Hello everyone, i am new to babypips.com. i do trade fulltime. i will start to post my trades in this forum with my specific money management and trading rules. I am a scalper, i trade GJ exclusively but i do take trades in EJ GU EU when trading oppurtunities set up in those pairs. I try to shoot for about 100-200 pips/day, especially where the VIX is nowadays. I do credit my success to discipline, money management and experience. I will start this monday on my trades. My trading system is basically my strict money management rules that i follow. I trade about half of my account size(personally), meaning if you have a $30,000 trading account you should be trading 30k units. I do scale into positions, with a max drawdown of 4-8% You will see more clearly what i am talking about when i start posting my charts.
wow, excited to see a trader who truly has a “pair” (pun intended) and trades with their entire account! I know what many say about proper money management, not risking too much than you can afford, and i only succumb to it if i’ve seen it 1000 times. this on the other hand is pleasing for me to see and would love to know more about. please do share your scalping techniques with their S/L and T/P margins, pairs, and possibly preffered trading times… i await your results on monday! i hope for the best!
I think you missed the part where his drawdown was only 7-10 %. He’s just trading the size of his account. While 7-10% is a high drawdown, it would be way worse if he was trading a size larger than his account. For instance if he used all the leverage available to him and traded 300,000 on 30 k account 10:1, and hit a 10% loss just once, he would lose his whole account. Since he’s only trading the size of his account 30k, the most he’s going to lose is 3k.
The problem comes when you trade with a small account, use a large risk percentage and try to control full lots with a small account. The drawdown would be too much no matter how good of trader you are.
ThePhoenix is correct, i do not trade heavily, i trade quite small. I look to make more trades than most and i keep trading throughout the NY session. I trade off of heikin-ashi candles and trade with no indicators. They all lag. I am more of a tapereader than someone waiting for a signal to happen (waiting for MAs, Macd, stoch, etc all to line up perfectly), usually i am in the market before the signal would ever go off for most traders. You have to anticipate the future of the chart and act on it. If you wait for confirmation for each trade you will be nothing more than a break even trader. I am looking to make 1%/day. With my money management rules that means i should be making about 100 pips on average each day.
Looking forward for tomorrow to see everyones reaction and opinions on my trading style/system/strategy.
Pheonix thank you for the clarification… but rather unneccessary. I’ve read p1ptrader’s post-- even the part about the 7-10% drawdown. I am only admiring the fact that he is opening a position the SIZE of his account and possibly bailing once he is in the red about 7-10 pips (which is typical when scalping).
P1PTRAD3R-- once again, still enthused about your results for tomorrow. Can you please let me know around what time (and time zone) you will be trading? As for a technical question, you mentioned a minimum 1% account gain objective through earning at least 100 pips. Does this mean that you will be trading with no leverage? Ex: $5,000 x 1 (leverage) = $5,000 (lot size) = $.50 pip value. So… 100 pips x $.50 = $50 = 1% of $5000… correct?
which brings me to another question… if you are only looking to scalp and make several small pip gains (and hopefully smaller losses), why would you not use leverage and trade a smaller fraction of your account?
Since you are not using indicators, is it safe to say that your trading methodology requires some instincts that you have developed over time by watching price action and that this is not a method that a newbie would likely find a lot of success trying to emulate?
Regardless, I am excited to track this thread, I am sure that I will learn something regardless of your answer to my question.
One more thing Pheonix, you might need to revisit the school and learn more about using leverage because your numbers don’t match up. When you say “used all the leverage available to him and traded 300,000 on 30 k account,” if you mean 300k on top of maximum leverage (usually 100), then yes, the $30M position would have $3000/pip movement meaning that his account would dissappear after a 10 pip loss-- BUT thats not possible since all FOREX brokers require you to have a minimum of 1% (when using 100 leverage) of the FACE VALUE of all OPEN positions in your account balance. In layman’s terms… you need to have the amount (before leverage) in your account in order to trade it.
remember: FACE VALUE OF POSITION = MARGIN (subtracted from account) x LEVERAGE
If you meant trading 300k INCLUDING max leverage (100) that would mean a $3000 subtraction from his $30K account balance. this position would require a foolish 1000 pip tumble to clear his account.
300k position = $30/pip
$30 x 1000 pip loss = $30,000 loss (account value) ==> back to the drawing board!
Took some short trades here, check chart for details.
2nd Trade:
Took a short trade @ 143.82, went against me considerably…took a break even on the trade.
3rd Trade:
Took an add on the short trade at @ 144.11 and covered @ 144.02 for a +9. Took the short right at previous high made at 8 am est.
4th Trade:
Took the last add in the shorts @ 144.42 and covered @ 144.25 for a +17. False break out higher, waited for the 1 min chart to slow down before getting in.
I am having difficulty following your system. I rarely consider scalping so im not to familiar with it. please explain this strategy and possibly money management as well (S/L and T/P levels). thank you
Sorry everyone for such a delay in posts, was very busy yesterday. I put on 6 more trades after the one i posted yesterday. It took some time for the trades to work out but they eventually did. Came close to hitting my max drawdown. Tough trading day yesterday but did well.
Ill post the chart with all the trades i took, they are color coordinated for easier viewing. The profits are ( in order from red circle) +1 +5 +20 +19 +20 +20. Ended the day yesterday with 129 pips, not too shabby. Hopefully i can find some more time for me to post more efficiently.
I will try to explain my system for you a little better. It is a cross between scalping and swing trading. Scalping usually consists of tight stop losses, but when I first started scalping I realized my personality did not allow me to get stopped out 40% of the time to only see my tp would have gotten filled later in the day. I originally tried swing trading, but that was way to slow for my personality and I knew that the secret to making money was to compound it continuously. So I started mixing the two strategies.
The first thing I do is look at the chart on the longer term time frame and decide which direction I would trade if it was a swing trade. Then I start scalping using the 1 and 5 min charts in the direction that I would have taken a swing trade. My goal is to keep scalping for quick profits and never get stuck in a positiong. However, as you can see in my last post that does not always happen. So I start adding to positions when I see set ups on the 1 min chart. I can do this because my entries are very small for my account size so getting in to multiple positions are not a big deal.
My money management consists of a max drawdown instead of a SL. I do this because in my beginning days there were way to many times my SL got hit only for the market to immediatley reverse leaving me frustated. In my system it does not matter how many positions I am in 1-10 when my account balance says I am down 10% (typcically about 1000 pips, but I have been trading smaller lately because of the increased volatility) I close every position. This may seem strange to many of you but it works for me because my maxdrawdown typically gets hit only about once every 3 weeks and during that time I am usually up substantially.
It takes a little while to get used to, but when large losses are an expected part of your strategy they are much easier to deal with. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. Back to trading now.
congratulations on your winnings and thank you for the detailed response. I seem to get a gist of what you are doing. when you have some time after your trading, would you be able to provide a few more clues on how to orchestrate your trading plan? Maybe answering the following questions will help me better understand.
How much do you risk on each trade? You mentioned trading “your account,” is that a summation of all (10 or so) trades?
Do you use margin?
What are you enter and exit rules?
Lastly, what profits do you usually aim for per position? (I would assume around 20)
Thank you for your time. I would love to start demoing this strategy soon and eventually live trade it. I just have to understand the basics first. Hope to hear from you soon.
I risk per trade 10%. I do this by typically getting in my account size which means if you have a $30,000 account each position you would get into would be no more than 30,000 units which is $3 per pip. I trade less when the spreads are higher than normal due to volatility. Remember I get out of my positions when I am down a combined 1000 pips. So if I am down 600 in one position and down 400 in another I close them both at the same time.
Yes I use margin, but I try not to use as little as possible.
I enter and exit based off of mostly price action on the 1 min chart. I also look at heiken-ashi candles, trendlines, fibs, channels, and support and resistance, and I use monthly, weekly, and daily pivots.
Profits depend on the pair I am trading. I typically have them set for 20 pips in GJ and 12pips in EU, but I get out manually often before then if I see price action that I don’t like.
