Is this a good strategy? Am I on the right track?

Beginner Questions
1

Evening traders - first post here :slight_smile:

A year ago i put in 150 and blew it within a week because i had no clue what I was doing.

I have spent the last 6 months on my demo every day, i’m half way through the pip school and learning as much as i can.

So last month I went live again with 500 pounds.

I would like to know if my strategy is actually any good, please share your thoughts.

I’m using plus500 which i know does get a bad wrap around here but I have tried all the platforms and i still keep coming back to plus500 because its the easiest and my eyes have kinda locked in to its system. I have never had any problem depositing or withdrawing funds.

I’m a carpenter so I can’t sit in front of my laptop all day. Im exclusively trading on my phone, i spend 20 mins at breakfast, another 30 mins at break and then lunch and sometimes some minutes in the evening. I can periodically check in between these times.

They say the best strategy in the one you are most comfortable with… anyway so here goes .

  1. I have 10 favourites that I like to trade, all the majors plus oil, brent oil, germany 30 , uk 100, usa 30, natural gas etc

  2. I quickly scan through the charts of my 10 using the 15 min chart

  3. I check the trend on the hour chart and use the 5 min as an entry. When I see an opportunity, a break out, trend, reversal and sometimes with an ema cross over as an extra confirmation i put in a trade.

  4. I usually do 3 trades to start of with.

  5. I end up with about 20 trades per day

  6. I don’t calculate anything in pips, i don’t use flashy indicators and i don’t draw trend lines because its a nightmare on the phone.

  7. I select a stop loss point on the chart based on support and resistance. I then simply adjust my position size so that my stop loss is no more than 2% of my equity. plus500 works all this out for you.

8… I say I win most of my trades but my losses are double my wins (on average) so I’m kinda running a 2:1 risk reward.

  1. I pretty much exclusively use trailing stops because i can’t view my trades when I’m working.

In one month i have made 125 pounds, which is an increase of 25%. This almost seems too good to be true and yet it is.

Is this beginners luck? Im having a blast and really enjoying it. I have really learnt to almost read the charts in ‘a feeling’ kind of way - hard to explain. I trade very fast but with very strict discipline and money management.

What do you guys think?

I’m here to learn

Thanks so much :slight_smile:

2

Your TA is conventional and therefore rational, though you are unable to be specific about details of what you’re looking for or what you’re basing decisions on. The outline is there and its working but the problem with doing things by feel or intuition is that maybe your environment changes or maybe you do, and how would you know and how would you know where or why and how would you know what to do about it.

So you’re skating on ice but you have no idea if its thick or thin or of its thickening or thawing, you just know you’re not drowning.

But I don’t want to be completely negative because you’re trading with consistent profits using a simple TA-based approach. I just think you need to seriously seriously build on it: make it a second profession, its not a game.

Risk management is vital with a small account.

3

PS: Log your trades. Work out if you are really using TA or just following momentum. Both can work but you don’t want to be making cross-over assumptions or decisions mid-trade - you don’t want to drive off in your car and later try to park it like a motor bike.

4

Thanks for the comments. I think you might be right that I’m simply going with momentum
Rather than good TA.

Is that even a good strategy to have ?

I don’t mean i place a trade based on a gut feeling, I’m simply saying I think I now have a good feel of the markets and their individual quirks and patterns

Thanks again :slight_smile:

5

There’s nothing wrong with following price momentum - trend-following and break-outs of various kinds like Donchian channel breakouts, buying new highs, 1-2-3 strategy etc. have elements of this. You just need to know which you’re doing and understand how it works and why it doesn’t work when it doesn’t work. Otherwise, if you’re making a consistent profit through deliberate trades rather than flukey results, and you’re risking only a small percentage of your account capital per trade, just keep doing what you’re doing.