Setting up for the New Year
It's so long since I have posted anything that I had to enter my password (which I couldn't remeber), so its a good job I found where I had written it!
It seems a sensible time to now review this year and make plans for next. Essentially I have had a good year, I put £600 into an account last January and that account now has £940 in, which is a
56% increase.
I credit most of my success in this to my daily and four hourly combination system which I described in my first post. I also had an excellent trade on gold, which was based on the weekly timeframe, however the gains on this trade were wiped out by losses on other trades, so that account is pretty much flat this year. I have consistently lost on my shorter timeframe account (in-fact I have paid more into it than I have won with my 56%er!)
So, with this little analysis what can I
learn and then apply to next year?
- continue with my daily & 4hourly timeframe system, as that has delivered a positive out-turn.
- I need to improve my lower timeframe trading
The first point is relatively easy to address, as I have a system with rules, it has performed reasonably this year
In-fact, I am going to enhance it, as it is a 'with trend' system and I have noticed that there are also some great 'counter trend' opportunities as well. I have a system (in-fact it isn't really my system its Jason's at 4X traders live) which identifies these Counter Trend levels, so I can use them both as targets for my with trend trades and areas to look for confirmation signals of a reversal opportunity
My second point is much more difficult as I haven't traded a system. I have read about a number of systems over the years (Phil 'Newtron Bombs' asian break-out; seeking to capture the average days move from an asian overnight range. Andy 'Captain Currency' Perrys 3 ducks; seeking to identify low risk entries to 4 hour with trend swings. The FX500 club multiple timeframe moving average cross and many others, whose authors and titles escape me at the moment). The problem is I haven't consistently traded one system for a sufficient period of time or number of trades to identify what is and isn't working.
So my ultimate objective for next year (with sincere thanks to both Lance Beggs at Your Trading Coach and Jason Stapleton at 4XTradersLive) for patiently pointing out the (with the benefit of hindsight) bleeding obvious is: to record every single trade that I take, so that I haver some data to analyse each week / month / year to work out what is and isn't working for me. Essentially I am going to religiously post
each and every one of my trade set ups onto this blog (as I did for a while this year with my daily / 4H system), with clear reasons for considering the trade, risk and targets. If the trade triggers I will post again what the trigger was (it will usually be a candle stick pattern for a 'with trend' or a significant double or triple top / bottom for a 'counter trend strategy'. At the end of each week I will post a list of all of the trades I have entered and their outcomes, with a monthly and annual summary
From this additional effort I hope to improve my trading overall, but most importantly on the shorter timeframes. It often suits my life-style to trade the London open / asian range break out around 7am UK time. So I am going to focus on this next year (for my short timeframe trading) and only look to cover a few pairs, for a quick overview and then decide which two or three offer the highest probability of a move to actively look for a short term trade opportunity. My aim being to be in and out (or at worst to have my stop to a breakeven position by 8:30am at the latest) and then not look at the short term charts again until 6:30am to following day.
For my daily / 4 hourly system I will continue to monitor a larger number of major crosses as well as gold, oil and the indices for opportunities. On a three or four times a day basis (when the 4H timeframe candles change at 10am, 2pm, 6pm and 10pm UK time) and when major news releases for one or both of the currencies of a pair on my 'watch list' has been released)
Good luck next year to all, not just in terms of improving your trading but in your life in general
If you want to see what Jason, Lance and Andy do (you may or may not find it helpful to you, but I have been very inspired by all three of them this year and wish to express my thanks to what they so selflessly do each week. btw I have never paid so much as a penny to any of them, although they do offer fee based training too)
Jason
http://www.4xtraderslive.com/
Lance
http://www.YourTradingCoach.com
Andy
http://captaincurrency.blogspot.com/
