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!
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.
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
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.
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…
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.
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
Re-entering some Euro shorts. Lets see how these play out as the Greeks still cant get anyone to accept a partial default
Conqueror:
EUR/AUD 23/1/2012 Short 1.23101
EUR/NZD 23/1/2012 Short 1.5995
This is an experiment. I already have a AUD/USD Long trade, but now I have a 2nd indicator show I should enter. I have had this before, but this will be my 1st attempt at ‘scaling in’ though I’m not 100% thats what it is.
Cyco, I was just wondering how long youve been using these combined systems and if you have a total of your wins and losses - I can see that you cut your losses short and let the profits run. . . thats the way to do it!
g31, I started using this combined system in late November, and have continued some refinements and developments since. With some open trades (approx 900 pips worth) I have closed trades with a profit of 170 pips.
Broken down by system my current pip count on closed trades is:
Conqueror -73.6
Ichimoku -128.5
Channel 372.1
My EUR/AUD short hit my stop for a loss of 139.6 pips, and my /NZD version of this missed my stop by less than 5 pips. The EUR/NZD short is currently down 79 pips and my only negative open trade at this point.
Yesterday was not the best day for my floating P/L, but you have to get what you are given.
As an example of a refinement of a the system I will now be using one of my Channel exit indicators (ADX heads down after going over 40) on my Conqueror trades as well. This would have exited my Euro shorts much closer to the bottom of the market and banked me approx 650 more pips
From memory Smith advocates using the bishop exit signal across all systems that he talks about in his book so probably a good move there.
Also, aren’t you a bit worried about being overexposed by taking multiple trades in correlated pairs?
You are correct. I have gone back and reread that section and so I should have applied it earlier.
Pity the book is so hard to read, it has a great deal of value in it.
The correlated pairs issue is one I have looked at, and it does multiply my risk factor - however with the low account size and with initial risk values at 1-2% per trade it is one I’m currently willing to take. I intend to keep the same lot size as my account increases initially so as to get the risk factor down due to this, and only start to increase lot size once I have the funds available to do so.
The other item I have been considering in regards to this is that if a trade as dragged the stop-loss past the break even point is there an risk left in the trade? If this is the case then a correlated pair of trades with at least 1 with a locked in profit position is, to my mind no greater risk than the single new trade.
Hello friend. I am not an expert in forex but to my mind it seems that once a trade is locked in with a Trailing stop which has brought it past the entry level there is no further risk involved. It is what some people happily call a " Free Trade".
This sort of trade can only generate profit for you once the Stop loss is pushed past the entry level and therefore we can safely take another trade as we do not have to worry about loss on this trade. We only have to wait patiently and decide when we wish to take profit. The best situation to be in. Im my opinion.
Yes, once you have your stop loss at BE then that trade is a free ride, so opening a trade on a correlated pair would not be as big a risk. The issue is with the period of time before your trade is at BE.
For example if you are risking 2% per trade but you take 5 new positions that move in correlation with risk trends after a bullish run in equities you are actually exposing 10% of your capital to a risk aversion move.
