Some may say that 1,056 pips over 100 trades in 15.83 weeks is “not much”…but I say, are you in profits after 100 trades? I am!
[B][U]First the results:[/U][/B]
trades = 100
wins = 39 #pips won = 2,630 avg pips/winning trade =67.43
b/evens = 19
losses = 42 #pips lost = 1,574 avg pips/losing trade =37.47
Max # of losing trades =3
Max # of winning trades (excl. b/e) = 5
[B][U]Now let’s do some maths:[/U][/B] the value of each pip is relative to how many lots or units one can buy. And on average I believe a pip works out to be worth from $0.10 - $0.13 per 1,000 units therefore the value per pip can vary from as little as say $0.10 I(micro) to $1 (mini) to $10 (standard) and so forth
Now 1,056 pips of profits in 15.83 weeks equates to
Little guy = $126.72 in profits
Not so little guy = $1,267.20 in profits
Medium size guy = $12,672 in profits or a nice $800 per week…a week’s wage for most
Just for simplicity, using the above mentioned averages a trade would cost:
38 pips x $0.12 = $4.50 for 1000 units requiring $225 bank at 2% or $90 bank at 5% (*not including the extra funds that one must have still left in the account so we don’t get closed out etc)
38 pips x $1.2 = $45 for 10,000 units requiring $2,220 bank at 2% or $900 bank at 5%
38 pips x $12 = $450 for 100K units requiring $22,200 bank at 2% or $9,000 bank at 5%
I am comfortable with a 5% risk per trade since I do not trade more than 20% of my bank at any one time. I usually manage my lot sizes to maintain this maximum if I happen to trade more crosses (like I just did this week because I wanted to reach the 100th trade soon since I am quite busy outside trading at the moment!)
Anyway, I did learnt a lot over the past 100 trades, as I have previously mentioned I started with a “2-group” or “2-types” of trades that I should be trading, I also started applying those 2-types of trades to only 2-crosses (AU, GJ) but in the way, I “deviated from my strategy” in a big way and after a nice first week, things turned sower for a bit. After reaching a high of +180 pips by trade #3 we went to a maximum draw down of -201 pips by trade #19 (which in fact means that I lost 381 pips!) after such time I got my self a little back on track and never looked back!
Having a nice 5-winning trades in a row with 1 b/e in between (on top of the 5 wins) was a nice boost of confidence (t29 eu +137, t30 au +128, t31 gj 0, t32 eu +105, t33 au +34, t34 gj +67) those trades taught me a lot, however, I was still making mistakes…
[B][U]Lessons Learnt:[/U][/B]
It took Tomas Edison 1000 attempts to come up with the light bulb…I do remember this a lot, with my trading: “I just learnt another way how not to trade”.
[B][U]So the ways I will NOT trade in the future are these:[/U][/B]
[I][B]1. Trading against the trade based purely on Candle Signal + RSI Divergence:[/B][/I]
This is by far the most costly group of the 5-groups I ended up trading at some point during the challenge.
As I may have mentioned in some of my posts, I started in my rules with 2 types of trades I would be trading. Then these expanded to 5 groups!.. After a few losing trades I finally realised that one of these five types was too weak and was losing more than not. It is quite obvious though, isn’t it? “The trend is your friend”! Counter-trend trading can be left for the super-skill traders! It ain’t for me.
This group was the RSI Div + Candle signal with no other signal like the Fibonnacci ratio or a break of a trend line. This I will never trade again.
I can now say that I am “detox” from this silly counter trend trading group. As example, last night before going to my weekly poker game, I noticed that the t98 and t99 had counter trend signals, so I closed these two trades at b/e (although I didn’t have the time to report it in my posts hence I recorded those trades as losing trades). In the past I would’ve “exit and reverse” in a rush, even though this time both would have made some pips, these group of trades are not worth it! pure and simple!
[I][B]2. Inconsistency in the $ amount risk: [/B][/I]
The second highest losing pattern is that I some times “increased my risk on a trade which would turned out to be the losing one!”, At the very beginning, I got “over confident” or “greedy” one of the two, or perhaps both!. So instead of investing my usual 2% say, I would invest 5% and lose most of my profits. When I looked back and updated my personal spreadsheet to calculate the number of units “I should’ve bought” had I been “consistent throughout” I would show far more profits! when I further analysed what had happened, it was simple, I invested more in the losing trades and less in the winning trades.
You see the pattern was: Greed bet more lose more that i should, Fear bet less win less than I should…
This happened for the first few weeks, I then got a grip back! 
I do have however, great experience applying what I call “A milestone approach” to my 2% or 5% rule (whichever the case might be). In horse racing, I use the 2% of bank risk rule based on past statistics, and I do apply it however to “the maximum bank achieved” in this way my betting amount will growth exponentially.
But with trading I didn’t have the statistics required so I moved from 2% to 5% back to 2% and i wasn’t following this fix % of latest “milestone bank achieved” consistently.
For the past 30 trades at least, I have and I hope to continue to do so. I settled for the 5% (given my results) and continue moving my milestone figure as my bank grows.
[I][B]3. Moving my stop to “break even” too soon: [/B][/I]
This is not as costly lesson as such, since all it cost me was “the opportunity to make profits”. Contrary to the #1 and #2 lessons, breaking even is a lot better than losing! And there are always many more trades available soon after! This lesson only made me become more disciplined and I am now becoming more consistent at it.
[B][I]4. Exiting a trade too soon:[/I][/B]
Oh boy, not letting my profits run it is costly! but not in the way of “missing in more profits” but in the way of “I regret getting out of this trade, I get back in, then it moved against me, then get out locking in losses, then get back in…” When I finally started to get a grip of this lesson, Whenever I got out too early, I decided to focus on my profits! An example of having overcome this was in trade #90 short g/j I took 200 pips, I got out “without any counter candle signal” except just “fear of giving back $$”, anyway, I got out only to see the g/j moved a further 100 pips ! in the next 4h candle!! But I kept my cool, I talked to my lovely wife and she reminded me: “Did you made profits? How many pips did you pick up?” “200 I replied” “there you go! celebrate that!”…
So I have solved “half the problem” turning a nice winning trade into following “bleeding pips process”. but I am yet to let my profits run until such time that the market gives me a clear counter signal to shorten my position, close it all or tighten my stops. Like I did with EU and AU mentioned above, which turned out to be a good decision. In the case of t90 gj however, I should still be in this trade since the gj is just starting to show signs of an upcoming retracement but it hasn’t yet broken the down inner trend line. I could say that it is perhaps now to get out at 142.50 which is only 50 pips more…still …!
anyway, fellow traders, I hope this makes sense…I am not that good in translate my thoughts into paper…
I thank you all of you who have been following my live trades and hope you benefit of them as much as I have
But I enjoy doing the analysis and projections, so the 100 live trades challenge will continue but as “forecasting, tech analysis” type only. It is less “pressure” on me. I hope that I get better at showing my analysis and if you have any ideas on how my analysis can be presented clearly or what format works or doesn’t let me know.
happy trading
