Set It & Forget It Strategy

Beginner Questions
1

Done my homework, now testing software (MT4 and FOREXTrader - FXCM’s demo platform)

I understand the technicals. I’ve found fxstreet.com to be a great source for fundamental analysis and confirmation/second-option on technicals.

I’d like to only have to review my positions one or twice a week. I’ll go nuts and won’t get any work done with the trading software open on my computer all day as I’ll want to keep watching it, even though my timeframe is weekly.

I don’t mind being out of the market for a few days because a Limit or Stop was triggered and I didn’t find out for a couple days.

I see MT4 has some type of e-mail functionality but I have to use an SMTP server on a port that is not the standard port 25 and I see no way to modify what port it uses (bummer) as then couldn’t I get e-mail notifications when a trade is triggered?

I’m a programmer by profession so naturally I’ve very intrigued by the Export Advisor function of MT4. But is Export Advisor really that appropriate for Swing Traders? The only benefit for me is that the EA could get me back into the market automatically in the event I didn’t check the account for a couple days after a stop or limit was triggered?

I don’t like that trailing stop only work when MT4 software is runing where as FOREXTrader is server based trailings stops. I think trailing stops are one important key to maximimzing profitable trades (when you get one.)

But FOREXTrader has no e-mail capability that I can see.

I pick things up really quick, but I have to admit, the more I get into trying to select a platform, broker, and devise a system, things seem to get more and more complex, even after going through the Babypips School Twice and spent a couple days reading Educational material on other sites. This Forex trading seems like it may be a waste of time relative to how high risk it is. It seems akin to online gambling if you ask me, but just more complex (online gambling for the Analysis Addict).

I really just want to come up with a system to profit on weekly trades using combo of simple technicals and fundamentals and maybe hedge with a position for long-term investment based primarily on fundamentals rather than technicals. Bottom line is I don’t want to spend an hour or two every single day analyzing charts, more like a couple hours a week of looking at charts and reading some reports. Maybe more in the beginning since I’m a newbie, but I’m not sure this is all worth it if it is going to require a lot of “care and feeding”

2

Quite like you, I’m also a beginner in the FX world, and like you I’ve also done my homework pretty thoroughly.

So suddenly it was time to start planning how FX trading was supposed to be able to fit into my daily life.

I would have preferred to trade intraday, but my work (or rather my patients) would be getting in the way. It could probably be done, but it would place extra stress, so this option was discarded.

I felt that I’d be willing to spend around one hour per day on the FX, which would then be in the evening ( I’m in GMT +1).

After long and hard thinking, I’ve decided to go for swing trading with 4 hour charts as the chart for order placement, and daily and weekly for trend studies.

As an added bonus it seems to me that all signals are more reliable on the higher timeframes, personally I intend to go with Bollingerbands and Candlestick reading.

Perhaps this stratety could work for you as well, with daily instead of 4 hour as your timeframe? That would probably not demand more than a few hours per week to manage. If 4H doesn’t work for me, I’m considering this strategy myself.

The vast majority of all threads here deal with trading strategies that require a lot of sitting in front of the computer, or even worse - being woken up in the middle of the night by an alarm going off. This is no way to live!

Off the topic: don’t forget that longer term trading requires larger stop losses, which in turn requires a well funded account and/or careful management of lot sizes.

Allow me to recommend you this thread, which is pretty similar in subject:
http://forums.babypips.com/newbie-island/7960-trading-full-time-job-just-may-impossible.html

Good trading :slight_smile:

3

Thanks for the link to that older thread.

I can see that some people can think outside their own “box” (system) and others can’t. In reading and reading all threads on several sites, it seems the majority of the discussions are from people that are Day Trading / Scalping that are looking for systems to make 5-10 pips at a time either manually (boy what a lot of work) or through some EA.

But others do realize, there are trends at all different timeframes. It seems to me, the higher the timeframe the less volatile/unpredictable the trends are. But trading weekly or once a day just isn’t exiting enough for a lot of people and I suspsect some of these people are out of a job and trying to make this their job. Not to say some haven’t been successful enough to make it their job, but wouldn’t it be cool to make 150 pips a week by trading twice, instead of trading 30 times and being glued to a computer.

Plus with longer timeframes, I believe, fundemental analysis plays a larger role. Read a few reports on fxstreet.com, take a look at the daily and weekly chart, step your stop and limits at 150 pips instead of 15, make sure your count is well capitalized and you aren’t gambling too large of a percentage of your equity, set it, forget it, and go back to concentraying on other things.

I did find one platform that had e-mail alerts (I think) - I believe it was the FXSol GTS Pro? But it was quirky in the display (due probably to me using larger font sizes.)

If your timeframe is a week, then how many pips do people think on average the stop and limit should be at. I opened a position last night based on daily/weekly analysis (and a peek at the 4hr chart) and reading some weekly technical and fundemental reports on fxstreet last night. Woke up this morning and I was +60 pips. Was tempted to take the profit. But I realized I need to stay true to my timeframe and not do that as I could leave money on the table. I had my stop/limits at +/- 150 pips.

Another strategy I’m thinking that might be promising is essentially doing a 1-3 day timeframe (I assume I can look at my account once a day at most) and then do a weekly timeframe as a hedge against the shorter time frame - or maybe a reinforcement if the signals for both timeframes are very strong for the same trend?

4

Just thought I’d share a little regarding choice of broker.

As far as MT4 brokers go, I believe Alpari might be one of the best choices. They offer micro lots, leverage of 1:500 as of recently ( and the option to choose and change the leverage on your account), celebrating 10 year anniversary right now, orig UK, but also a US branch now - mind you the US branch is enough capitalized as of today, but they will have to increase their capital substantially to reach 20M $ by next summer, which is a requirement under the newly passed CFTC rules.
Anyway, back to the pro’s list: 200$ min to start an account.

The bad, of course, they offer only MT4, and therefore no Trailing stops when software disconnects from server.

An attractive alternative, although not very thouroghly explored by me yet, would seem to be the Dealbook platform, developed by GFT (Global Forex Trading) - one of the largest FX brokers in the US.

The big drawback with them, for me, is that they do not offer micro lots, the smallest trade you can put on is 1 mini lot. However, this is of course a problem only if you wish to fund a small account, which is what I want to do, to begin with. Unfortunately i can’t see any way for me to be able to moneymanage properly due to this.

Both US Alpari and GFT have clean records with the CFTC and NFA, something which can’t be said of FXCM, which I noticed that you’re considering to go with. I do not pretend to know enough to advise against that, but generally I believe one should be careful with what sort of company you deal with. Regulated and a clean or at least largely clean record is what I would put into my list of demands, not sure FXCM meets such a demand.

GFT offer Trailing Stops, and a multitude of order types, such as OCO, Parent-contingent etc. Their platform is considered to be the best by many, for instance Tymen1 on this forum, whose knowledge I respect. He uses Dealbook, but a different broker.
Min account starting at 250 $ with 1:400 leverage, slightly better spread than Alpari. Possibility to use web-based trading. Many different timeframes, of interest to you might be that they offer an 8H timeframe which fills what I feel to be a gap in MT4 choices.
I haven’t tested their platform out properly, and can’t really say either way, but they may be well worth a thourough study before final decision.

The one bad thing I’ve noticed about GFT (not the platform) is that they’re perceived as a bit pushy to get you to open an account. The other, mentioned in the linked thread , is GFTs total control over the Dealbook platform.
But the fact that keeps me away is the inability to trade micro lots and fractional lot sizes. Were it not for that, my choice would be Dealbook.

So - in spite of the lack of a working Trailing stop, I’m leaning toward MT4 and Alpari.

Also, check this thread for more broker comparison:
http://forums.babypips.com/rate-my-broker/13436-gft-efx-how-fees-gft.html

Hope this might be of some help in the broker-jungle.

5

Beat you to the punch. Before I read this post I discovered GFT after re-reviewing the most reviewed borkers at forexpeacearmy.com and GFT sounded promising.

They’re software is really well done. Can do OCO orders with trailing stop and trailing stops ARE server triggered. Web client too. I think Mobile client too?

Chat response was instantaneous, polite, and knowledgeable.

Only problem is you are leveraged 1:400 on mini accounts with 10K lot sizes. I’m going to need to make sure I understand the margin call methodology before figuring out how little I can deposit.

Let’s see, 1 lot at 1:400 would be $25. If I took a 200 pip bath, then in the EUR/USD pair, that’s $200 loss. They’re agreement mentions a 25% margin call. So if I understand my reading right (I may not) that means they are free to close out your positions once you unrealized loss is over 75% of your account balance? So if I only deposited the minimum $250, the margin call would occur if I lost 187 pips.

If I figure my stop/limit orders will be at 50 pips, then that would mean I could only suffer a net of 3 bad trades and then the account would be blown.

So I guess I should trade on a much smaller timeframe to test my system so I can make the stop/limits a lot lower like 15 pips to make the money last longer.

Let’s see if I put in $500, trade a few times a day on the 15/1hr/4hr chart and keeps my stops and limits to 20 pips or less then I’ve got an exposure of $20 per trade, so at 25% margin call threshold I can make a net 18 bad trades before the account needs more money. Figure I get 1 out 4 trades correct, so that give me about 24 trades, or about $20 per “lesson learned”.

I’ve done enough research about a system, and am comfortable with the software. I just think trading play money doesn’t teach as effectively as having real money on the line.

6

be carefull of forexpeacearmy they are full of crap long story…

also if you are trading of the weekly why on earth would you target only 150 pips??? you have some good ideas but just be careful and learn as much as possible you might find you want to make this your fulltime job too :slight_smile:

7

Go to Tools/Options/Email and when you put in the SMTP info, just add the port after, i.e. mail.yourdomain.com:25 (25 would be the port).