If I can trust the system - it produces results on a regular basis, then I can stomach an expected downturn now and then. I admit that $5500 is a huge chunk to lose at once though.
I was down 5% last night when I signed off my trades, and I’m now up about 3% - protective stops are in place so I should break even or better if things go to sh*t today. I’ve looked back over the trades, and I still don’t see where I would have changed anything, so I will let them ride.
I really want to try the indices, so I’ll open a demo account and see how I do. My risk capital is limited, so I have to be happy count pips and percents instead of dollars Index trading will probably require much more capital than I’m willing to put in right now.
On another topic, my USD/TRY EUR/TRY account is up over 20% in two weeks - no stops there since I don’t want to get stop-hunted. I just leave enough margin to cover the bounces that happen every 4-6 weeks. Interest alone is around 0.5% per day so it’s a good carry if you sell on the bounces.
Can you swing trade the indices? Since I work fulltime, the best option for me timewise is to hold a trade for 2-3-4 days at a time. It limits my profits but I just can’t watch the market all day and keep my job!
Well - you’ve probably got ‘bigger ones’ than me!!! Like I said - losing thousands in small increments is one thing - but setting a stop loss with a potential ‘write off’ of $5 500 - man - that would put years on my life!!!
Only joking (you know - like - ‘for effect’).
Like you said - if you trust your system - then good and well. Also - like I said - it’s all ‘relative’ i.e. it’s the percentage gain or loss that counts not the $$$ (well - you know what I mean).
I’m not sure what type of capital you have but have a look at GCI at the Dow, Nasdaq 100, and S&P 500 Futures Contracts. Your minimum lot size is $50 and leverage is 200:1. The Dow is probably a good place to start (the spread is $7 by the way) and it tends to move nicely.
I getting some ‘do-re-me’ tomorrow (not much but hopefully enough to ‘replenish’ my GCI account and start AGAIN (for the last time)!!! Maybe we can ‘share’ thoughts and ideas - especially if we’re both trading the same thing at the same broker (I don’t really trust my own judgement at this point to be honest and I can tell you one thing for sure - this really will be the very last ‘attempt’ on my part). After this it’s ‘dry bread and water’ (and even that I’ll have to ‘steal’)!!!
By the way - does ANYBODY have any insight on Gold right now???
I don’t like what I’m seeing i.e. the price is dropping and of course I’m long. Wasn’t this thing supposed to go to $800 (and I AM following the indicators on the daily chart by the way i.e. 8, 21, 50 and 200 EMA’s and Parabolic SAR so it’s not me ‘fu*king up’ again)!!!
That’s actually the worst you know i.e. when you’ve done EVERYTHING the right way and the whole thing still goes ‘pear shaped’!!!
Anyway - it’s a small lot on my forex account - so it’s not going to wipe me out or anything like that - but it sure would be nice to get on the right side of this trade with a nice ‘fat’ position!!!
Gold ‘scares’ me though i.e. I saw this type of thing happening a couple of months ago on the way down from $684. Man - just when you thought it was safe to ‘plunge in’ the price reversed and it just kept doing this for weeks on end. I still believe that the Gold price is manipulated - not necessarily by the brokers - but by the banks and the large institutions that hold it. Not fact - just a ‘belief’ based on the ‘price runaraound’ that I’ve seen with Gold in the past year or so.
Anyway - anybody ‘brave enough’ to call the top??? Have we already seen the top???
for god sack My freind hold on for a moment please go for demo have some sort of success get your confidient back then go with real little money for a while stick to your rule and go heavily after that…
Sorry for being rude my freind but i really care about u not to lose more than that it is enough and i am sure u will get back soon the old Dale that we all know quite well.and if u r upset from what i am posting i don’t really mean any thing bad i just want to wake u up to control your emtions coz i expect if i am in your postion u will do the same to me.
Any ways i think the market is not good today it is not trending at all yesterday it was. today things on 15 m are going side ways make some little loss i am trying to ride the trend but unfortunatly it is not going up or down all the way!!
i think coz yesterday was a big move with the usd going down may be i don’t know
if u r intrested on the indices i think i will join u guys but will not use huge money in the begining and we can really start that what do u guys think??
Hey 'budd ‘ol pal’, no offence taken - especially not when good advice is given!!!
I’m sorry though - I just CANNOT trade demo accounts (I’m only doing it now to test out that ‘Trend Balance Point System’ that I told you about).
I WILL make sure that I trade with small lots though - you know - give myself room to ‘fu*kup’.
I ‘kinda go by this philosophy’ (which I read in a trading book somewhere but I can’t remember where) and it went something along the lines of ‘if you’re not in the market there is a 100% chance that you’re not going to be making any money’!!! I just cannot see myself sitting here for days on end making HUGE demo profits - I think that can be THE ONLY WORSE than losing everything you’ve got!!!
But I DO appreciate the concern and advice - don’t think ‘less of me’ for not taking though.
and u r right if u r away u will do nothing but i think we should try the system more and more before jumping on huge bucks!!.
by the way have alook on EUR/USD 15 min (8-21) it is finaily trending now gaing some pips is good coz all day i tried to ride the trends but it was fake ones now i can see the real ones are forming!! let me ride it now!!
Right now my one (demo) Nasdaq position is showing a profit of $2 010 USD and that’s before I’ve let Wilder’s system run it’s course. Even if I took that profit now - that profit plus the $3 500 on the FTSE 100 this morning - in one day I’ve (just about) paid for my two cars and my house.
See what I mean? I’m not saying it’s because it’s the indices or anything like that (of course the system does have something to do with it) - it could even be forex pairs - but the point is that although this lot cost $5 000 (it’s actually 100 x $50 lots) the thing only has to move a pip or two or three and you could ‘get out’ and you’ve accomplished something whereas if you’re trading with a $50 lot you’ll tend to ‘sit on the position’ and hope that IT TOO turns a profit of $2 010 profit - and it never does.
True - if I leave this position - there’s no guarantee that it’s going to reach it’s target without going ‘pear shaped’ (actually Wilder’s system in this case I’m thinking is just a ‘tad’ too optimistic i.e. the Nasdaq has already been to an all time high recently and the limit right now would only be hit above that all time high but that’s again the point I’m ‘trying to get into my own mind’ i.e. once you’ve made a worthwhile profit - not ‘bread and butter money’ - I reckon it makes it a hell of a lot easier to just say: ‘right - I’ve made $5 000 today - that’s a good day - tomorrow is another day’.
(I will leave the position by the way - as I’m testing the system).
It’s come from under $779 to $784 right now - in the space of half an hour or so. Give me a reason - ANY reason - ANY fundamental reason - for this to have happened???
I’m beginning to see that.Unfortunately, things won’t ease up at work for me this week so I’m gonna stay out of the market too. But I might look into the indices, seems like you all are leaning that way.
I came across a ‘chat room’ once (and I cannot remember the link because I’d like to go over there now to find out what’s being ‘chatted’ about right now) and it ‘appeared’ that whoever was ‘chatting’ really 'knew their ‘oats’ (seemed sort of ‘very professional while at the same time sort of clandestine’) and the phases of the moon and astrology and the like were ‘alluded’ to on more than one occasion - and they did not appear to be ‘kidding around’ either!!!
I unfortuanately lost the link (I had to reinstall one of my workstations a while back thanks to a virus that I was not comfortable had actually been removed properly and I did not keep a backup of all my forex links unfortuanately - I can’t even remember how I ‘stumbled across’ this chat room).
Edit:
What I do remember about this ‘chat room’ is that these guys ‘called it right every single time’ when the price was being ‘messed with’ on the way up and the way down to and from $684. As usual - by the time I found it - Gold had already wiped me out!!!
You know - as I sit here - I’m thinking to myself: ‘Are we not missing a far bigger picture here? A picture that’s ‘transcends’ any indicators or systems or whatever - even ‘transcends’ any type of analysis’?
Let me explain (maybe I have in fact ‘lost it’):
Let’s just take this Fed rate decision tomorrow. The markets don’t seem to be doing anything and probably won’t until tomorrow. Now I’ve been thinking: what if I was a big trader (you know - a ‘big player’) and I had let’s say 100 000 000 EUR or something like that on my books - today. What would I be doing right now - today. Would I be sitting around just waiting for that decision and run the risk of my 100 000 000 EUR suddenly being worth 80 000 000 EUR? I don’t think I would. I’d be doing everything and anything I could to get an ‘inside edge’ on what’s going to happen tomorrow - not just sit around and trust some or the other indicator or system or analyst on Bloomberg or fundamental or technical analysis. Do you agree with me? Now - the trick is this - what are the people doing that are in that type of position? Where are they going to get that ‘inside edge’? And once they’ve got it - how will their actions today - now that they’re ‘armed’ with this knowledge - affect what I’m seeing on my screens right now?
The above does not just apply to tomorrow’s decision or the EUR/USD but probably to most scenarios.
What do you think of what I’m saying?
I mean - let’s be honest about something - enough money get’s you anything you want - and I mean anything - so is it REALLY possible that, other than old Bernanke and his advisors, that there is not another single soul on the face of this planet that actually knows for sure what the decision is going to be tomorrow FOR SURE? I don’t know the ‘in’s and out’s and regulations’ but I just don’t see it.
I mean - back to the EUR/USD right now - the price is moving up. Now who is buying and who is selling? Is the trader with 100 000 000 EUR selling them today because he knows that tomorrow if he’s sitting with them he’s not going to have a very good day? Is it because all of us little retail traders (there are ‘gaziliions’ of us - enough to cause price changes) are buying EUR right now because WE think the price is going to go up because of the rate decision tomorrow (and we’re not making an informed decision - we’re ‘speculating’)? Or - is it because a big trader is now trying to buy every EUR he can lay his hands on because HE already knows - for sure - what the decision is going to be tomorrow?
I mean to say - if you could somehow get to this level of knowledge and understanding - I don’t think that trading would be as much of a ‘dicey’ thing.
Man I’d love to get in on the indices with you guys! $50 is a little steep for me to risk at one time - I’ve planned on opening an account at Oanda with a few hundred dollars since you can trade as little $1 at a time. I only want to risk around 3% of my account on any single trade, so I would need $1500 for the indices. I’ll demo it for a while and see how it compares to forex though.
I just checked my acccount and a few stops were hit, so I’m sitting at about a 10% gain this week, with 1% gain floating. I’ll probably manually close those out ahead of the Fed news tomorrow and consider opening limit orders to catch a move (not news trading per se, I’ll only go in the direction of the trend).
My TRY account has a 24% profit since Oct 16 using 80% of the margin with a true leverage of 18:1. I know this is very high leverage, but I have enough margin available to ride out the expected bumps. I also have limit orders to sell if the bump gets high enough - I learned my lesson about selling at market price in the TRY pairs! (it takes forever to recover your spread). The 1/2% daily interest payment and steady downward trend means I can open a new position about once a week - Friday is the best day for that since you can earn interest over the weekend with Oanda and the price doesn’t move much.
Profitable trades are possible in forex, but I think swing trading is the best style and this might not suit your needs.
Tell me, how do you protect yourself against losses in index trading? If you can gain $5000 with a few pips up, won’t a few pips down wipe you out? Of course indices always move up in the long term (over several years) so it seems like a surer thing than currency pairs.
Gold: I think gold is experience some take profit as speculators are selling with the $800 price coming in view. Also, if the Fed doesn’t cut rates, gold will fall - perhaps as low as $770. This might be the market pricing in the risk of the US Fed not cutting the interest rate. Commodities in general have suffered with oil dropping and this has put pressure on comdolls and gold. I’m not sure what strategy you would adopt, but I wouldn’t expect gold to drop too far - gold production is slowing down and some analysts predict $1000+. (Personally I don’t invest in gold, I use AUD and NZD as gold stand-ins.)
if you could somehow get to this level of knowledge and understanding…
I don’t think the big guys necessarily know more than we do. Warren Buffet made few billion in currency, then lost $900MM in his long USD position. George Soros made $9BB betting against the pound, but he was on the right side of the technical analysis and other, smaller trader profited too.
The risk in forex is baked into the price (see gold price drop in previous post). Smart, well-financed traders have multiple stops, entries, and take profits surround the pairs they trade based on their understanding of the direction of the currency, so when the news occurs, these trades activate. But if you look at the direction of the pair, most times it was already headed that way.
For instance, The Fed interest rate movement is anticipated. We already have warnings of what will happen to the USD: the housing market debacle, declining consumer confidence, stocks falling, rising oil and gold (last few days notwithstanding). The price of the dollar has a .25% rate cut baked into it already, so a rate cut will drop the dollar a little, but the market already expects the cut and has priced accordingly.
This is why we trade with the trend, because the market is smarter than we are and knows the future.
I suppose you’re right about the interest rate decision tomorrow (although I’m still not convinced - I’m not saying that you’re wrong - I just have that kind of mind). I mean - I just think of ‘silly’ things - like the secretary who types up the documents for example (I’m sure Bernanke doesn’t ‘run the presses himself personally’ - bit of ‘tongue in cheek humour’ there) - she must have ‘friends’ - and she would have told them ‘hey - get a loan on the farm tomorrow - because I just typed up the minutes - and I now EXACTLY what’s going to happen tomorrow’!!! OK - that’s a ‘small fry’ example - but you get what I mean. OK - so tomorrow’s rate decision may have already been taken into account - but what about stocks (I know it’s ‘insider trading’ but if anyone thinks it does not go on - then that person really is ‘talking to pink elephants and the like’). I mean - who is going to notice if ‘lil’ ol’ me’ has an auditor / accountant ‘buddy’ - and my ‘buddy’ knew that (for example) Meryll Lynch was going to announce that they ‘screwed up’ and had to write off all that money last week (or was it this week - can’t remember). I know there are systems in place to ‘attempt’ to track this type of thing - so - if you were stupid enough (and had the cash or course) to go and ‘slap’ a couple of million USD on a short position on Meryll just before it happened - then that’s your ‘tough sh*t’ - but if you just went and ‘plonked’ let’s say $10 000 on a short position just before their results were announced - nobody would pick that up or even be bothered about it.
Anyway - that’s pure fraud I suppose - I’m just talking about being able to actually ‘read the markets and get the bigger picture’. I mean - even this rate decision tomorrow - from what I’ve read and seen and heard - it’s by no means a ‘done deal’. As one of the analysts from Cantor Index said this morning - if there ISN’T a rate cut tomorrow - it’ll be a bloodbath - and I can tell you that it’ll be the guys like you and me that get slaughtered - not the ‘big players’. I mean - Bernanke has not made himself very popular with some of the ‘players’ from what I can tell - so - maybe he overreacted last time - and won’t cut this time after having time and being able to ‘think things through’. Then of course - if you look at it that way - it ‘smacks’ of gambling if you ask me i.e. if rates don’t get cut tomorrow - it does not matter what technical and fundamental analysis you’ve done or what indicator you use - they not worth ‘sh*t’ if that happens.
I mean - does this type of thing (knowledge) only come with years and years and years of experience and losses - or is it something you can learn or are you just ‘born’ to ‘feel’ for this type of stuff???
As far as protecting yourself when trading the indices - well - it’s the same as forex - no difference - except really for the point that you made i.e. even if they drop they will at some point regain the price - you just have to make sure that you either have the margin or hedge the position until that happens - but then that’s not the ‘cleverest’ thing to do anyway i.e. the same trading rules still apply - I just find that they are more ‘predictable’ in and ‘unpredictable’ business - they have a certain ‘finesse’ about them - and I can tell you that the indicators definitely seem to have more ‘meaning’ than on forex. Look - it’s just my opinion - and I SHOULD be making a fortune on them - I just can’t tell you why I’m not because I actually don’t have a clue!!!
By the way - I just checked my demo account again - looks like I was wrong and Wilder was right - AGAIN!!!
That one position on the Nasdaq is now currently sitting at about $4 600 profit!!! Even if I took profit now - and I could do it without ‘batting an eyelid’ i.e. with no regrets - without letting it run another couple of points till it reached it’s limit / target - that’s around $8 130 profit - in one single day. I’d need to repeat this only once or twice in the next thirty days - not every day - just once or twice in the next thirty days - and I’d be ‘home free’. (Actually - that’s what the system was designed for to be honest - take ‘little chomps’ out of the market with a huge stop loss and a reversal point above the stop loss i.e. the stop loss will probably never get hit i.e. you’d stop and reverse long before that happened).
It’s sickening!!! NOW - Akram - 'buddy ‘ol pal’ - do you understand why I CANNOT demo trade!!! All I can think about right now is ‘WHY is it not REAL money and WHY when I HAD REAL MONEY and . . . and . . . and . . .’??? You get the picture!!!
It looks like this is a $50,000 account and you make $9950. 20% is outstanding! If the trade fell through, how much would you have lost? $5000? That would make this a 10% risk trade, which is too rich for me. At 3% risk the return would only be $2985 (6%) but a 3% loss is sustainable. I would probably only risk 1% to start, until I really understand the market. That would give a 2% return which is fine. 2% a week will double the account in a year.
I’ve been risking around 2% of my account per trade and have made a 20% return since last Tuesday when I closed a bunch of foolish trades that were based on a trading plan I read, but did not fully understand (it doesn’t fit my trading style or risk tolerance either and should have been demo’ed in its own account!). My TOTAL risk is about 12% with 6 open trades, and was as high as 20% until TP and protective SL were hit (all for a profit!).
So, I think this trade is too risky for me, unless you can show me where the loss would be limited to 3% or so. It might be fine for you - I’m not saying don’t do it. I just don’t understand indices enough to risk that much.
Index trading will probably require much more capital than I’m willing to put in right now.
