Qualifying for a 5%ers Funded Account

[skulkrinbait]

Rule number 1, don’t trade a ranging market, so I did 4 trades. :

To be fair it usually ranges just before 8am but it had really been ranging from about 7am so I should have left well alone but I am dumb.

Overall it’s a 1 win 1 loss and 3 break even today which I will explain below in the trade details:

USDJPY lost, quite clearly it’s ranging but in my defence it looked like it tried to breakout of the Tokyo session range a bit earlier so I felt this would be bullish and as you see later on it did hit my TP although the pull back was too big.

Nice quick win for USCAD, now you’ll notice I didn’t set the SL to the other side of the range but this was deliberate as the range was huge, had I set the SL there then this might not quite have hit TP so I think I did OK here. I have increased my TP to a risk to reward of 1/0.9 now as the last 50 trades that I have won would all still have won at that level.

Around this time I realised the market was ranging and so all three of the remaining trades were closed early for around break even - I had to do the school run and left them all running while I was out but as they were still running when I got back I decided to close them early as in my experience trades that go for more than 20 minutes or so tend to lose.

AUDUSD so nearly hit the TP it’s not funny, closed this for a small profit as it just seemed to be ranging - if I’d kept the TP at 0.8 then it probably would have hit that - equally a smaller SL results in a win here.

EURUSD, again fractionally short of the TP, hits it with either a smaller SL or a the old risk to reward ratio, closed early as it looked to be ranging.

Bit of a mess on EURGBP, closed early for a break even but it now looks like it might have hit my TP if I left it!

So learning points, avoid trading in a ranging market (need to work out how to identify that reliably) and set a smaller SL for all pairs apart from USDJPY.

Another losing day after a winning day but it’s only a tiny loss of around $3 so no big deal, those two trades that nearly hit TP would have been nice but it is a small profit overall for the week.

I am going to analyse my trades now as I think going forward I am best doing smaller SL for most of the pairs but maybe leave USDJPY with a big stop loss, this should see my win rate improve a little.

The Tokyo open was a complete waste today as everything pretty much is ranging and has been for about 3 hours.

[skulkrinbait]

Weekly total, very small profit overall, I’ve only put down the winning and losing trade for today but included the total values overall for that small loss. So near yet so far today.

Probably cannot trade on Tuesday next week due to work commitments.

[skulkrinbait]

Today marks 2 months since I started trading “properly” and began trying to qualify for this account. Currently at 6.25% profit at this stage.

The usual emotional rollercoaster today! (I didn’t trade emotionally though)

And two wins from 5 today, another bad Monday, maybe I don’t trade these in future.

And even worse. Do you ever get the feeling you are cursed?

I never trade news, this is just a pure fluke but I bet if it was a losing trade they’d count it.

Anyway that was the first winning trade but in effect now that’s meaningless so 3 losses from 4.

AUDUSD missed TP by the tiniest fraction and I was convinced it would then lose, but I kept it open as pretty much every time I close a trade early it ends up hitting TP, which this one did around 2 hours later, my longest ever trade!

I won’t put up any images of the failures but here they are:

USDCAD looked good to begin with before reversing like it was on acid.

GBPUSD never really did anything, I entered this as it was going with the trend which was up quite clearly but the price action probably didn’t justify the entry.

And finally USDJPY, this almost hit TP getting about 2/3rds of the way there before reversing - I held this for almost two hours but eventually closed it around 11:15am for a loss of about $10 rather than the $25 I risked as it had crossed above the 3 SMAs I use. (It would have hit SL about 20 minutes later)

So now going to spend the rest of this week trying to make today’s losses back.

Can’t trade tomorrow due to work, may go back to a lower RRR.

[skulkrinbait]

I also paper traded the 1Hr candle London/Tokyo breakout strategy that’s in the Trading Strategy section, nice results today if I’d done it for real:

Still working out what the best risk to reward is for these but you can see any of these RRRs would be a nice profit.

Now, my backtesting shows that entries at 9am (the first candle that forms during London sessiont) have a better win rate than those that breach the range later on, so I would probably have only taken 4 of those (it says 8:00am under Entry Time)

I also feel the 1/3 RRR is most profitable but it’s quite marginal, they are all profitable apart from 1/1 funnily enough, I’ve backtested all 6 pairs until early February, need to do more really.

Just noticed I’ve put the times wrong, it’s the 8:00am ones I would have traded.

[skulkrinbait]

So I seem to have 2 good weeks at the start of the month then 2 bad weeks at the end, only been trading 2 months so maybe just coincidence.

I would expect this week to be poor again and then have two good weeks in early April, we shall see.

[samewise]

@skulkrinbait

So I seem to have 2 good weeks at the start of the month then 2 bad weeks at the end, only been trading 2 months so maybe just coincidence

I had this up one month down the next for a while. They got a little better and then a little worse. But I’ve got some consistency running now. I think it just takes time to iron out all the wrinkles in your strategy. Keep it up!

[Friscodan]

You are doing great. There will be times you think you are actually cursed…or that there is some “outside” force preventing you from passing a certain level of profit. All part of the mental game we have to master.

[samewise]

@Friscodan

All part of the mental game we have to master.

Mental for sure. My mental bit is FOMO. It’s really silly that I feel I HAVE to get into a trade. There’s always another one. Why can’t I remember that!?!?

[skulkrinbait]

Another frustrating day’s trading, so near, yet so far! But a small profit overall.

Wins for EURGBP, GBPUSD and USDJPY

Losses on AUDUSD, USDCAD, the latter one was very annoying:

As you can see Trading View thinks this hit profit (I used the exact prices from MT5) but obviously the spread means it didn’t quite hit.

I’ve also done a few test trades using 0.1% risk for a couple of other strategies I have been backtesting, will post results later as those trades are still running.

I think I need to reduce my SL a little bit to overall improve my win rate, this is borne out by the backtesting I have done, the exception is on USDJPY.

[skulkrinbait]

First new strategy is the GER40 breakout - I’ve backtested this quite a bit, over 40 trades, the results are below:

67% win rate at a 2/1 risk to reward is pretty good, let’s see if it works like that.

Now today as it’s the first time trading this I am only using a 0.1% risk until I get more confidence it works in real life!

So a loss on the first day, will try again tomorrow.

For this I am using M5 and plotting the range over the first hour of London open, ie 8am to 9am UK time, then entering when there is a breakout of that range.

[skulkrinbait]

The next new strategy is one from this forum, the London breakout but using a 1H timeframe based on the last 3 candles before the London open.

I’ve done around 106 backtests of this (need more) and it has definite potential, I found a 47% win rate at 1/1.5 and 33% win rate at 1/3

I’ve gone for 1/1.5 this time and again using low risk just 0.1% of bank.

So it’s very simple just plot the high and low of the range of the previous 3 candles at the 1H timeframe, so starting with the 5am candle and finishing with the 7am one.

You enter once the range breaks, now my testing shows that this is most successful only if you trade the 8am-9am candle and as you can see this was a nice quick win at 1/1.5 and could have won at 1/3 - my testing shows that 1/3 is in fact most profitable, if only a win rate of 33% or so.

I like this strategy as it requires almost no thought (just decide on SL) and can be done very quickly and then just leave it to play out.

I generally put the SL at the base of the candle you enter the trade on but if it is a very big candle I will put it half way, sometimes if the candle is small I might use the previous candle.

Still waiting for the other trades to finish, 3 have lost, 2 still ongoing.

[samewise]

How many strategies are you testing vs running live?

[skulkrinbait]

Strictly speaking I am only running 1 strategy, I am testing the other 2 in live but only with much smaller risk level. Backtesting gives me a fair bit of confidence in these.

To be honest all 3 strategies are very similar in any case.

[samewise]

Okay interesting. I like the idea of testing in live. Never gave that much thought. I guess if you’re keeping separate stats on each strategy, it works. Cool.

[skulkrinbait]

Yes, backtesting seems a bit hit and miss as you don’t have margin, commission and it’s a little bit arbitrary unless you use a proper testing tool.

If I test in live (with a smaller risk) then I know for sure.

I’m reasonably confident so happy to take the risk, for now at least!

[skulkrinbait]

The 1H breakout strategy ended up with 2 wins from 5 today but at 2/1 risk to reward that’s a small profit.

I will continue with these and update the results.

I paper-traded the NY breakout for 4 wins from 6. I don’t really want to test this in “live” even with a smaller risk as it’s going to get silly with all these “test” trades. Once I get some more confidence maybe.

[skulkrinbait]

5 trades, 2 wins, another losing day but not too bad, it looked like all 5 were going to lose at one stage!

However, with a bit of a tweak to my SL (smaller) or my risk to reward ratio, could have had 4 wins out of 5, so here are the trades:

EURUSD, a smaller SL, smaller risk to reward makes no difference here, a definite loss as it reversed almost immediately, however had I waited until after 8:30 then I would have caught the breakout to the upside and got a win, more on that later.

AUDUSD, very similar, TP and SL can’t fix a reversal like this but a later entry after 8:30 catches the sustained breakout.

USDCAD, so yeah, smaller SL or smaller risk to reward wins, this got very close to hitting TP.

The two winners are nothing too interesting so won’t post those, USDJPY was a very later entry just before 9:00am (notice a trend) and GBPUSD also late entry took two hours and five minutes to hit TP, proud of myself for holding until it hit TP there

So I did a bit more analysis of my trades, quite interesting:

The problem above is my RRR has been changing a bit so the percentages look a bit better than they really are. But you can clearly see my success rate is much better with long trades versus shorts. I may stop shorting AUDUSD and EURUSD, really could do with more data.

I’ve also got a feeling I might be more successful if I take trades later in the first hour, (as mentioned) you’ll notice when I draw the boxes around the range I leave a gap, there’s a reason for that.

When I first started trading I noticed my win rate for entries between 8:05 and 8:15 was really bad, so I actually stopped trading at that time. Recently I noticed this seemed to improve so I started trading again from 8:05, maybe I need to avoid that as reversals seem more likely earlier on. Now I don’t really have enough data to make an informed decision but I have started recording the entry times on my trades so I can keep an eye on that.

Also I still don’t know what the best SL is, should I cover the whole of the range, or just put a small SL so the TP is easier to hit or just make the TP smaller?

Today a smaller SL would have meant 2 of the losing trades won so I am going to put my SL to a fixed size of 3 pips, with the exception of USDJPY.

Need more data really, I am erring towards a smaller SL, as it is more common for the price to just miss the TP than it is for a reversal to end up being in profit but just going into the SL on the way.

Regards the test trades (1H timeframe on London open breakout - I am now doing this as live but on my own personal broker account with minimal lot sizes) I had 1 win and 1 loss, only two trades fell into my 9am target entry time. So again a small profit as the TP was at 1/1.5 risk to reward. I forgot that I had set this at 1/2 yesterday so I need to be more consistent, it would have hit TP at 1/2 as well.

[pink_hat_trader]

@skulkrinbait

really could do with more data

Exactly so. I don’t mean it to sound like a criticism at all(!) but your sample size is far too small to be drawing conclusions. I know that you know this already. I’m just trying to reinforce it!

[skulkrinbait]

Market was really unusual today and I should have realised and left well alone, but I am stubborn so 2 wins from 6 trades. A bad day to end my worst ever week in 7 weeks of trading

I am doing deeper analysis now into the different pairs I trade and I feel I understand AUDUSD well, so that was the first one to lose:

So I knew today was odd as the range for AUDUSD was double what it usually is, I went long as there was a clear uptrend here and this doesn’t usually retrace but not today!

USDJPY was trending down so of course I went long! Actually this does end up going long so the breakout was valid just my SL was a pip too small. Now the range is 9 pips and I set my SL for 9 pips but didn’t factor in the price had already moved or the spread etc, a 1 or 2 pip bigger SL and this one wins.

Nice quick win on EURUSD, no dramas for once!

A bad trade here on USDCAD, trend was up all looking bullish, I need to be more patient and let one more candle close.

Maybe a touch unlucky with GBPUSD as the initial move was so strong that it missed TP by a fraction. Smaller SL wins this as does a smaller RRR.

I also won EURGBP although that did take over an hour as it went sideways for a bit.

So once again a bad day but in hindsight 2 of those losses could quite easily have been wins had I just thought a bit more about it, I remain optimistic.

I did 3 test trades for the 1H breakout strategy and got two winners at 1/1.5 so nice profit there, maybe I do this as part of the 5%ers account? Going to do more backtesting over the weekend.

I’ll post the weekly update later, back to where I was in early February now, all the previous gains over the past 3 weeks wiped out, but I will learn from this and come back stronger in April.

[skulkrinbait]

Monthly and weekly summary, I know it’s not the last trading day of the month but it will do.

Basically 3 profitable weeks wiped out by last week (actually the last 2 days). It’s really frustrating as I feel I have learned a lot this month and am trading much better and making fewer mistakes, but that’s life.

Anyway, it’s £1.62 profit, how long until I get my Lambo?

I’m doing A LOT of back testing this weekend as I have some ideas! Just call me Baldrick. (You may need to Google him)