A Forex Trader Speaks His Mind
February 25, 2006
I’m posting an email I received from a fellow participant of Raghee Horner’s webinars today. He has been utilizing Raghee’s methods for the last year and goes into the successes and failures he has had with them. Keep in mind that he is a beaten down trader who started out with $30,000 and now has $3000 left. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says. I don’t think because 1 person is unsuccessful at something that no one else has a shot. One of his final sentences is "Do not think you’re going to realize your dreams by day trading." I don’t believe this and won’t believe this. I feel like his story will be beneficial:
I would say her setups happen quite a bit if you scan all the pairs. I am not good at position trading or sitting on trades, so I found it really hard to utilize the large time frames. I like to be in and out, a day trader. Her system is like any system, it gives you a method for entries and exits. Each entry has 50% chance of moving in your direction and her method gives you a slight edge or helps you gain a higher probability of being on the winning side. No trading system is consistently profitable, your either on the winning side or your not. The key is to get in when your system tells you to, act on your systems signals, utilize stops or get out as soon as the trade tells you it’s not going in your direction.
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Yen Swing Trade Analysis
February 25, 2006
TRADE
Date: Friday, February 24th
Entry: Short USD/JPY at 117.05
Reason for trade/setup: With a downward trend in motion, I was looking for a swing trade to short the USD/JPY. I was waiting for price to retrace back up where a minor Asian session breakdown occurred several hours prior at 117.10. The DMI indicator was used as confirmation that the existing trend was still in place.
Initial Stop: 117.19; the high of previous bar
Initial Target: 116.40
RESULT
Exit: 116.76
Reason for Exit: End of day
Profit/loss: +29 pips/ +$745.10 (3 lots)
Trade executed according to plan? yes
Outcome: This trade entry went exactly according to plan so much so that it surprised me. The price didn’t reach my limit and that didn’t surprise me.
Thoughts: The market doesn’t generate trades like this everyday and this setup would only apply to trending markets.
; "Forex swing trade")
Read more Raghee Posts
February 25, 2006
Raghee webinar visitors! Read my previous posts regarding Raghee especially the posts regarding her EZ2Trade software where if you buy it directly from Divergence Software costs extremely less than $195 a month.
Raghee Horner Tricks of the Trade
February 25, 2006
Raghee’s first webinar today just ended and if you have been to her previous webinars didn’t offer anything new. As I have always said about Raghee, I definately admire her simplicity. She relies on "The Wave" (34 EMA of high, low, close), fibonacci retracements, and trendlines. These are all great indicators to rely on.
There were some users in the webinar that were bashing her methods which I think is uncalled for. Not only do I admire her simplicity but also her dedication and consistency. She has developed her own style of trading and in addition to wanting to make a couple of more bucks for herself is offering her time to teach others. That should be worth something. If anything, these webinars are quite motivational and that alone will carry me to her webinar at 4:00 EST.
12 Weeks Trading Forex
February 24, 2006
With 12 weeks of trading forex in the books, I currently have a balance of $17,346.74. I started with exactly $10,000 12 weeks ago with the goal of quitting my job to trade full-time by October 1st of this year. That would leave me with 218 days left. After about 3 months of trading, I cannot make a determination if this is a realistic date or just plain crazy. As I’ve stated before, I live in the New York city area where the cost of living is higher than most cities in the United States. I realistically need to make at least $100,000 a year to support my lifestyle. This includes food, a roof over my head, transportation, and a retirement plan not to mention student loans. In 12 weeks, I’ve profited $7,346.74 which averages to $31835.87 for a year. That is not going to cut it nor is it guaranteed that I will consistently make money each month. If I look at my performance in 4 week increments, things tend to look a bit better.
Weeks 1-4 +1101
Weeks 5-8 +1779
Weeks 9-12 +4467
This week I started out down similar to last week. I rallyed back to end the week down only $300. This is the second straight week where I had to bite and scratch to get closer to the black. I made some stupid impulsive trades but generally had a decent week sticking to my plan.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a lot more effective when I place an order that doesn’t fill at the current market price. Instead of going to the price, I let the price come to me. Last night, I placed an order to sell the USD/JPY at 117.05 when the price was trading at 116.70. Eventually my order was filled and I ended the week making about $800 on this trade. When you let price come to you, trading becomes a lot less impulsive. There is no question that I’ve made a lot more money in my sleep than when I’m awake. You can’t overtrade, change your strategy, or act impulsively when your fast asleep in the middle of the night.
I haven’t had time to put all of my Trade Analysis down on "paper" yet but I will get to it this weekend. Don’t forget that there are 2 Raghee Horner webinars this weekend. They are free and I’m sure space is still available. I went to her last 2 webinars and found them motivational and beneficial. I hope to hear some of you there tomorrow.
My Forex Blog History
February 23, 2006
I’ve added yet another item to the left menu called Forex Blog Index. This is a full listing of all posts that I’ve made to this blog all on one page. The great thing is you can search by keyword, sort by hits, sort by ratings, or sort by votes. During the search, the keyword is highlighted in red:
Fear and Impulse Trading Forex
February 23, 2006
Last night was a night of mixed emotions for me. I usually don’t hold positions longer than a day but I was holding on to the USD/JPY for a little longer waiting for the pair to decline a bit. It finally did and I grabbed over $1000 when I closed the trade at 118.35. I was fearful that it would retrace again toward 119.00 and therefore I just wanted to get back on track for the week. As a lot of you know, the USD/JPY plummeted last night (right after I exited) and was sitting at the 117.00 this morning. If I would have held on to the position, I would be sitting up over $5000 on 1 trade. I will put this one behind me but I made a real big mistake on my next trade.
Immediately after exited my Yen position, I started scanning my charts and came to the CHF/JPY and the price sitting right on solid resistance line. Thinking it was oversold and not knowing that the Yen was having a huge downward move (after my exit), I impulsively and foolishly entered a long trade in the CHF/JPY. The Yen pushed downward and hit my stop in about 30 minutes. I lost about $600 on this trade. This was a total impulsive move, one in which I entered the trade without really looking at anything but 1 line.
From past history, when the USD/JPY has had a large downward move during the Asian trading session, a USD bearish move follows for the GBP and EUR during the European session. That is why I went long on the EUR last night and made 44 pips on 3 lots which amounted to $1300.
So I probably only caught about a third of the Yen move and fearful of giving back my profit, I gave away the other two-thirds. It’s no wonder I always hear that the hardest part of trading is the exit.
The last 2 weeks, I’ve had to scratch my way back after starting the week down. Last week I was able to do it with a $700 profit. This week, I’ve made my way back to -$475 with 1 trading day to go. I’m not going to rush into anything though so if my week is done, so be it.
My performance per Currency Pair
February 22, 2006
I decided to take a look at all of my trades since day one and find out which currency pair has been most profitable for me. The results were interesting:
USD/JPY: +3720
EUR/JPY: +2400
GBP/JPY: +1370
USD/CAD: +890
NZD/USD: +470
USD/CHF: +420
EUR/GBP: -70
AUD/USD: -130
GBP/USD: -$410
CHF/JPY: -650
EUR/USD: -$1430
History says to stay away from the EUR/USD pair. I had a feeling that the USD/JPY was my best friend.
USD/JPY 2006-02-21
February 22, 2006
UPDATE!!! The pair has dropped another 70 pips since I exited. That is why I am far from reaching my goal.
TRADE
Date: Tuesday, February 21st
Entry: Short USD/JPY at 118.78.
Reason for trade/setup: This trade was mostly based on the fact that resistance was up above at 119.00. Furthur confirmation was obtained from the crossover of the Stochastic (9(3),3) from overbought territory.
Initial Stop: 119.06, which was 6 pips above the high of the entry day.
Initial Target: 118.00 which is the top of the Ichimoku Kumo or cloud.
RESULT
Exit: 118.35
Reason for Exit: Profit taking. I needed to get back on track this week. I couldn’t leave $1000 on the table
Profit/loss: 43 pips / $1070
Trade executed according to plan? no; early exit
Outcome: After trade entry, the pair played with the 119.00 resistance level for the entire U.S. trading session before finally finding more sellers than buyers at the Asian open. The pair then stalled at 118.40 during lunchtime in Japan on Tuesday evening. The pair retraced almost back to the 119.00 mark on Wednesday during the European session before heading back down. There is solid resistance at 119.00. I exited the trade before my target. The main reason was for my need to get back some of my losses from the week. I didn’t want to leave $1000 on the table.
; "Yen Dollar Trade")
Raghee Horner the New Winner’s Circle
February 22, 2006
Remember me mentioning Raghee Horner’s training that was being offered for $5000 a couple of months ago? I just received an email and it looks like that sales pitch didn’t work well because they now have another offer. It’s the pay as you go option where you pay $795 up front and $195 a month for 18 months. You receive basically everything that Raghee has to offer on her website including books, cd’s, newsletters, weekly webinars and nightly trading room. I like Raghee and her simplified style of trading but how much more can you learn from her that you haven’t already read in her book. I know one of you stated this when I was thinking about shelling out cash for a personal mentor and it changed my view of these expensive training programs. I don’t know if any of you have done this but it would seem like paying for a program where you get to personally sit next to a established trader would be beneficial. I know that John Carter offers that type of program.
If anyone has any good experiences with paid training, please drop me an email or comment on this post. It’s impossible to research this on the web as there are so many "unknowns" with the websites that offer this. Thanks.
