Good to hear!
Hey 10 pips is 10 pips right? It’s not a loss!
Keep up the good work!
I grabbed 30 pips on a EURJPY long last night for a nice 2% gain in my demo account balance.
After trading for just over a month using the 3 Ducks framework, I’ve managed an 8.5% ROI over 25 trades, with 14 winners and 11 losers - the average winner is about 125% of the average loser. This is almost enough data to be statistically significant, so hopefully I will be going live after another month or so of forward testing.
I will be trying to post most of my trades here, although most will be without screenshots.
I would love to see this thread’s activity increase a bit to generate more discussion like it was a few years ago (I’ve read through most of the thread).
Here’s a link to myfxbook for anyone interested.
Two stop orders filled last night, one long on NZDUSD, and one short on USDCAD as the dollar has continued to show weakness.
The NZD long moved in my favor quickly, and I moved my SL to near break-even before I went to sleep. The USDCAD short filled overnight, and when I woke up this morning, my NZD trade hit my target, and the CAD trade hit my stop-loss, resulting essentially in a wash for the day (I use a 1:1 R:R, and move my stops as the trade moves in my favor).
Both trades met my entry criteria, and I feel good about the process even though the result was a split.
This evening (1:00 - 8:00 GMT), I will be looking for the following:
- A long on NZDUSD upon a break of the .6900 level
- A long on GBPUSD upon a strong break of the 1.5500 major psych level
- A short on USDJPY dependent on a daily close below 118.30 and a break below 118.00
- A short on EURJPY dependent on a daily close below 135.00 and a break below 134.75
- A short on USDCAD dependent on a daily close below 1.2850
I will also be keeping my eye on USDCHF, but I don’t typically trade this pair, and there are plenty of other opportunities to short the dollar.
I will place stop orders on the 0-3 options above that I deem “best”, based on price behavior throughout the rest of the US and early Asian sessions.
Hi Bo Pip, do you keep your risk reward 1:1 for every trade? will be watching your posts with interest.
Yep, I typically will set my stop loss below the last significant swing low, and then set my target an equal distance. If that target has a support/resistance level between it and the current price, I won’t place the order.
As the trade moves in my direction, I will move the stop-loss below the most recent swing low on the 5M chart to decrease my risk per trade. In this manner, I’ve achieved an average win that is greater than my average loss, so even at a 50% win rate, I will profit. Right now, I’m in the ballpark of 58% wins.
As for the pairs I highlighted yesterday, none of them looked proper for entry orders as the early Asian session progressed, so I stayed out of the markets. All of them moved against the ducks - a great reminder that this is a discretionary system, not purely mechanical.
Onward and upwards PoPip, you’ll bag more winning trades just like that one I bet!
Andy
Captain Currency
With most of the pairs I follow consolidating so far this week, I haven’t taken any trades. I’ve placed a few VERY conservative stop orders that were never triggered, and patience has been the name of the game.
Tonight, I’ve got a buy stop placed on USDCAD, which will be filled if price exceeds Wednesday’s high. Right now, the pair is slowly slipping downward, so this looks likely to be another unfilled order.
Hopefully some trends will gain momentum at the end of the week an into next.
UPDATE: The USDCAD long order filled this morning, and immediately took off in the other direction, resulting in a 2% loss.
Hi Popip,
How do you decide on where to place your stops after your pending order? I’m assuming it’s a fixed stop? I’ve been having trouble with my stops, and I tend to place them 5-10 pips from my entry price, with my pending orders usually 5 to 10 pips above the previous high/low on the 5 minute chart. I’m getting stopped out a lot while the trade moves in the predicted direction.
Your stop-loss is waaay to small. I typically use a minimum of 25 pips on all the major pairs. Any pair with more volatility and I would probably use an even bigger one, although I don’t usually trade those.
I tend to place my stop-loss above or below the most recent high/low on the 1H chart, although this is not set in stone. Setting your stop-losses and targets are the difficult part of trading. There is no “ideal” method that will work every time. It’s up to you to practice, record your results, and adjust to try and find a system that gives you consistent profits.
Have you tried setting the stop-losses guided by the 5min charts rather than the hourly charts? If so, have you had much success with it? Setting SL on the 1H charts seems like a lot to risk.
In general, I actually do set my stops based on the 5 minute chart. But I don’t necessarily set them above the “most recent” high or low. Instead, I do the most recent [I]significant[/I] high or low. This generally correlates with the most recent high or low on the 1 hour chart. Placing your stop in this manner will filter out some of the noise and volatility naturally associated with FOREX. Again, this is really the part that is up to you to practice and refine.
If placing wider stops seems to be too much risk, simply decrease your position size. If you trade a small account, I would recommend using a broker that allows you to trade single units of currency - this will allow you to trade the exact position size you want.
For those who have been following my myfxbook, I stayed out of the markets entirely until Friday last week. Thursday night (US), I saw a couple entries that fit my criteria. Both unfortunately were full losses of 2%, dropping my total gain to about 4.5% over six weeks.
Last night, however, things played out in my favor, as I went long on USDCAD and was rewarded handsomely with a 2% gain, bringing my net back up to 6.5%.
It may take another month or so of data collection before I can be reasonably confident that my system is profitable, but school is about to get really tough, so it’s probably a good thing not to have the stress of risking real money while I navigate my way through final projects and exams.
Yep, that can and [I]will[/I] happen, traders gotta be tough as old boots to handle those fake breakouts.
[B]Andy
Captain Currency[/B]
Because of all the news Wednesday and Thursday, I have stayed out of the markets. However, late Tuesday night I placed a successful short on AUDUSD. The price move was so fast (due to news*) that my stop order was filled a few pips lower than I had intended, so I ended up with closer to a 1.5% net gain.
- I realize I had just said I don’t trade the news, but occasionally, for non-dollar related news, I will still place trades if the setups are remarkably good.
Any of you duck hunters looked at GbpAud lately? All lining up nicely
I’ve been shying away from the more volatile pairs for now. I will probably forward test my trading strategy on them on a demo account once I go live with my current system.
I’ve spent some time reviewing my trade history with the 3 ducks (instead of studying for networks exam tomorrow), and I’ve noticed something quite interesting:
As I’ve mentioned, I currently start each trade at a 1:1 R:R ratio, and move my stop as the trade advances in my favor. What I discovered, however, is that only 2 out of my 18 winning trades ever moved more than halfway to my stop-loss.
Therefore, I have decided to open a new demo account with which I will make parallel trades with one exception - I will place the stop-loss exactly half as far from my entry as on the original demo account. I will adjust position size accordingly to still risk 2% with each trade, and my target will remain the same, offering a 1:2 R:R ratio.
The theory is that if a true breakout occurs, it moves strongly in favor of the trade without much retracement. When a fake breakout occurs, it often moves strongly enough in the opposite direction that even a larger stop is likely to be hit. The coming weeks and months will reveal whether this was just a fluke in my previous sample, or if it is something I can take advantage of.
That’s a good idea, as I’ve been placing my stops on the [I]most recent[/I] high, rather than the [I]most significant[/I] high. I’ve pared my position down to 0.01 lots in order to be able to sustain a 2% risk on trade assuming a 20pip SL and a 40pip TP. I’ve been fooling around with the 3 ducks system to try and fit it to my trading style, we’ll see how it goes!
I like this plan. Currently, I want to trade at most once a day, so I’ve shifted my trading style using the 3 ducks approach on the Daily, 4hr and 1hr charts, with trades taken on the 1hr charts (re: fxsnowball’s methodology). I trade in the morning before work at only check those trades the next day, as Captain suggests. They are mostly pending orders, in any case.
I’ve been trying to incorporate some confluence in my trades, so I’m trying to incorporate some candle patterns and general chart patterns like flags/pennants/double-tops/bottoms etc. We’ll see how that goes!
Like a hot knife through butter PoPip, with our momentum/breakout type of trades what we’d really like to see is for the price to break above/below our level (3rd Duck) then continuing to move in the direction of our main 4hr trend (1st Duck)
When you’re wrong you’re wrong! When we get a fake breakout my thinking would be this, it really doesn’t matter if we had a 50 pip stop-loss or a 500 pip stop-loss (I’m exaggerating here) we’re still basically wrong, the breakout didn’t work this time and price is probably shooting off in the opposite direction by now.
Great to see you traders ruminating!
Andy
Captain Currency