I have decided that it is time for me to cross over the threshold into live trading. The account is a small micro account, but live non-the-less. I have been reading, studying, looking at charts and making trades since the beginning of November.
The main strategy that I will trade live is an EA that I created. Its based off of simple price action of a couple of time frames that I created back in early December. The EA is good for one trade per pair per day, some days there are no trades. The EA is actually 4 of them, 1 running on each of the pairs including the EU, UC, UJ and GU. The EA’s are optimized with S/L and T/P for the specific pair. Back testing showed positive results, forward demo testing showed really good results, so I figured its time to try a small live account. This is not a sniping strategy, so I am hopeful that the live trading slippage will not cause to much harm.
I am still working on my manually trading techniques. I have learned alot, especially from the Jacko (on FF) and MP threads, and will more than likely trade some of my safer trades in the live account as well.
As expected, I am quite nervous and second guess my readiness. I have a knot in my stomach, even though the first trades will not be signaled for a few hours.
Well keep us posted on how it all goes. I’m sure you will do fine, you look like you know what you are talking about and well on the way to fame and fortune.
It sounds like you’ve put in a fair amount of due diligence.
Research … Practice … Dipping your toe into live trading.
Definitely a formula for success.
Good Luck Dude!!
We’ll do it LIVE!
YouTube - Bill O’Reilly Flips Out
I do not plan on rehashing every days events but since this was my first live day I decided to indulge myself.
[B]Bad News:[/B] Lost 100 pips on the EURUSD EA last night, but it happened in demo too.
[B]Good News:[/B] It seems like execution of my trades is not a problem, the EA trades were executed in approximately the same fashion as on the demo.
[B]Best news(Albeit Off Topic): [/B]One of life’s little ironies, my son started walking yesterday. So not only did I go from crawling to toddling, but so did he :). To me that is a sign!
Hey Phoenix, This is a long answer to your simple question
This loss was based on my EA that trades on a forecasted daily direction. For the EU, the S/L is 100 points, as this seem to be the equilibrium between getting stopped out early and loosing more than I have to. The TP was, at one time, relatively small, but I found if I let it run all day and close at the end of the session I would get the best gains as opposed to trying to time my trades. Other pairs, say JA, has about the same S/L, but then has a profit level around 150pips, it does not always hit, but it still closes out at the end of the session. Of course there optimizations to be had and I am looking at the typical daily turnaround point (11:30 if you follow the MP thread). Since i have been testing the current method for a couple of months, I will not change it in live for now.
BTW, the trade was a EURUSD short, and it looks like it may have picked the right daily direction but, the price went the wrong direction for too long.
My manual trading is usually based on the “trend is your friend” daily chart or even the h4 with LRC and SHI thrown in for entrance. I have been trying to hone my T/P. Right now I think I am liking the next smallest time frames (if the setup is on the d1, I look at the H4) SR levels as well as Stoch confirmation. Funny enough, these usually end up in the middle of the channel
I do have a USDJPY short I opened yesterday. Around the US unemployement news this morning the trade did well, but did not hit my TP. It has subsequently retraced to about about even.
Finally, I am demoing some Ichimoku on the D1, H4 and H1. So far 3 for 3, so lets see how it plays out over time.
Ya, I’ve been considering trading daily candles as well. Lots of profit there if you can time it right and get in after counter trend movements have spent themselvs.
I’m very interested to know how it goes. I’d be interested to know what calculations you are using based off the daily candle. I’d give it whirl live as well and get back to you with my tinkering. I don’t write or run EA’s though, so it would be put in manual.
Playing dailies has its advantages, there is a lot of pips to be gotten since you can catch the big moves. The downside is that if you are a 2% risk type of trader, you are going to get stopped out a lot, since there are usually decent sized swings. I try to stick with about 6-7% loss, with a pip value of about 2000th of my account.
The other thing is, you have to be pretty patient (which is my gnome) since true setups do not seem to appear that often. I trade 4 pairs, so the chances increase …
