Finished the week early due to the bank holidays - ended up with 4 Trades open using a very straight forward strategy that looks for breaks of support/resistance or a pullback and a reversion to trend. Demo account working well - up 40pc in a month - starting to use it on the live acct means that after a drawdown the live acct is approx break-even for the month....
Need to verify the ea's are set up correctly before Tuesday, doing s fair amount of traveling this month so having these automated would be a big help
Need to verify the ea's are set up correctly before Tuesday, doing s fair amount of traveling this month so having these automated would be a big help
Attachments
Last edited:
Apr 3rd. No cable trade yesterday due to BH - took +20 pips this morning.
EAs on the virtual server FNT worked fine, FMT took a small trade so need to investigate this further as to what settings need to be changed
Took a long trade on EUR/USD yesterday for +80 pips - usual 4hr trade window set up - opened at 14810 and closed at 14890
At the moment I have open orders on AUD and NZD to buy and CHF and CAD to sell on breaks above/below recent S/R levels - on the assumption that the USD will resume it's steady progress downwards, but none triggered yet -
EAs on the virtual server FNT worked fine, FMT took a small trade so need to investigate this further as to what settings need to be changed
Took a long trade on EUR/USD yesterday for +80 pips - usual 4hr trade window set up - opened at 14810 and closed at 14890
At the moment I have open orders on AUD and NZD to buy and CHF and CAD to sell on breaks above/below recent S/R levels - on the assumption that the USD will resume it's steady progress downwards, but none triggered yet -
Trading 4 hr charts:
USD/CHF - took a short after it broke below recent support - took it down to just below S1 where it seemed to be stuck
USDCAD - Took a long after it broke above recent resistance -
EUR/GBP I was long on this it went in to profit, swung wildly back in to a loss and then eventually came back -
EUR/USD - I was long on this - after it broke above recent resistance, but it reversed and was stopped out - I had moved the stop to below PP after it went above which turned out to save greater losses.
Early morning Cable - no trade today manually although the EA took it and lost the 30 pips.. this seems to be in line with others so it is doing what it's supposed to do... and since I am confident in the long term viability of this strategy will move the EA's to a live account next week..
So account now heading in the right direction again....
Attached are the two Euro trades
USD/CHF - took a short after it broke below recent support - took it down to just below S1 where it seemed to be stuck
USDCAD - Took a long after it broke above recent resistance -
EUR/GBP I was long on this it went in to profit, swung wildly back in to a loss and then eventually came back -
EUR/USD - I was long on this - after it broke above recent resistance, but it reversed and was stopped out - I had moved the stop to below PP after it went above which turned out to save greater losses.
Early morning Cable - no trade today manually although the EA took it and lost the 30 pips.. this seems to be in line with others so it is doing what it's supposed to do... and since I am confident in the long term viability of this strategy will move the EA's to a live account next week..
So account now heading in the right direction again....
Attached are the two Euro trades
Attachments
Taken a short on EUR/USD according to NNT rules - we shall see how that goes, although I don't trade on what 'might' happen the USD is probably due a bounce and it doesn't make a lot of sense for the Euro to continue higher with all the problems in the Eurozone.
Picked up +31 pips on a short of Cable - with the volatility etc that we have seen and news out today I'm happy to leave the Euro trade running (as it's meant to be a long term trade) but sit the rest of the day out and call it a week..- if the account continues to grow at the same rate I should reach the next stage of 6k by the end of the month when I will increase it to 10k ..here's hoping it will
Picked up +31 pips on a short of Cable - with the volatility etc that we have seen and news out today I'm happy to leave the Euro trade running (as it's meant to be a long term trade) but sit the rest of the day out and call it a week..- if the account continues to grow at the same rate I should reach the next stage of 6k by the end of the month when I will increase it to 10k ..here's hoping it will
Weekly update
Traveling last week so not much trading going on.. Ea's chugging away on early morning cable trades, just losing ... But now the cash has arrived will set up a live account with this running, the are always good and bad weeks but long term they should make money. Signed up to autofocus as this gets great reviews and an Ea on the way means I can hopefully add this to auto trades at some point, leaving the main acct for longer term trends.
Nnt short on eur/usd made some money last week, as did a couple of cable trades and a buy on uchf. A long on usdjpy stopped out, so up a bit anyway...
Plans for next week.. Set up live EA trading with 10k capital, can stay in bed an extra 40 mins, continue using 4 hr charts to find longer term setups, and get up to speed on AF.
Traveling last week so not much trading going on.. Ea's chugging away on early morning cable trades, just losing ... But now the cash has arrived will set up a live account with this running, the are always good and bad weeks but long term they should make money. Signed up to autofocus as this gets great reviews and an Ea on the way means I can hopefully add this to auto trades at some point, leaving the main acct for longer term trends.
Nnt short on eur/usd made some money last week, as did a couple of cable trades and a buy on uchf. A long on usdjpy stopped out, so up a bit anyway...
Plans for next week.. Set up live EA trading with 10k capital, can stay in bed an extra 40 mins, continue using 4 hr charts to find longer term setups, and get up to speed on AF.
Monday:
For some reason the EA's weren't active - so although that saved me from a loss need to make sure I have this running the previous evening....
Overall the general downward trend of USD, which has allowed some nice straightforward reversion to trend trades on the 4hr window, seems to be in reverse, for how long who knows. Therefore I am now using my alternate strategy for looking for short term trades. With these, I am looking to risk around 1% and looking for a RR of at least 1:1. So here is an example of a trade today (only one so far although AUD/USD looks like it may be setting up for a sell below 10525)
Chart 1 shows that USDCAD has broken out of a recent area of congestion - denoted by the box = to the upside.
I am therefore now looking for buys
In the 5 minute window - I have RSI enabled - which needs to be between 50-70 for a buy (or 30-50 for a sell) - the other two indicators I like to see positive for a buy
I will then look to buy above a recent resistance level, but somewhere near Pivot point
Stop will go 10 pips below PP - and profit target 10 points below S1 - in this example profit ratio is around 1:1
Chart 2 shows a buy
After making 50% of target, i sold half and moved stop loss to BE - for a 'free trade' - as one of the rules for trading should be to take money from the market when it is offered
Chart 3 shows it went on to make PT and then went sailing through R1- but we are not supposed to worry about leaving money on the table
For some reason the EA's weren't active - so although that saved me from a loss need to make sure I have this running the previous evening....
Overall the general downward trend of USD, which has allowed some nice straightforward reversion to trend trades on the 4hr window, seems to be in reverse, for how long who knows. Therefore I am now using my alternate strategy for looking for short term trades. With these, I am looking to risk around 1% and looking for a RR of at least 1:1. So here is an example of a trade today (only one so far although AUD/USD looks like it may be setting up for a sell below 10525)
Chart 1 shows that USDCAD has broken out of a recent area of congestion - denoted by the box = to the upside.
I am therefore now looking for buys
In the 5 minute window - I have RSI enabled - which needs to be between 50-70 for a buy (or 30-50 for a sell) - the other two indicators I like to see positive for a buy
I will then look to buy above a recent resistance level, but somewhere near Pivot point
Stop will go 10 pips below PP - and profit target 10 points below S1 - in this example profit ratio is around 1:1
Chart 2 shows a buy
After making 50% of target, i sold half and moved stop loss to BE - for a 'free trade' - as one of the rules for trading should be to take money from the market when it is offered
Chart 3 shows it went on to make PT and then went sailing through R1- but we are not supposed to worry about leaving money on the table
Attachments
EA's now active - FMT NT today - FNT out for -30
Running the autofocusFX on MT platform as well, just on Cable at the moment and monitoring until I get a better feel for it - I put a small stake on a buy signal it put out and sold at +20 pips (went on to hit the stated PT so good sign)
Also placed a (hopefully) longer term buy on USDJPY - moved above recent resistance on 4 hr chart @8140 - in at 8152
Running the autofocusFX on MT platform as well, just on Cable at the moment and monitoring until I get a better feel for it - I put a small stake on a buy signal it put out and sold at +20 pips (went on to hit the stated PT so good sign)
Also placed a (hopefully) longer term buy on USDJPY - moved above recent resistance on 4 hr chart @8140 - in at 8152
ok - not a good couple of days - USDJPY, AUD and NZD all went against the trade for 2% loss each - and the EA triggered for -30 pips again...
no trades on at the moment - market seems very volatile so going to concentrate on making sure I understand AFX properly as this I see as a good 'scalping' tool for these types of markets, and want to wait for a longer term trend to reestablish before putting on any swing trades - i.e. stick to scalping some pips with a 1% SL
no trades on at the moment - market seems very volatile so going to concentrate on making sure I understand AFX properly as this I see as a good 'scalping' tool for these types of markets, and want to wait for a longer term trend to reestablish before putting on any swing trades - i.e. stick to scalping some pips with a 1% SL
ok - end of another week.... bit of a mixed bag.. Swing trades didn't seem to be working so haven't done too many of those, hopefully we will get some nice trends setting up next week - so main active account is slightly down so far this month.
EA's on the SLM live account, must have picked about the worse week to go live with the early morning cable trades, currently running 2% stop loss, may change this to 1% until we see a clear direction for Cable
AFX, feel like this was a good investment so far, made some pips and also the strategy is fairly straight forward and covers other things to trade which may make some nice non-correlated trades, just trading small amounts at the moment until I am more comfortable with it, but hoping the EA will be available soon and can automate this as well, as the results to date seem promising. Trying to decide whether to get the Kangaroo-EA or not - probably will next week, then that will give me a mixed portfolio of EA's to run, and I can concentrate on the longer term trade strategies where I can ride trends for a few days at a time.
Next week : Looking for Eur/USD to remain weak, other than that wait and see, at a conference all next week so not sure how much trading will get done
EA's on the SLM live account, must have picked about the worse week to go live with the early morning cable trades, currently running 2% stop loss, may change this to 1% until we see a clear direction for Cable
AFX, feel like this was a good investment so far, made some pips and also the strategy is fairly straight forward and covers other things to trade which may make some nice non-correlated trades, just trading small amounts at the moment until I am more comfortable with it, but hoping the EA will be available soon and can automate this as well, as the results to date seem promising. Trying to decide whether to get the Kangaroo-EA or not - probably will next week, then that will give me a mixed portfolio of EA's to run, and I can concentrate on the longer term trade strategies where I can ride trends for a few days at a time.
Next week : Looking for Eur/USD to remain weak, other than that wait and see, at a conference all next week so not sure how much trading will get done
won't be much trading this week due to attending a conference - so:
No Early morning Cable trades triggered
Eur/USd short - heading down nicely - hopefully another similar day tomorrow will see PT hit
Followed on AFX for a while today and took 2 trades - one stopped out the other showing slight profit (short on FTSE) - hopefully the two will canecl each other out but only staking small amount at the moment
No Early morning Cable trades triggered
Eur/USd short - heading down nicely - hopefully another similar day tomorrow will see PT hit
Followed on AFX for a while today and took 2 trades - one stopped out the other showing slight profit (short on FTSE) - hopefully the two will canecl each other out but only staking small amount at the moment
Quick update - main trading account now back to where it was a few months ago thanks to having 4 trades in a row go against me...but will stick to the strategy with reduced stake (1%) until the market seems to be behaving itself again and established a clear trend
So - market has moved quite a lot already today (late start) - so no obvious trades to take . EA took a long on Cable but closed out at -10 pips
Kangaroo EA has been fairly quiet but has taken a couple of trades for a 1% profit
Will monitor the AFFX forum to see if there are any good trades setting up but otherwise a quiet day
So - market has moved quite a lot already today (late start) - so no obvious trades to take . EA took a long on Cable but closed out at -10 pips
Kangaroo EA has been fairly quiet but has taken a couple of trades for a 1% profit
Will monitor the AFFX forum to see if there are any good trades setting up but otherwise a quiet day
ok - back from holidays and travel now so hopefully can trade properly until Mid-July (when I am off again along with most of the real traders so want to avoid trading this quiet period while I'm away as lots of people recommend)
Recap -
EA's are operating fine - took a number of trades while I was out last week which worked out so account is now slightly above BE, will leave this to run and monitor closely, but system is running FMT, FNT and Kangaroo EAs
AFFX - there seem to be quite a few stop outs on this system when monitoring, so will hold off trading this live until I have a better handle on which trades to take
Didn't trade this morning as I got back late yesterday and didn't have time to see what the market is doing, so this instead is a recap of the strategy as I am using it at the moment -
early morning Cable - have enough at stake with the EA's on this so won't be trading this manually so long as they are working live
Friday Pm or weekend - Check currency pairs on weekly charts looking for continuation of a trend - Place a no-touch bet on any that qualify and note pairs for highest potential trades during the week on the 4 hr charts (ie those that seem to be in a strong trend at the weekly level)
Looking for trend continuations:
look at 4 hr candles for clear trend direction - this is more visual, but need to be making HH/HL or LH/LL, and be able to draw a line connecting at least 3 points - and which are currently going through a (hopefully temporary) reversal or pause of trend, where you can draw a line at S/R level that has formed. Place limit order at a price which would represent a continuation of trend (i.e reversal or pause is over), with a stop the other side of the highest/lowest point of reversal - calculate pips to ensure trade is < 2% of equity and initial target of 2:1 profit. Try to leave trade (i.e don't actively watch it)
Looking for trend breakouts:
7am - As I go through each currency pair in the 4 hour charts for above, if they appear to be trading for a while without a clear trend, then note the last major support resistance level (at least 5 candles trading within previous engulfing candle then the high and low of said candle are S/R level to look for) - then look for trades in the direction of the break out when it occurs, as below:
Short term trades - using information from above select currency pair(s) to trade, i.e. has just broken out of a congestion area where it has been for at least 24 hours (the 6 4hr candles), and in which direction, open 5 minute window with PP, 50 MA + RSI. Look to take a trade in direction of trend as close to PP as possible, stop loss other side of PP or days low/high. Make sure pair has not moved more than 60 pips already in direction of trade, is the right side of MA and RSI is > 50% for buy or < for sell. First profit target 15 pips, then move stop to 50% of original risk. Second profit target 30 pips or 5 pips before S/Rx levels. If still in trade, move stop to BE and monitor trade to take profit on a discretionary basis
Evening - look at NNT potential setup
Recap -
EA's are operating fine - took a number of trades while I was out last week which worked out so account is now slightly above BE, will leave this to run and monitor closely, but system is running FMT, FNT and Kangaroo EAs
AFFX - there seem to be quite a few stop outs on this system when monitoring, so will hold off trading this live until I have a better handle on which trades to take
Didn't trade this morning as I got back late yesterday and didn't have time to see what the market is doing, so this instead is a recap of the strategy as I am using it at the moment -
early morning Cable - have enough at stake with the EA's on this so won't be trading this manually so long as they are working live
Friday Pm or weekend - Check currency pairs on weekly charts looking for continuation of a trend - Place a no-touch bet on any that qualify and note pairs for highest potential trades during the week on the 4 hr charts (ie those that seem to be in a strong trend at the weekly level)
Looking for trend continuations:
look at 4 hr candles for clear trend direction - this is more visual, but need to be making HH/HL or LH/LL, and be able to draw a line connecting at least 3 points - and which are currently going through a (hopefully temporary) reversal or pause of trend, where you can draw a line at S/R level that has formed. Place limit order at a price which would represent a continuation of trend (i.e reversal or pause is over), with a stop the other side of the highest/lowest point of reversal - calculate pips to ensure trade is < 2% of equity and initial target of 2:1 profit. Try to leave trade (i.e don't actively watch it)
Looking for trend breakouts:
7am - As I go through each currency pair in the 4 hour charts for above, if they appear to be trading for a while without a clear trend, then note the last major support resistance level (at least 5 candles trading within previous engulfing candle then the high and low of said candle are S/R level to look for) - then look for trades in the direction of the break out when it occurs, as below:
Short term trades - using information from above select currency pair(s) to trade, i.e. has just broken out of a congestion area where it has been for at least 24 hours (the 6 4hr candles), and in which direction, open 5 minute window with PP, 50 MA + RSI. Look to take a trade in direction of trend as close to PP as possible, stop loss other side of PP or days low/high. Make sure pair has not moved more than 60 pips already in direction of trade, is the right side of MA and RSI is > 50% for buy or < for sell. First profit target 15 pips, then move stop to 50% of original risk. Second profit target 30 pips or 5 pips before S/Rx levels. If still in trade, move stop to BE and monitor trade to take profit on a discretionary basis
Evening - look at NNT potential setup
rather scrappy start to the week - took a few trades in favour of Euro which promptly went negative, ended up selling out at small profits - except EurGBP which made a nice profit
Early morning Cable trades - stayed out yesterday and sells on both came good today so up on these
Kangaroo doing it's thing with Aud/USD at the moment - wildly in the red but it did that last week and ended up with a small profit so fingers crossed it will do the same today
Not much in the way of clear trends - expect USD/CHF to continue downwards but stuck in a range at the moment - AUD/USD looks like a sell (which is ironic since kangaroo went long) and Euro looks to be heading higher in spite of gravity (you'd think the imminent bankruptcy of Greece would put a stop to it) - so would hope for long setups against JPY/USD/GBP
Early morning Cable trades - stayed out yesterday and sells on both came good today so up on these
Kangaroo doing it's thing with Aud/USD at the moment - wildly in the red but it did that last week and ended up with a small profit so fingers crossed it will do the same today
Not much in the way of clear trends - expect USD/CHF to continue downwards but stuck in a range at the moment - AUD/USD looks like a sell (which is ironic since kangaroo went long) and Euro looks to be heading higher in spite of gravity (you'd think the imminent bankruptcy of Greece would put a stop to it) - so would hope for long setups against JPY/USD/GBP
So the obvious is slowly sinking in that my 4 hr trend trades, which worked so well for most of April and May, stop working when the market doesn't kindly continue trending - looking at the weekly charts most currency pairs I track have not shown a continuation of a trend at the higher timeframe- with the notable exception of NZD/USD. So a 4hr window trade system for all seasons is clearly not ready for live trading as yet.... looking at Lindencourt system as a possible addition to the trading arsenal but need to ensure a clear way of seeing when one trading system will stop working and another starting (trending vs range/channel)
EA's - Cable trades working well but not well enough to offset a huge drawdown on Kangaroo - so slightly down this week (about 4%)
Live short term trading - slightly up (2%) - trying to take fewer trades with higher probabilities of success, not seeing too many setups at the moment.
EA's - Cable trades working well but not well enough to offset a huge drawdown on Kangaroo - so slightly down this week (about 4%)
Live short term trading - slightly up (2%) - trying to take fewer trades with higher probabilities of success, not seeing too many setups at the moment.
This working for a living lark is getting in the way of trading too much at the moment - early meetings mean I haven't been able to do much live trading - had one NNT trade go against me...
Last week the Kangaroo EA had a nasty drawdown, luckily the early morning Cable trades seem to be behaving so on the road to recovery
Longer term trades - haven't seen much to take in the short time I have had to look, so have avoided them but hopefully get back to that tomorrow
Last week the Kangaroo EA had a nasty drawdown, luckily the early morning Cable trades seem to be behaving so on the road to recovery
Longer term trades - haven't seen much to take in the short time I have had to look, so have avoided them but hopefully get back to that tomorrow
Recap for the end of the week:
EA's - Almost recovered from the drawdown - hopefully next week will be the same so that I can show a profit of some level on the automated trading for the month. Have until the end of the month on AFFX trial, and will implement the EA for this at some point in the future to have a portfolio running on autopilot (but will switch them off mid-July when I go on holiday for 2 weeks as this is traditionally a bad time to trade). Currently running FMT, FNT and Kangaroo
Short term (scalp/day).. slightly down here...but again recovering and have been sticking to the plan so hopefully this is just a 'part of business' drawdown which can also be recovered from so that I can show a profit for the month...
Long term (4hr) EOD/early morning setups.. The trend following system kind of blew up when the market stopped trending (surprise)... clearly I need a number of strategies that between them can cope with changing market conditions - so a trading plan that will hopefully be some form of combination of looking for setups according to Snapback-FX (which I have been a trial participant for), NNT and the Lindencourt strategies - so aim over the next4 weeks before holiday is to have a tested trading plan to implement live when I get back (this with the exception of some NNT trades has been on a demo account)
Will get back to posting planned trades and charts with results next week time permitting...
EA's - Almost recovered from the drawdown - hopefully next week will be the same so that I can show a profit of some level on the automated trading for the month. Have until the end of the month on AFFX trial, and will implement the EA for this at some point in the future to have a portfolio running on autopilot (but will switch them off mid-July when I go on holiday for 2 weeks as this is traditionally a bad time to trade). Currently running FMT, FNT and Kangaroo
Short term (scalp/day).. slightly down here...but again recovering and have been sticking to the plan so hopefully this is just a 'part of business' drawdown which can also be recovered from so that I can show a profit for the month...
Long term (4hr) EOD/early morning setups.. The trend following system kind of blew up when the market stopped trending (surprise)... clearly I need a number of strategies that between them can cope with changing market conditions - so a trading plan that will hopefully be some form of combination of looking for setups according to Snapback-FX (which I have been a trial participant for), NNT and the Lindencourt strategies - so aim over the next4 weeks before holiday is to have a tested trading plan to implement live when I get back (this with the exception of some NNT trades has been on a demo account)
Will get back to posting planned trades and charts with results next week time permitting...
