[B]Welcome babypips forex friends. Welcome to my News Announcement trading journal.
I have been trading FX on and off for 4 years, with negative or break-even Y-o-Y capital growth outcomes in 3 of those 4 years. With the increasing demands on my time from work and last ditch desperation, I have decided to try to conquer the much maligned bubonic rat of currency trading: [U]the infamous News Release[/U]. :58:
I invite you to join me on my adventure into this mysterious world of highly volatile, adrenaline pumping, over-leveraged, recklessly dangerous, account balance wipe-out trading. And I welcome your comments, trading ideas, experiences and general banter on the subject.
I will be using a proprietary system that I have forward tested on my demo platform with [B]Alpari[/B]. To be fair, it hasn’t been that bad so far, with the exception of losses resulting from Execution issues:
[ul]
[li]banana peel stop losses
[/li][li]spreads as wide as my computer screen
[/li][/ul]
So, with a new broker offering ‘guaranteed’ fixed spreads on certain pairs, even in news periods - [B]City Index[/B]; here we go!!! :57:
Please don’t be shy to join in on the poll on this thread, I think it would be useful for anyone here to get a sense of overall outcomes from news release trading. Thank you.[/B]
[B]Goals[/B]: No specific long term profit/growth target, will take whatever the market decides to give me.
Before I forget
[B][U]Basic Info:[/U][/B]
[B]Leverage[/B]: 1:400
[B]Broker Restrictions[/B]: 1m - 2m max trade size depending on pair
[B][U]Keys:[/U][/B]
[B]ROI[/B]: Return on the amount invested (in this case the money used to enter the trade(s))
[B]ROA[/B]: Return on account balance
[B]RiskOI[/B]: Risk on amount invested (as above)
[B]RiskOA[/B]: Risk on account balance
Any feedback you have on experiences, good or bad with News trading and or this Journal are welcome. In particular;
[ul]
[li]Your setups and how they played out
[/li][li]Things to think about
[/li][li]Situations to avoid
[/li][li]Managing risk
[/li][li]Maximizing profit
[/li][/ul]
[B]Notes[/B]: The Market was very shaky just before the announcement and pushed through pre-set levels before they could be executed. This worked in my favour on this occasion but will look to mitigate this risk in the future.
[B]Notes[/B]: Good Week. The single largest deliberate percentage return, I have achieved via trading in any week, month or year. It looks like I jumped onto a lucky streak right from the start. Going forward: need to simulate all possible lose scenarios and tighten up risk management, the last trade could have been problematic.
Things to think about:
[ul]
[li]How to predict and possibly reduce slippage level on Stops - Need traded Tick-by-Tick data to model prob estimates
[/li][li]How to overcome broker max trade size restrictions - possibly programmatically with trade(s) duplicating EA on MT4?
[/li][li]Need to improve communication speeds with broker server
[/li][/ul]
The second point is important as leveraging up to my account balance, I could have achieved closer to +128% growth
Suspect that main losses will be the result of execution issues, including communication lags with the broker and slippage. Also think that most REAL losses with be big ones; account wiping charitable donations, therefore it would probably be wise to withdraw all wins as they arise and compound less frequently.
GDP m/m on [B]CAD[/B] [B]and[/B] Core Durable Goods Orders m/m on [B]USD[/B] [B]and[/B] Final GDP q/q on [B]USD[/B] at 13-30-00 on 23/12/2014 looks promising for the USDCAD; though the announcement(s) on both currencies causes worry.
I think GDP on CAD will be the main one, so might look at a CAD/X or X/CAD cross with a low fixed spread
Order Open Time: 13-29-56
Order Close Time: 13-30-11 (15 Seconds)
PnL = [B]-£17[/B]
Return % = [B]-0.18%[/B]
Notes: Major execution problem on the TP and 7 pips slippage on the SL! had to manually close trade because of execution issues. Very concerned about this moving forward. Should have realised £440 profit based on my setups and market movement on the announcement.
That’s all for now folks,nothing to report until January 9th.
[B]Have a merry Christmas (Holiday), and a profitable new year![/B]
The more I read through the posts on this forum, the more I come to the conclusion that for the vast majority of people, trading is a very expensive and time consuming hobby, rather than any real stab at making long term capital growth or income.
The vary nature of currency trading, with no central exchange to check broker price manipulation, no real insight to market spiking professional money infusion and probably in the most part, no real and comprehensive understanding (impossible task) of how a myriad of known and unknown variables will interact to move a market.
Who are we following? The real economy? are we trying to process all the factors that contribute to the appreciation or depreciation of a currency versus another, or are we trying to ride the multiplier effect of institutional speculators.
Whatever the case, the task is immense. It seems to be that taking a rational approach to predict price movement as improbable long term success there is, is only the first and ironically simplest element of the trade to success equation.
We also have to contend with; self discipline, greed, fear and many other psychological and intellectual challenges to win any trophies in this sport. And with the benefit of some exposure to professional currency trading with a major investment bank (with far more, research, information, execution, liquidity and capital edge than you shake a stick at) that still manage to loss money, albeit less frequently and or consistently despite not having to overcome all the obstacles stand alone retail traders do.
Taking a long hard look at my trading screens from along distance away, the prospects are not so convincing.
However! I for one. Am still addicted to chasing that crazy and improbably dream. Albeit with a new outlook; taking trading for what it seems to be in reality: A great opportunity to make an impress return on a small amount of money, for a short while. Money that should immediately be taken out and invested somewhere else.
[B]Notes[/B]: Major execution problem, SL did not initiate on a trade and had to wait for a rebound which left me exposed to account wipe out, if the market moved against me. Fortunately everything worked out on this occasion but quite clearly a pattern here that needs to be looked at.
Think best to apply some discipline and stick to my already vetted ‘safe’ trades and only those with a minimum 3:1 r/r ratio. Also probably better not trying to overcome broker trade restrictions by manually inputting multiple trades; obviously this form of trading is time critical to the second.
[B]Number of trades [/B] = 5
[B]Period[/B] = 19 Days over the Christmas period & New Year
No draw-down, discrepancies between closing and opening balances in between trades are the result of small losses made whilst trying out different approaches to executing trades & testing best TP and SL parameters + their execution.
[ul]
[li][B]Negatives[/B]: Need to look at execution risks very closely
[/li][li][B]Positives[/B]: Very good scale up potential if i can overcome broker restrictions, last 5 trades performance = 327% growth, if I could compound effectively
[/li][/ul]
Very concerned about execution problems,particularly on the pre-set TP and SL levels. I suspect one of these levels with either not set on time and or execute properly (as has happened before) which may leave my account exposed to wipe-out if the market moves against my position(s) in an aggressive way. And by the very aggressive nature of news release movements, thinking about options to limit overall risk of wipe-out on that inevitable trade.
ATM will add an EA that will close all positions if and when the account balance equity drops to a pre-set level. I hope this will act as another backstop should the SL(s) not initiate and or execute properly. Will start using V2 with this update from today.
Still need to model all lose scenarios and find the best risk management solutions for them: noticed that my best trading outcomes in the past were those where i focused on the negative what-ifs.
Hope I don’t speak to soon: so far so okay, trying not to roll out the 12 month projection excel sheet.
Hi Friend not so shabby. I missed a few announcements; some things came up. Very annoying looking at the price action charts after the events to see what could have been made.
AUD/USD Employment change (on AUD) on the 15th was a 100% growth er: annoying.
Have you started with News Release trading?, I hope the info I gave you was useful.
