Realtime Trading Woes - Planning for a Stable Market but Market Drops Off

Beginner Questions
1

I thought I’d figured out a good system of bidding near the market maximum and minimum rate values of a periodically reversing market rate. Unfortunately, I’d had a couple of ‘buy’ positions opened when, suddenly, the market rate plummeted.

NZDUSDiM1_market-tanked.jpg700×191 25.6 KB

Charted created with MetaTrader 4

It seems that the NZDUSDi market has now gone through a significant a reversal? It’s now trending generally downwards. The “Plummeting” trend at the minute illustrated - though most unfortunate at the time - I believe it’s in alignment with the overall trend since the reversal.

I’ve enjoyed trading in realtime - had even begun to turn a mild profit for the evening, small as in a happy couple of dollars, albeit with a fairly large leverage set on the broker account.

I understand that the leverage rate might serve to affect the severity of such shifts in the market rate, when some positions are open. Candidly, I’ve not been certain if I would be able to turnover any measurable profit, with a lesser leverage rate.

I wonder if I should give up about the realtime trading altogether? I’d thought I could develop an intuitive
approach to it, on a close enough study of it, but now I am distracted by some ideas that I think may be more poignant:

[ul]
[li]The Market is Not “My Friend”
[/li][li]The excitement of watching the data in realtime evaporates quickly, at such an event
[/li][li]I keep missing the broader trend, but I am roughly reminded of this - every time the market rate goes broadly contrary to what I was bidding for that it might be going to do, in the relatime trading.
[/li][/ul]

I’ve learned some very rough lessons, today, such that I would not want to articulate too hastily - mostly, my day’s lessons seem to center on finding a balance between the volume of open positions, the volume at position-open, and the available margin for open positions – this tacit set of learning experiences now made all the more poignant to me for this stunning – as to me it is, in this event – the stunning shift in the market rate.

Still, I believe, it’s cheaper than “investor college.” Candidly, I don’t know what other sense I can make out of it, personally and technically, at this time. I’d thought the Realtime data was all the thing, but - clearly - the market is not my friend.

Regardless, still hoping that this learning experience will not have been all for nothing, I’ve opened a very small ‘sell’ position. At this point, I will be inclined to leave that position open overnight - small difference that it would make to me, at this time, if the market reverses again.

2

I hope you get better trades next time. Well at least you learn, right? :slight_smile: That’s already a plus.

Here’s a tip I think will help you. Make the charts cleaner and more easy to the eye. You might want to use candlesticks too.

You can actually make good trades by just looking at market structures and candlesticks, ya know. Less stressful but results are pretty great.

I don’t know if you’re ready to move on from your current strategy (if it doesn’t work anymore), but if you do, you can try my favorite site about forex, other than BabyPips of course.

The Forex Guy is the site. The articles alone can give you great insight on charts.

3

I’ve been looking more at the realtime data - notably, not to a lot of a profitable result, thus far. I understand that Technical Analysis is a popular topic, however it’s such that I do not want to approach with any too broad brush, candidly. I’d hoped that I might be able to develop something of an understanding, to begin with, by bidding on the realtime data instead of trying to overthink it in any mathematical terms.

I’m sure there’s an intuitive approach possible, but - candidly - I may not know if I am seeing either the forest or the trees, in all regards.

I think that the Bar Charts format can be suitable, in any scale, for technical analysis. I like how it illustrates the OHLC tuple of each respective chart-tick. I think that the candlestick format is nice, too, though. I’m also a fan of the Heikin Ashi format, as used in the TradingView chartsapplication at the Kraken alt-currency exchange.

I’m not sure how to respond about uncluttering that chart, but thanks for the tip.

4

Yes, agreed! There is an intuitive approach on the charts but it does require the developing of habits.

About the format, whatever makes stuff easier for you, you should do. It’s just that candlesticks are somehow easier to see, at least generally. I also heard that Heiken Ashi is a tool worth exploring.

About uncluttering the chart, well it’s just that naked chart is surprisingly effective when you discover the right way to interpret it. Simpler is always less hassle. But then again, it’s your call.

You can actually trade with little to no indicators at all. Not that hard to learn at all. I think it’s something worth reading.

5

To be honest, you got effected by 1 situation way to much.

Even though you might have several buy positions, you were on 1 pair. You could see those positions combined as 1 big position. This means 1 trade.

That trade turned out a loss. That stuff happens in trading. If you get so attached to 1 trade and so upset when it loses, then you should not be trading.

You should look at the bigger picture. Look at hundreds-thousands of trading opportunities with your [B]trading plan[/B] and look how it performs on average.

If your account gets to big of a hit when the maret suddenly moves (in the wrong direction) you are trading to big size for you account.

Go back to your education, develop a solid [B]written[/B] trading plan (10+ pages) and then come back to demo trading. Trade demo for a few months showing yourself that you have the discipline to trade consistently. If you developed a good plan and it turns out it is profitable over 100-1000+ trades, then consider going live. Not a single second sooner.

Good luck :23:

6

Excellent advice. Perhaps I may’ve been a little overconfident - I’d thought I’d begun to “Get the gist” sufficiently after Bitcoin trading with Kraken, then in a little bit of reading here at Baby Pips and Safari Books Online and a short amount of paper trading.

On returning to paper trading, I’ve begun to develop a series of [I]Trading Scenario[/I] articles - presently, applying Evernote as something of a web-based content management system (CMS) for this task. The first article I’ve written, it’s such that I believe I may share: [I]Trade Scenarios - A Study - MetaTrader 4 with Heikin Ashi, Volume, and Momentum Indicators[/I]. I regard it as my “Hardpan Tech’s little playbook for Forex”.

Presently, with the paper trading, it seems I may still be finding something of an issue of my own overconfidence - candidly, more than from any effects of unexpected market performance. I believe that the writing helps to sort of filter out my own sense of overconfidence, in juxtaposition to performance in actual trades.

Of course, the Market does not always seem to be in a state inviting to the realtime trading strategy I’ve developed - thus perhaps to a third concern of trading impulsively, as may be in a foreshortened sense of patience at the market performance.

I think that I’ve finally found a series of indicators that I’m comfortable with, in the MetaTrader 4 platform. Of course, these are not perfect signals of possible market performance, but I believe it may suffice at times when the market rate is not going to extremes. I’m particularly happy with the Stochastic Oscillator indicator. Simple though it may be, I think it presents some useful signals for trading across market reversals in a steady market. There’s also a Fisher indicator I’ve found - have tried to document these, to an extent, in the article that I’ve linked to there.

I’m certain that there’s a lot of mathematics somewhere as though metaphorically on the other side of the trading platform’s GUI. Personally, I think it’s well enough to begin to see some repeatable successes in paper trading, if not also to try to share at least an article or two about one’s strategy as such.

Of course, it’s not compete with any of the helpful, friendly FX-MEN, certainly just a notebook of a kind - if not a sort of a lab-book, in a way, in a manner of practical [I]applied mathematics[/I] and financially related studies onto Forex.

7

Thanks for explaining it with us.