Hmm, looks like my new prop firm (For Traders) has rather large spreads, this hit SL apparently. Need to remember to make SL an extra pip on this account.
Do you mind being asked what attracted you to that one, @skulkrinbait ?
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They had quite good ratings on Trustpilot and were cheap. I think I paid about ~£20 for the $6k account. Also use MT5 which I am now used to.
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Thanks, and good luck!
(Is the drawdown static, trailing end of day, or trailing open positions?).
I’ve not read all the small print but I believe it’s daily ie end of day.
Only doing small trades so shouldn’t be an issue for now at least!
A win and a loss today, but that doesn’t tell the whole story as I had another 4 trades that I closed early, all for various amounts of profit. So overall a 0.55% profit on the day so quite please and this rounds out a profitable week - will post that info later.
My concern today (emotion!) was as I took the later trades, several had already moved away from the range so I was concerned as I know often the moves are not very big.
Here’s a couple of examples:
So, AUDUSD had already moved, normally I would have entered this a couple of minutes earlier and probably had an easy win.
It looked to be running out of steam so I took the profit early, in the event I got almost the full amount although it did hit TP a few minutes later.
USDJPY, I set the SL in the middle of the range as it would have been a huge SL to cover all of it, in the event it was about 1 pip too small and this did go on to be a win had I done that, so a bit frustrating.
Had I not closed those trades early they would all probably have hit TP, one flirted with the SL, so I just need a bit more faith as again today was close to a 100% day.
The GER40 trade lost again so that’s a loss every day this week, versus a win every day last week!
Will report back on the other trades still in play, the 1H breakout strategy.
Here’s the week’s summary.
Slightly disappointed with today as could have been so much better but overall 3 profitable days, no losing days and almost 1% profit overall so I should be quite satisified I think.
The 50% win rate is a bit false as I closed several trades early for profit but haven’t classed them as wins.
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I’m trying to take the mystery out of my trades, I want to make it as “mechanical” as possible so I remove any emotion and also make it easier to backtest more accurately, so i can see exactly what I would have done for each trade and if it would have won or lost with a higher degree of accuracy.
So, I have formalised the strategy, feedback welcome!
London 5 Minute Range Breakout Strategy:
Works for AUDUSD, EURUSD, GBPUSD, EURGBP, USDJPY and USDCAD
- Starting at 8am UK time, draw the high and low ranges (include Wicks) for 8am to 8:05am, use the M1 timeframe.
- As soon as the price breaks out of that range, from 8:06am onwards, enter a trade.
- A breakout needs to be clear two candles closing in the same direction, so for a long trade the breakout needs to see two bullish candles to the upside and vice versa. Ignore indecision candles, ie dojis etc.
- If the initial breakout candle is followed by a pullback wait until there is another confirmation candle breaking out again, so the retest has to bounce off the edge of the range.
- SL should ideally cover the whole of the 5 minute range in case it reverses and bounces off the far side of the range, but if the range is larger than normal it can be set at the middle of the range or even near the closer edge if the price has moved a long way (this needs defining more clearly)
- TP is 1/1 risk to reward (this may change)
- Stop trading at 9:15am - there is an alternative late entry version of this where only trades after 8:30 should be taken, currently this is being tested.
- DO NOT CLOSE TRADES EARLY unless there is a very clear reversal signal!
Examples of entries:
Ideally I want to know what SL I will use for each pair, assuming the range is within “normal” tolerances, I am going to be doing more back testing over the Easter holidays (I have a week off!) to work out what constitutes a “normal” range for each pair and therefore what SL to use.
Now I have the entry criteria consistent this will be a big help with the back testing, it may not improve my win rate in itself but combined with knowing when to enter exactly and the SL (and risk to reward) that should pay dividends, at least I hope so!
At bloody last I have had a profitable day trading the NY open!
8 losses straight over two days, today I got 3/6 wins but at 1/1.1 so a little profit, two of the losses were 1 pip away from winning too (SL too small)
I was looking at 6 more losses for a moment and I had a thought maybe I should just place trades at random as even a monkey could do better, this has given me an idea for a new strategy, will back test that and report back - no it’s not placing trades at random or getting a monkey to do it!
Will post the results later,
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That’s so irritating! 
A widespread but actually mistaken belief (they’re all too busy typing Hamlet!!). 
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No trades today due to the bank holiday, probably the same on Monday too.
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Monday isn’t a Bank Holiday in America, David - all the US markets are open, and trading may be active (for a Monday, I mean!) given that it’s the first day after a bit of a holiday.
(Easter Monday happens, this year, to fall on the same day as “Patriots’ Day” which is a minor public holiday in Maine and Massachusetts only.)
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Thanks, I might trade we will see what mood I am in! 
Edit - just had a look, the market was very strange so probably give Monday a miss!
I’m really writing this for my own benefit as it will help my though process, back testing a lot at the moment and I need to work out exactly what information I need to record.
- Day and Date - this will be useful as I can see if certain days are better than others, maybe I avoid Mondays/Fridays etc?
- Trend - I am definitely finding going with the trend is more successful than against.
- Entry - I have a few different entry strategies so I will note which one I use and see which works best
- Entry Time- this will help identify if late entries are better and what time is best to use as a cutoff
- Range - the range during the first 5 minutes after the session opens (NY and London), this may or may not be significant.
- Pips - how far the price moves, this will help decide if a trade could have hit TP and what that TP should be
- Pullback/reversal - will record this in pips to help decide what Sl should be and therefore if a trade is successful or not
Probably more ideas when I come to the testing, will put the results up soon.
5 trades , 1 win didn’t really do anything wrong just reversed on me, even after I took late trades. 1 of them missed TP by a fraction and another the SL was 1 pip too small, fine margins as usual.
Same for both London and NY opens, hopefully back to normal tomorrow.
It just seems sometimes you can’t win no matter what and sometimes you win easily, just depends on the market and how it behaves.
I have done some more backtesting which should give me some more confident I just need to finish it as only done for some pairs.
Looked like being another terrible day but ended up with 2 wins from 4 trades and I had gone for 1/1.5 risk to reward to overall a profit and made back half my losses from yesterday.
I will do a longer report later just heading out for the day soon.
Oanda does stuff like that too. I think they go out to like 16 decimal places to prove me wrong!
Another losing day with 2 wins from 6 but at 1/1.5 it wasn’t a disaster.
Stop losses were generally too big, several trades could have hit TP with slightly smaller SL, or you could say my risk to reward was slightly too big as well.
I’m fairly happy with my entries now I just need to do some more back testing to nail down what my SL needs to be.
Setting the SL at the just inside the nearest point of the range would have been optimal today and would have seen 4 wins.
AUDUSD is the exception where my SL was a fraction too small, I put it at the previous swing low which coincided with the middle of the 5 minute range so I was quite happy with it but as you can see it just wicked into the SL, this would have gone on to win at 1/1.5 had my SL been 1 pip more, or if I’d entered a minute earlier.
And EURGBP, SL was too big here, half the size puts it into the range and turns this into a win.
Those two SLs have made the difference between a losing day and quite a nice winning day, the other two trades both reversed soon after I placed them, USDCAD might have won with a smaller SL but USDJPY never was going to win.
Once again small margins but I do feel I am on the cusp of hitting some good results.