Just got my money deposited into my Oanda account. My plan is to set up a signal on it (yes, I know, it’s terrible, I’m going to lose all my money, yada yada - but I’m doing it anyway), and to try and get some passive income from that. It’ll go towards retirement, I’m not saving as much as I’d like otherwise. I’ve put 15K in, and may put more in if it goes well (I have like maybe 20K more I could safely commit to it). If it goes down below 10K I’ll probably call it quits on the signal though.
Since I’m at work and can’t set it up from here, I thought I’d make a few tiny trades on my phone. Just for fun. So I:
Shorted 0.025 NZDUSD, made $2.90
Shorted 0.025 GBPUSD lost $1.62
Longed 0.01 USDJPY lost $.19
It was just for fun kind of thing. I’m just going to post about the results from my signal adventure.
Ha! The title of your thread definitely caught my attention. It does take guts to start trading live money with a new signal system, but who knows what’ll happen if you don’t take the risk? As long as you practice proper trading discipline, keep track of your progress, and make the necessary adjustments, I think you will do fine. Keep us posted!
Well, I put it on an hour and 15 minutes ago, and it’s down $450. Probably not so bad really, but it’s definitely a scary number to look at. $450 is not a trivial amount of money.
Still about $450 down. Disastrous long of 1.8 lots USDJPY at 101.820 (just bought when I synced after I set it up for the first time) has lost $535 in equity itself, at 101.518 right now. Guess I’ll see how things are tomorrow.
It’s not a big deal. I’m confident enough it should do well in the long term, I don’t expect wins 100% of the time. Worst case scenario, I set it to quit the signal if equity hits 10K, so that’s only a $5000 loss. Which sucks, but isn’t going to bankrupt me or anything.
At the moment I’m overall $350 down approximately. It’s pretty volatile, these are heavily margined positions.
Found your thread interesting and wanted to share my thoughts. Hope you don’t mind.
As far as my own parameters I’d be looking to apply to determine whether or not I’d follow a signal service, I see a few Red flags.
Max Drawdown of 41.16%
Leverage employed of 1:100
Average loss is 1.3x greater than the average win
The amount of capital your trading with
I don’t have the time, but I’d like to see a risk of ruin table on this system.
105.46% monthly growth? … Annual forecast of 1,279.55%? …
I’m not the final word on any of the choices you make; I just came across your post and wanted to share my opinion since your putting yourself and your decisions out there.
So, you’ve already said you’re “fine” with losing $5,000.
Not sure why you’d feel that way, but that’s your prerogative.
As far as the USDJPY is concerned, I’m pretty USD-bullish across the board.
[ul]
[li]We’re trading in oversold levels, @ what appears to be an exhaustive push by sellers to breach 101.50.
[/li][li]Haven’t seen a lower low printed since the 6/30 pivot low.
[/li][li]Seeing stopping volume on that wave down (NY open candle), where there has been inside day false-break to the downside, with demand coming in off increasing volume.
[/li][li]The most recent leg down off the 102.30 double top has been relatively strong, so it’s going to take some time for market participants to accumulate @ the range floor. The longer price trades sideways, the better a chance for a deeper retracement and potential retest of 102.30.
[/li][li]I’d be looking to book your long though if 101.30 - 101 zone is taken out w/ a daily close on supporting volume. If that’s the case, you don’t want to be caught w/ a weak hand on what may be potentially the origin of a large down move.
[/li][/ul]
Thanks for the analysis on USDJPY. Feeling a little better about that. Last night I was expecting a drop to 101.40 or so (it looks like it’s turned around on a few pips above that but I don’t know if that’s lasting) and then a rebound, but I know my knowledge and experience here is very limited so I didn’t want to stop the signal for my intuition. But I was (and am) expecting a rebound by the end of the week to somewhere back over the 102 line, which is why I wasn’t freaking out about it.
His AUDUSD, I’m not seeing it. But he has a good track record.
I don’t know how the risk of ruin is calculated but here’s how myfxbook calculated it: FXam.co.uk System | Myfxbook
Don’t worry too much about the hourly fluctuations on profit and loss. Make sure you look at the trades when they complete though. Learn from what they are doing so you could eventually be a better trade yourself.
In the past few hours I’ve gone from down $700 to up $550. Signal closed the short AUDUSD position so I feel better. Still open on USDJPY long but I think that will go up so I’m not worried.
The JPY crosses are taking a hit right now on what appears to be a risk averse move:
-Gold up
-Vix up
-USD up
-SPX500 down
-Major JPY crosses down
-10 YR note rate down
Buyers may be looking to step in off this major range zone support b/w 101-101.30 (as I mentioned a few days ago). There’s some strength behind this move to the downside, and I’m going to be sitting on the sidelines as far as the JPY crosses are concerned. I don’t have a clean read on the pair. Anyone else active in JPY-based pairs?
You know more than me but it’s looking like it’s overbought. So I’m still on it because the signal is on it, but I’m no longer optimistic about it. If I was trading my self I’d be on the sidelines too.
I’m basically net even at this point. There’s been a few profitable trades but all those gains have been wiped by this UDDJPY trade. If it goes up, I’m great. If it goes down, it sucks.
The emotional rollercoaster of forex can be great and can also be devastating. I bet you find your overall mood swings with the profit in your current positions. It takes a long time to finally get over that. I still get emotional about my trades but I also do a lot of sports betting and it took me at least 2 years to get over emotional downs due to a run of losses. I suspect it will also take me a few years to get over it with forex. There is no way to overcome it except experience and time.
I bet you find your overall mood swings with the profit in your current positions
Honestly, I wish it was more, after yesterday it’s now just a bit forced. I’ve gotten a little desensitized to these few hundred dollar gains and losses already unfortunately. Been a while since I wagered any real money, and I attribute my quitting to the loss of not only money, but the loss of emotion to even relatively big portions of my net worth, but the lack of sensation is back. Not that I completely don’t care now, it’s just not as emotional as I was hoping. I was thinking I’d grow a bit of that back. I did for a day, and it’s just gone again. I do like watching the numbers change, but the actual “Oh no! I just lost $500!” or “**** yeah, just won $500!” just isn’t happening.
I guess I have less emotion with this than elsewhere. I win $1000 in a poker tourney, I’m pumped. $500 up or down here, no where near the same feeling. Right now all the wagering I’m doing is this and some poker.
Buddy of mine put some money on this too (just 10K and he’s worth probably a couple hundred thousand - nothing big) when I told him about it. It’s unbelievable how frustrated he was when he was down a couple hundred bucks. I want a little of that back. Not to his level, but a little.
Only about $500 down overall (where he trades 6 lots I trade 1.8) so not so bad. I don’t understand what he’s doing on GBPUSD, it went up 3 pips so he bought more? Don’t get it.
I wish he would just close USDJPY when it hits 101.4. I’ll take the loss.
