I’m off to the gym, work done for the day, and in the words of Ed Seykota, my stops are in so there’s nothing to do!
I chose to ignore tale tale sings of of a reversal or what ever this is. So got stopped out @BE with 30 pips banked @30 % profit. Another lesson learned Bank more if it looks like it going to reverse bank more then 30% should have been 70% -30%. Oh well main thing is its not a loss.
So its time for a recap, as this trading year is ending…
Started with babypips school of pipsology around a year ago and after digging through some threads with cross over systems and EAs and what not, I luckily came across ICTs thread back then (what every new and…)
By the time I joined the party, the amount of information provided by ICT was already gigantic…
I then started to work through the thread and the videos…
did some demo trades in December 2011 and the first half of January 2012, without having a clue of what Im doing of course;)
ICTs Material gave so much good info, that I couldnt handle the information overload… tried to use every tool he shared and drove myself nuts;)
then took a few weeks off for traveling and came back in march 2012 and got to work…
hustled through my first few months of demo trading and somehow managed to end every month in some sort of profit…
Around summer my profits started to become better and better, and just like I planned, I started to look for a live account around July.
I took July off to get some other things done… and started with my first live account at end of July.
I funded the Live account with only a fraction of the balance I originally wanted to use, as I was fully aware of the additional weight of being live, with my real money… and in accepting the high risk of blowing my first live account, I decided to rather risk only a fraction to get my feet wet and get started live…
To my surprise the first 2 months of live trading went alot better than expected - but I didnt expect too much in the first place;) just tried not to blow my account this year…
I was risking 0.5% and 1% risk max and decided to upgrade risk to the full 2% for october, after August and september went so well…
Of course it was time for a blow;) As soon as I upgraded risk, the losses started to come in… and with those losses I started to make more mistakes…
October was the first month for me to end in the red with -4.3%, but I was still overall in profit on my Live account due to the previous 2 good months…
November, I managed to end at BE (slightly in the black with +0.3%)
and December I had some serious issues with my ISP, which only allowed me to take 2 trades for the whole month…
below I attached a print screen from my log with all my trades on my live account.
I took the liberty to cut out my personal notes about the way I felt about each trade, psychological issues and lessons learned, as these notes tend to be quite large;)
(I hope the images wont be cropped by BP and make them unreadable…otherwise Ill try to sign up with some online storage thing)
On the Live account since August (late july) I have done 24 Trades, with 15 wins, 8 losses, and 1 was BE (with 0% loss/gain)
and a humble 5.5% (slightly rounded) of profits…
I tended to make my wins on small risk (mostly 0.5% risk) and my losses on big risk (2%,1%) which is obviously something I will be working on;)
While 5.5% profit is not much in 4-5 months time, it is also not that bad, considering myself still a complete newbie and just started trading Live… and I sure already outperformed many other investment vehicles…
My list of shortcomings, on which I need to work on is very long, and I’ll certainly be busy for 2013;)
If I would add my demo profits to get the whole picture for my first trading year, then my profits are at + 48% (demo and Live combined).
Unless my Price Alerts get my attention during the next few days, I will be done for this year. Time to get some other stuff done and spend some quality family time and some traveling until february.
- Althought I will certainly come by and check for the Forexmas presents;)
The Plan is to return in February and then slowly upgrade my trading funds to around 5k and trade with that amount until I feel comfortable with the amount and more confident in my trading, before I would consider adding the rest of the planned funds…
Once again I can’t express my gratitude for Michael enough, and would also like to thank the whole community here!
Looking forward to 2013!
Happy holidays to you all!
Fredy
Lol bro, can I just say that your use of the English language is classic
Hehe Sorry if its confusing, sometimes i read my post’s and wonder if it was me at all who wrote them.:8: as they don’t make much sense at times :60:. With my previous post i was trying to make a point that if there is a potential trouble area to a trade, then its best to take lions portion of the trade off and let the remaining small portion run, in case that trouble area could reverse the price not in our favour?
Hope this makes more sense, unless i misunderstood what you meant by your post :30: lol
Well here goes for my final trade of the day:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Risking £250 for £500.
I wanted to enter @ 80 on the data release, however I was busy at work!! Bloody work getting in the way of trading, how dare it! haha
Reflection - Ho Ho Ho! Well to each his own.
Reflection is 1.4182 ie 1/0.705 You can still pull (the 70.5) if you like although adding 14182 to the Fib tool means that I do not have to pull at all, with the same result.
Difficult to read the detail with BPs downscaling the PNG to JPG. Below is a magnified image of the above.
It followed it nicely, only a 50% retrace though for the entry, I nearly went for it at the Asian low, but SL a bit wide.
I see what you’re getting at, ok then Oh yes it is
OWNED!!! LOL
What I have learnt this week:
- I have made money on every single trade I have risked 10 pips for a reward of 10 pips.
- Trying to trade bigger price swings has resulted in a larger number of losses.
Conclusion, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it!!
IDIOT! haha
Refer back to one of ICTs newest videos (the last one he posted I think), he wasnt overly bullish or bearish, its the end of the year, price will swing about, maybe wont give too many opportunities for a nice position or swing trade, so take out at least 50% during these times, or more.
Obviously this comes with experience (when do I close my positon? are we in a large swing? etc…), and as such, I am always going for at least 50% when I “double tap” my position. As RobertC pointed out, splitting your position like that will yield higher returns, especially when you’re stopped out at BE.
Think pretty much wrapping up my week and likely the year as i dont think ill be trading tomorrow…
Been bearish on the USDx, so been hunting bullish prices all day…
I took an early long position in the cable, which i realised quickly i had jumped in too early and collapsed my entire position and i think just under 0.5% loss…
Took another entry in the Fiber at LO, long @ 3056 - wasnt the best entry, but candles remained within the OTE area, and the 1h charts gave nice rejections from the lower prices so kept my position open…
I actually think were on a bullish rally to take out some highs, so taking profits at relative swing highs which i think we may be looking to run…
Apologies for the 8 hour chart, was the best view to show my targets…
Kind of glad i stayed out of the forums til now, i think all that talk of shorts at LO would have spooked me a little…
Good to know money’s being made on both sides though
:57:
Yes, it helps to be in front of the charts at the KZ’s, I’m kind of lucky as I do a lot of traveling with my job so I can regularly check the charts to a degree and see if I need to reduce risk / take profits etc, but recently too much focus has been on the charts and not on the job which is something I need to get sorted for next year. I even thought about taking a lower paid job that would allow more focus but I think the reduction in wage would effect my trading decisions. Learn whilst I have a decent (by my standards) income is best I think.
Good luck for the New Year.
You said it, have you not heard what ICT says about that?
Please do tell Purple?
No, if you don’t know, you haven’t studied enough of his material, you need to, that is why you are loosing.
Thank you for your input! :54:
I could be wrong but wasn’t the double tap just the one trade and you scale out. But because some people were trading small lots they couldn’t scale out and that’s the reason they put on 2 trades and take 1 off at first objective.
ICT Double Tap:
This is an entry concept where a Trade, either long or short, is entered with one of two methods:
- Two equal sized orders at entry. Ex. Two long orders at market 1.6020. One order is collapsed at 1.6050 for +30 pips. The second order is held for higher targets. The shot to the chest… first profit. The second is the head shot… the higher level target in pips. It is a split fill for ease of trade management.
- One trade entry with multiple lots… some scaled off at +20-30 pips as first profit. Then the remaining portion is taken at a larger target. This is essentially the same concept just entry method differs.
Double Tap is dividing your Profit Taking into two stages… first profit and second profit. “one to the chest… one to the head”. Hope that removes the confusion folks.
Read more: 301 Moved Permanently
Ok guys, just if there is anyone in any doubt how much profit can be made (not recommended by ICT, that’s another story), You saw my trading chart earlier, I’ve risked a very reasonable 2% on each trade, just over 10 PIP spread I’ll use round numbers for ease of calculation, it’s only for the purpose of a ball park figure.
Trade 1, 30 PIPS @ half, 60 pips at quarter, 90 pips at quarter.
Trade 2, BE
Trade 3, 30 PIPS @ all (that’s the easy calculation 3*risk)
And as you know, it could easily have been more, also start compounding those kind of figures over a month…
I’m off for now, going to try and not trade for the rest of the year now as I have closed my final position.
Also, I’m going to use any spare time to go over some old video’s so I’ll see you all next year as I’m also going to try and stay away from here too as I need a break…
All the best for for the festivities people.