Over the last few weeks I have been researching and identifying a strategy to implement for day trading. i think I have a stable strategy so this week I’ll be testing it with my new VT Trader demo account.
There will likely be some mistakes as I have no experience of this platform and my strategy is always evolving due to silly oversights and loss of pips.
My strategy is based around MACD, Schotastic and SAR on the 30 minute screen, and H1 on the other screen to ensure i’m not going against an invisible trend. out of paranoia I will also be checking the 15 and 10.
I’ve just started my first demo trade which was identified using MACD with schotastic. Bought EUR/USD @1.3964(8). I’ll let you know what I find out and how I progress.
Demo account is just for 1,000 with 3% risk.
Let me know if you have any questions or assistance!
ok, so my first trade of the week ended up quite successful. I shorted EURUSD when it approached 1.39548 and picked up .01 of a lot (preparing myself for the micro-account). I began to trust my strategy which relies on 3 indicators on the 30 min, and a further bollinger band on a 15 minute. All looked very good for the short.
The price dropped down to 1.39466 at which point I closed the trade and profited £5.14. The only issue is that I got a little nervous and closed the deal too early, before any of my indicators said I should…the price continued to drop throughout the day and is currently on 1.38971.
My question is how can you keep your nerve to ensure maximum pips/profit?
Demo for 3 weeks then if you feel the NEED, go live but very cautiously.
I did what you did, and I had a live account within a month of discovering forex. that was 2 years ago and two deposits ago.
I do firmly believe in going live as soon as your ready, as demo is only good for gettting used to your platform, but my ‘new’ style is a penny a pip on live.
A penny a pip is my way of demoing a method. and I’ll be honest after two years. of part time efforts , I am still at a penny a pip my friend.
I’ll admit - i’ve gone more on occasions, when I thought I was ready, and walla - lose ; lose ; lose ; and then adjust a little bit - lose some more.
If you cannot prove to yourself, in different market conditions, that you are successful, then stick with a penny.
I’ve been literally playing with different platforms just trying to understand the forex way. I’ve also been working on my strategy too…I’m writing this just after destroying my profit for the day by double clicking and closing all positions - by mistake!
Without that error, i would be around 50pips but if i had stuck to my strategy, i would be where I’d like to be.
I didnt really understand the psychology of this until now…
Perch gave you some good advise.I went in with a 4 figure account last year and lost around 17 percent of it.This year went with smaller account and had some success.I have doubled my account on a 3 month occasion.I still have issues when it comes to psychology.I started the year 25 percent down and grinded my way back to breakeven up over 33 percent in 3 months.Then the nut came off the bolt 10 inches in front of the monitor and preceded to put 17 percent back in one night.:eek:
Since i had profitable months i put in more money and doubled my original account in July thru September every month was profitable.I had a hit in the first week of October.I dont struggle with methods i struggle with psychlogy and staying with my moneymanagement principles.How will handle self when you have weeks of success and than go thru a week of rough spots or have no trades and you been staring at the monitor for 3 days (12 hours):(What always seems for me to stop any bad behavior and Gasanville been preaching:D is trading logs,trading diarys.I will say i hate doing hate hate hate it.The one part of trading i dont like is keeping account of yourself and your thoughts.This can be a bussiness, when your eyes gaze over the black and white paper before you and says “what are you doing fool”! (talking about me) my trading immediately improves.Start small build it up go thru the cycles and the mind games.(Good Trading!)
ok, so i ended up making a profit of £5.00 yestarday because I mistakenly closed all my trades by mistake.
today i have stayed with my strategy:
1H - Long trend
30M - Trading Window using RSI, MACD, Parabolic SAR and Moving Average.
10M - Using candle formations along with EMA so i can get out if I see it getting bad.
At any one point, I’ll risk 10% of my total bank roll which is £1000.
Here are my trades today. All based on my current setup.
10/12/2010 05:16:20
Operation / Instrument / Lot / BS / Open Rate / Close Rate
Close Trade EURUSD 1 S 1.38204 1.38005
10/12/2010 06:15:28
Close Trade EURUSD 1 S 1.38045 1.37963
10/12/2010 08:15:02
Close Trade EURUSD 1 B 1.3822 1.38302
10/12/2010 08:29:32
Close Trade EURUSD 1 S 1.38278 1.38231
There was one bad trade, but It’s just because my stop was too low, only 22 pips. After it hit my stop, It continued to follow the trend I’d spotted.
I hope tomorrow won’t be as hard to follow my indicators and trust what i’m seeing.
bro you’re playing with fake money and you’re getting this affected? In demo accounts you’re supposed to just play out your entire strat no matter you’re winning or losing. The point is not to make money but to test your system.
I went live last week after 3 weeks on a demo and it all worked out in the end and am glad I went live. The one thing that stressed me out was that I did not fully understand the rollover and commission fees etc and their way of reporting them, which I have to admit got me flustered going live. I should have looked at all that carefully in the demo, but, it’s all good now and it is much more fun live.
What aspect that I am finding interesting is 0.1 or 1.0 lots to trade with 1,000. I’ve got around 2 months in which I can concentrate on this full time so I can monitor a trade and escape early if required.