can work it up to 4000, then I’d be closer to going full time. This is because I am a day trader and a few of my trading ideas from last week yielded 60-80% returns. With that said, I am currently losing money since I practice my ideas with real money, but it’s not like I’d be sleeping with that money if I had it so I take it as invested/loaned-out money to keep the nerves in check. Also, I’ve still got two months left of my internship and 1 year of school so I would not be quitting school easily. Gotta complete my engineering degree but these are certainly exciting times for me.
[QUOTE=“aceofpips;661898”]So I think I finally re-found my way after a little blip.
This week ended on a bad note as the Canadian CPI screwed me big time, but there are a lot of positives. Not least of which is that I currently have 3 trading strategies that seem market-proof. I finally settled on a 100:1 leverage since it allows me to be able to take an 80 pip hit before closeout. I am banking on the fact that with my current plan, taking an 80pip hit should be rare and so I should well be in profit if and when it occurs - if I follow the plan.
Now, I put that in bold because after a winning run on Thursday, I was so on top of the world that I opened a trade that did not follow the plan since I was expecting a weak Canadian CPI the next day. Oh how tough it is to stick to the plan even when it’s a winner aha.
The next week should be a big one for me. It’s got my least favourite event of the year with the Canadian MPC speech. I know Poloz is a dove but the Canadian CPI has been the best of any of the G7 for a few months now, so it’d be interesting to see what happens. Either way, I hope he does nothing or else he’d knock me out of trading for the rest of the week since the canadian crosses are some of my favourite. Hint hint maybe it’s because i live in Canada.
Also, with the success of my trading plans recently, the idea of going full time as a forex trader has come back strongly. I had this feeling a year ago when I was still a newbie before the market screwed me up and told me to stay in school haha. My current capital is about 1000 but I figure if I can work it up to 4000, then I’d be closer to going full time. This is because I am a day trader and a few of my trading ideas from last week yielded 60-80% returns. With that said, I am currently losing money since I practice my ideas with real money, but it’s not like I’d be sleeping with that money if I had it so I take it as invested/loaned-out money to keep the nerves in check. Also, I’ve still got two months left of my internship and 1 year of school so I would not be quitting school easily. Gotta complete my engineering degree but these are certainly exciting times for me.
Big week ahead.[/QUOTE]
I know it may not make a difference but its a REALLY bad idea to go full time with less then $30k in capital. The good news is an engineering job should not get in the way of your trading, finish your degree and internship and get a full time engineering job. Trade part time until you have sufficient capital.
Agreed, That’s what I do now. My job allows me to trade part time and with school, I would also be trading part time. So yeah, that’s what I’d stick to. No doubt my job has been able to give me the financial freedom to explore various trading ideas. To be completely honest, the only reason why i’m thinking of going full time is because I do not think I would be able to get a job after graduation, like my current one, that would let me trade during work.
I do not really understand why you say going full time with less than 30k is a bad idea. Care to explain? Sorry, I was never really educated in forex but I am from the school of thought that there is never a good time to do anything. Good times are only made in hindsight if/when someone is successful. So, I pretty much just jumped in at the deep end in forex during my first internship with the knowledge that I’d either quit early or survive.
Agreed, That’s what I do now. My job allows me to trade part time and with school, I would also be trading part time. So yeah, that’s what I’d stick to. No doubt my job has been able to give me the financial freedom to explore various trading ideas. To be completely honest, the only reason why i’m thinking of going full time is because I do not think I would be able to get a job after graduation, like my current one, that would let me trade during work.
I do not really understand why you say going full time with less than 30k is a bad idea. Care to explain? Sorry, I was never really educated in forex but I am from the school of thought that there is never a good time to do anything. Good times are only made in hindsight if/when someone is successful. So, I pretty much just jumped in at the deep end in forex during my first internship with the knowledge that I’d either quit early or survive.[/QUOTE]
Judging by where you are right now, coming off 80% gains in a week, it may be hard to accept but in order to be sustainably successful in a way to support yourself and to eliminate the rouge trades that can wipe your livelihood out, your risk per trade needs to be greatly reduced. So smaller position sizes compared to your overall account equals smaller gains, which means you’ll need a bigger account.
Also keep in mind with part time trading, you typically are not withdrawing from the account to cover your expenses. With full time trading, you WILL be withdrawing every month, so you have be making enough to cover the withdrawals and the losses just to keep the account stable. Sure you can double an account in a month, but realistically your monthly returns when you are full time will be in the single digits to low teens.
Ten percent return a month is GREAT, but 10% of 30k is only 3k a month, not a great annual income. The biggest key to successfully trading full time is to not have a sense of urgency to make a trade, which you inevitably will with a smaller account.
Actually it was 80% gain in a day which I subsequently lost the next day because I was so on top of the world because of it. Obviously the top sports people in any field are consistent and never get carried away by one blowout victory, so it is something I would need to work on to achieve consistency.
I agree that my risk per trade is whack at the moment. I do not plan on going full time until I am done with school at the end of next year, so I still have time to figure out if I can work my capital up and cash out enough profit so that if I ever go full time, I would be able to maintain the same risk per trade with the knowledge that I have made sufficient profit to back up whatever losses I experience when it goes wrong.
But in a year or even by December, I’d be in a better position to assess the situation.
I eventually got out of my AUDJPY at 98.9 for a 160pip and $2400 gain. Not a bad return for mistakenly being awake at 1am on a friday!
My reasons for getting out include:
Most yen pairs had moves of 2 or 3 big figures on Friday alone. Also, CADJPY and AUDJPY were both approaching the big 100 psycho level and the big banks had already predicted a USDJPY range of 105 - 112 until EOY and USDJPY was already at 112.95. Also, after the yen pairs had already gapped up about 50-60 pips (their usual daily range), it seemed like the yen was due for some retracement.
I briefly considered taking a short USDJPY with a SL just above 113 since the big banks said it should range from 105 - 112 when it was still way back at 106 so it’s definitely worth a punt, but i’m trying to cut down on my trading hours as I just can’t deal with the stress of holding trades for too long, and only a brave and wise man would short USD or long JPY at this moment.
which I subsequently lost the next day because I was so on top of the world because of it. Obviously the top sports people in any field are consistent and never get carried away by one blowout victory, so it is something I would need to work on to achieve consistency.