lavaman,
Thanks much for your clarifications. Another question, why do we use EMA10 instead of the default EMA14? There isn’t that much difference, is it? Why don’t we add another study, namely MACD as well? I am not certain about the default values and its meanings. Can you explain. I think MACD might be useful. IMHO. What the heck do I know!
tirasong
hi all,
tirasong, maybe you missed it. i gave you the post for the information you wanted but it was within a post. also, i am all about eliminating as many indicators as i can in trying to keep what we do as simple as can be. you are free to add whatever you might like to what you are doing. all i am doing is reporting what i do. if you would notice my recent two additions have no indicators what-so-ever and if you go back and check it out, though i could not tell you exactly, they have been pretty successful. i am not big on keeping statistics on my trading. i am concerned with the only record keeping that really matters, that is the bottom line.
this evening we generated another one and done trade. this time it was a TP trade, which was:
6:50 eol, 1.2885 10X
6:51 long, 1.2885
6:57 moved S/L to 1.2880
7:03 moved S/L to 1.2888
7:04 exit, hit TP, +12.9
february total, +265.1
see you in the morning,
goji, bernie
Hey Bernie and friends,
I just had a question about moving the stop loss level in Oanda. If you’re in the process of moving it, but price goes against you, it will trigger the last place your stop was set right? I just tried it on demo, and that’s how it worked, but I wanted to make sure before I rely on it when trading live. I think part of my problem (well, I know part of my problem - thanks for bringing it to light Bernie) is that I’ve just been too slow moving my stops. This, I think, is due in part to the fact that I think I’ve been scared to have the stop floating (in the process of being moved) when price went against me. I wasn’t sure if it would blow past the floating stop and go further beyond my original stop limit. However, if I can always have the stop “floating” because I know it’s set at the last place I put it, I can always be ready to place it at a new level as price moves. Basically, I can always have the holster open with the gun ready to be drawn (or insert better metaphor here).
I hope this made sense to some. I’m gonna practice my moves on demo tomorrow I think.
hi all,
i was going to ad a post script to my earlier post, then i bumped into lavaman’s. yes, you are right, until you lock in the new S/L, the initial one stays in place. that said, it is important the platform that you are using and also having a good understanding of how it works. this i would identify as one of the major advantages i might have over people who are just learning the system.
now for the post script, for tomorrow only, and it really doesn’t matter much, except that it does give a peak at my personality, i am moving my TP to 13. if you can not beat them, you may as well look them in the eye and join them. that said, BEWARE FRIDAY THE 13th!
until then,
g, b.
Hi lavaman,
I did what you advised from your prior post and see the S/L lines on the chart. However, I just cannot move either lines no matter what I do. Drag it , click and drag, double click and drag, nothing work. What did I do wrong?
tirasong:confused:
Lavaman,
“Basically, I can always have the holster open with the gun ready to be drawn”
Yes, this is what I do, actually. Probably, too fast too early. As soon as an order is filled, I get ready to move the SL. As soon as the server accepts the first SL change, I get ready to move it again and so on. But the “so on” does not happen often, as I get stopped out at the first change 70% of trades.
Unless, the trade is a “No Way Loser”, of course.:eek:
chasingpips -
Yeah, I’m getting it now and it’s working well. I’ve grabbed 17 pips on demo practicing between last night and this morning. Go figure, I switch to fake money and then start making some! Well, I’ll be ready for Monday. It’s funny also, that in 4 months I read about 15 trading books, spend countless hours reading forex bulletin boards and and hundreds more more hours demoing and trading live, yet I still don’t know the ins and outs of my trading platform!
tirasong-
When you see the Stop Loss (red) and Take Profit (green) line on your screen, hover your cursor over it until you see a “hand” instead of an arrow. If you see the hand, right click (left click should work too) and click the window that comes up that says “Modify Stop Loss”, then your SL is “floating” and wherever you click next will be the spot you move it to.
I decided to post my demo trades from last night and this morning. I got some good practice in defensive trading and I think this bodes well for next week. Even though I was profitable in demo today, I’m still glad I didn’t trade live, as a losing day would have surely been a bad start to the weekend. Now I can look toward next week with some optimism.
I read something last night that helped me out in how I think about individual losses. A trader in the book “New Market Wizards” said something like “Just think about each trade as one of the next thousand trades”. It takes a bit of significance out of the loss. Another way to think about this is, if Bernie ends his month with 423 pips instead of 433 pips, is he going to be thinking about those 10 pips? Probably not.
Last Night:
10:05 long at 1.2890, TP of +12.9 at 10:08.
This morning:
7:49 short at 1.2850, +4 at 7:52.
8:59 short at 1.2845, +2 at 8:59.
9:30 long at 1.2850, +1.6 at 9:30.
Today’s Fake Pips: +20.5
Hello everyone,
I got up at about 3am this morning and got into the trading with the goal of getting 8.5pips (to round my Feb. pips to +60, better in one trade) and getting out. I even changed my TP to +8.5 and kept it like that untill I picked up a loser.
So, it did not exactly go as it was planned.
3:10 - short at 1.2910 - exit at +1 (had I waited for 5sec. with moving the SL, would have gotten those 8.5 and quit :mad:);
3:35 - long at 1.2920 - exit at SL -9.9;
~4:00 - short at 1.2905 - exit at +11;
9:30 - long at 1.2850 - THE POWER WENT OFF SOON AFTER THE ORDER WAS FILLED!:mad: Fortunately, I had already moved the SL to +3.5 by that time, but at exit got +2.9.
I quit after such a surprise (the power did not go off in, like, 3 or 4 years), I quit and now I am going to go buy that device that keeps your comp on for a while in case the power goes off.
So, +5 for the day, +56.5 for the month.
Good luck to everyone.
Lavaman,
“If you see the hand, right click (left click should work too) and click the window that comes up that says “Modify Stop Loss”, then your SL is “floating” and wherever you click next will be the spot you move it to.”
Look, I’m not 100% sure what you mean saying “your SL is floating”, but if this is what I think, then NO, your SL is NOT floating, it is always fixed where the server accepted it last time. Until it ACCEPTS a new SL.
Sorry if I got you wrong:)
hi all,
i couldn’t find my head set so i have purchased another. now you know, i’ll find the other one very soon! what a morning. i have just quit. i will admit to something today that breaks from my normal friday routine. normally, i would have quit before this, BUT I GOT GREEDY, and this one time, it actually worked out OK. here’s the funny part, i am dealing with the last trade, which i started at 9:38 am. i didn’t enter this trade until 10:02 am and it immediately took a dive. i think it dropped 8.6, but i might be off. a S/L trade at that point would have had me quitting for the day at +13, on friday the 13th. low and behold, it turned around and i wound up with exactly what i wanted for the trade and this day. i hit 35+, which will put me at 300+ for the month. this is all funny, strange funny, to me because when i quit last night, this is exactly what i envisioned for this morning. i will say this, it took quite a bit to get here. i apologize ahead of time for any errors that may have occurred in my note taking, as it seemed i did a lot this morning! the trades:
8:25 eol, 1.2855 10X
8:30 no major news this morn
8:40 long, 1.2855
8:44 exit, 1.2863, had been to 1.2867-1, +8
I THOUGHT ABOUT QUITTING, BUT DIDN’T
8:55 eos, 1.2845 10X
8:59 short, 1.2845
9:00 exit, 1.2832, hit TP, +13, +21
I THOUGHT ABOUT QUITTING AGAIN, BUT DIDN’T
9:15 eos, 1.2825 PV
9:18 eol, 1.2850 PV
9:25 long became, 10X
9:30 long, 1.2850, CANCELED SHORT
9:30 moved S/L to 1.2852
9:30 exit, 1.2852, had been to 1.2857-8, +2, +23
I THOUGHT ABOUT QUITTING AGAIN, BUT DIDN’T
WHAT A SEQUENCE!
9:38 eos, 1.2830 PV
9:45 canceled short
9:45 eol, 1.2855 10X
9:51 eos, 1.2830, PV
9:55 short became 10X, and the 9:40 candle became a goji candle
NOW, I COULDN’T QUIT, I WANTED TO SEE HOW THIS PLAYED OUT!
10:02 long, 1.2855, CANCELED SHORT
10:03-04, CAME CLOSE TO S/L, IF TAKEN -10, WHICH WOULD = +13 FOR THE DAY. S/L DID NOT GET HIT.
10:06 moved S/L to 1.28455
10:09 moved S/L to 1.2857-5
10:09 moved S/L to 1.2861
10:09 exit, 1.2868, hit TP, +13 +36
I THOUGHT ABOUT QUITTING, AND THIS TIME-----I DID!
on this friday the 13th, i was very lucky. i probably should not have gotten greedy and pushed for a certain profit. this is one of those things that you should do as i say, and not as i do. NOW I WONDER WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED HAD I NOT MOVED THE TP TO +13, just for today only???
have a great weekend all. i am off to help my father celebrate his 91st birthday.
goji, bernie
ps. oh, i almost forgot, february’s total, +301.1
Chasingpips-
You’re right, my wording was confusing, it made sense in my head though. Hopefully tirasong didn’t get too mixed up by that. I understand the stop loss will always be the last place it was set, even if you’re in the process of moving it. I meant “floating” as being the time between clicking “modify” and clicking again to set it in the new spot.
Bernie, I probably missed something, could you please explain what “10X” means? Thanks
hi all,
chasing, i have been trying to identify the system that produced the trade. thus, 10X = 10 cross/close, PV = peak and valley, GC = goji candle. see you monday morn.
g, b.
Thanks again for your kind explanations. Hopefully there will be more questions asked on other aspects of the Oanda software. Much obliged and God bless.
tirasong:)
Thanks to Bernie and the other participants in this thread for a very interesting discussion and some mighty fine trading results.
There have been a fair few quizzical comments about how Oanda’s fill on some orders differs from the limit orders (whether they were stop or take profit) that were placed.
These price discrepancies occur normally due to two possible reasons: lag and slippage.
Lag is the time taken for your order to be sent from your computer over the net to Oanda’s server. If you place a market order then lag happens. While you might have bought or sold at a certain price on your computer, by the time that your order is received by Oanda price has moved and thus you are filled at a different price.
Since the goji method only uses limit orders lag is not going to be an issue. Limit orders reside on Oanda’s servers and are executed when price meets the limit order level.
The limit order is converted into a market order and then processed. Since the conversion into a market order takes place directly on Oanda’s servers there is no lag as part of the equation.
Two orders must be matched before a trade is considered to be complete. If you have placed a buy limit order, then that buy limit order is converted into a buy market order which must be matched with a sell market order for the trade to be completed.
There are only a finite number of buy and sell orders at a given price point. If all sell market orders at that price point are matched up with buy market orders before your buy order is gotten to then price must move to complete the matching process.
Price thus moves up and you are matched with a seller at a higher level. Your buy order will thus be recorded as having taken place at a different price level than you had originally placed it at.
This price discrepancy is known as slippage and is part and parcel of trading. Sometimes it works for you and sometimes against.
Someone also queried in this thread what the Bounds setting is for in Oanda’s order placing dialog.
The Bounds setting allows you to specify exactly how much slippage you are willing to stomach. If you set your Default Bounds to be 3 pips, then you will tolerate no more than 3 pips of slippage on your resting limit order. If the slippage the Oanda server wants to fill your order at is more than the 3 pips it will reject your order and not fill it.
The Default Bounds auto fills in the Lower Bound and Upper Bound settings on the Order dialog. You can set different slippage for each direction here if you so wish.
I’d also like to point out one other observation that is worth making for anyone either trying to back test this strategy or trying to replicate it with a broker other than Oanda.
It deals with the way that Oanda does their charting. You will find that most other brokers have chart packages that show either the bid or ask price as their chart data.
Oanda only ever shows average price. This is important to keep in mind as the high, low and close values shown on an Oanda chart are going to different than another broker’s charts which shows bid prices (not even taking into account the different price feeds that both are using).
I suspect that Oanda only allows average price to be shown due to the way they are keen on changing the spread. It is thus impossible to know what the spread was at some point in the past from Oanda’s charts, thus backtest with caution.
THANK YOU COLIN,
your report answers some questions some of us have had over the last several weeks. i appreciate your thorough explanation. i am sure many of us will be helped by this information.
goji, bernie
Forex Trading Plan
What is a Trading plan?
A Forex trading plan is basically a business plan except a trading plan is for traders that want to succeed in forex. If you are serious about being a trader you will have a plan. This is what you should have in your plan.
Overall Purpose of why you are trading and what you want to accomplish
Goals that you can measure your progress to see if you are winning or losing. What steps you must take to see your goals become successful and
A system that you have developed to include the trading strategy, money management, Trading routine, and the time to be in the market.
Set your mindset write down that you will be successful and you will follow the rules and you will not give up when times are difficult. I know that this will be difficult but I know what it takes to succeed and I will do what is right by my trading plan. The plan is king I will follow the plan. The plan rules I wrote it therefore, I will follow my plan, not my feelings or emotions. My feelings and emotions will lie to me but my plan that I wrote works and by following I will have evidence and proof that it works.
Weaknesses Write them down and come up with a strategy to defeat your own weaknesses. Don�t be a fool we all have weaknesses and those that are successful will identify them and deal with them. Set up ways to overcome them, for example if you have difficulty following your money management rules find write that down and tell yourself today I will follow my money management rules. If I have to get my mother to sit with me and make sure I follow them I will. If I have to get approval from my broker to make sure that I am following my plan I will. So what I mean is don� t let yourself cause failure. Make sure that your weaknesses don�t take you down. Do whatever it takes to beat those weaknesses.
Trading Journal it is important to have a trading journal. It takes discipline to maintain a journal yes it is hard it takes about 5 minutes once you set it up. Make it part of your routine. Writing down what trades you make which pair, what price, notes as to why the signals you got the reason it looked good. As you do this you will begin to learn where you messed up. You will begin to notice that when you don�t follow rules you get creamed. The reason I do this is because it teaches me to follow the rules. I hope you are beginning to see a theme here. Trading is not a gambling event to get rich quick. Trading is creating a system and following it. The idea is simple, but it is oh so hard to pull it off. I use a spread sheet for my trade journal.
Casey Stubbs–Winners Edge Trading
HI ALL,
HERE IS YOUR SATURDAY MORNING LESSON, HAVE a GREAT WEEKEND.
G, B.
Just turn on the price overlays of High Ask and Low Bid (and Low Ask and High Bid if you want). It makes the chart ugly, but then if you hover over a bar, up in the corner it will show what the actual high/low bid and ask prices were for the bar, which is all you need to know if an order/TP/SL would have been hit.
I was reading the parameters on the beta trailing stop feature that is now available to all on the Oanda FXGame platform. I am curious to test this and see if it might be of some benefit to those trading the Goji setup(s) as a way of potentially gaining more pips on these trades. Granted, a high percentage of the trade setups are exited prior to the target TP because of manually moving the stop at trader determined points. But for those trades where a momentum wave is caught the trailing stop feature could be a bonus.
http://fxtrade.oanda.com/fileadmin/images/fxtrade/TrailingStops.pdf
So here is how I would probably configure my defaults:
A. SL = 10
B. TP = 20-50 (haven’t determined this but most likely doesn’t matter)
c. TS = 12.5 (minimum setting for TS is 10 pips)
I would continue to manage my trades by moving the SL as the price moves in my favor. So this coming week I am going to test to see what happens to the TS when you manually adjust the SL. I suspect that the TS will be adjusted in correlation with the new SL. If this is the case then the TS feature will most likely not be of real value. I will post the results on Monday.