Items Tagged With september 2006

I was short 3 lots on the GBP/USD since the European session today and I was just stopped out on all lots.  I lost a total of 111 pips using my H-system or $1100.  I followed my rules without any deviation and though it sucks to lose, I've accepted it.  It actually feels easier to lose when you follow the rules. 

Some of you may not be able to relate to this analogy but I find this similar to when you finally take financial responsibility for your debts.  I have huge student loan debt and when I graduated, I put my loans in forbearance which is basically like saying, "I'll pay you back when I have a good job and when I'm not spending all of my money at bars." Even though your loan is in forbearance, the interest still accrues and you'll just have to pay back more later.  Eventually, I decided to get my *&!# together and made a plan to pay off this debt within 12 years.  This was 5 years ago and I actually feel good writing that large check every month to the student loan lenders because each check gets me closer to my goal of paying the loan in full.  If I didn't have a plan, I could have just blindly started sending them the minimum payment which as some of you credit card debt holders know is the kiss of death.  Since I had a plan, I started sending them a lot more than the minimum payment, actually it was almost double the minimum payment.  I was putting a substantial amount each month towards the principal and not just the interest.  My analogy is that if you have a trading plan, even if you lose, you kind of win.  If you want to win in the game, you have to be willing to lose and if you can accept that fact, you won't get bent out of shape when you do lose.  This loan was an investment in my career and if I didn't have this education, I wouldn't have this wonderful full-time back breaking job.  Even though I have a stressful job, I get paid enough to pay all of my bills and save some money.  I get paid a lot better than other people I know but if I didn't have the education that I have, I may be living paycheck to paycheck or I might not own a house.  So it's a fact of life that to make money, you have to be willing to spend money.  

I had another good trade with my new system during the European session this morning capturing 60 pips even though I muffed the trade.  Instead of putting in a 3 lot trade, I only put in a 2 lot trade.

I'm happy with the way things are going right now.  Before I started trading this system, the results from the end of August and beginning of September showed that it produced 10 wins out of 11 trades with a profit of over 700 pips.  Since going production, I've produced 5 wins out of 6 trades and over the last 10 days, the system is up 388 pips or $3880.  

Even though I pretty much know my entry when I go to bed, I still need to manage the trades if initiated during the European session.  If a position opens, my phone lets me know so it wakes me up out of a dead sleep.  Over the last year of dedicating a lot of my time to learning this business, more times than not I'm a walking zombie.  I think that if you want to make it day trading the FOREX, this is necessary and the price you have to pay.  So if you like the movement that the European session has to offer and you have a full-time job in a US time zone, be prepared for sleep deprivation.  I'll try to catch up this weekend but I doubt I will.

Slowly but surely, I've been able to get back in the black and I now have a small profit over the last 4 months:

This just shows that with perserverance, you can come back from your losses.  This does not mean I'm ready to quit my day job.  $197.70 over 4 months of trading is way below the poverty level. 

Something else that has been bugging me as of late is whether it is possible to put your hopes of trading full-time into the hands of any forex broker out there.  It's hard to trust your money after the Refco debacle.  Everyone that trades forex should realize that the money that you deposit IS NOT protected from creditors! Remember a while back when I received an email from FXCM's compliance officer regarding this issue?  If not, read it here:

http://www.forexproject.com/Blog/Investing_and_Trading/Is_your_money_at_your_broker_safe?/

http://www.forexproject.com/Blog/Investing_and_Trading/FXCM_Compliance_Officer_Response/  

We got a nice juicy move out of the GBP/USD this morning and I was able to turn things around after my trading system lost 3 straight.  I was able to capture 118 pips.  Once my trade executed, there was never any danger of my stops being hit.  These types of trades make trading so enjoyable.  

By the way, I was interviewed for Currency Trader Magazine yesterday so I may be in the upcoming October issue.  It's not definite though but when it is, I'll let you know. 

I've added a new menu item to the left called H Trading System that contains the rules of the trading system and also the results of the system since yesterday.  The rules are there now but I haven't added a results table with database data yet.  This will be done later.

>>Go there now

The Top 100 Forex Sites section of the website is up-to-date as of today, September 17th.  It has been expanded to include the top 200 sites in the DMOZ category Business > Investing > Commodities and Futures > Forex.  Forex Project is not in this category because my site was pulled from this DMOZ category which I'm now trying to find out why.

Top 200 Forex Sites

* Based on Alexa Traffic 

I had to remove all Currency Trader Magazine PDF's from this website as requested from ActiveTrader magazine. 

I've added 8 more currencies to the Daily Pivot Points section of the website to bring the total to 15:

AUD/USD, EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/CAD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY, EUR/JPY, EUR/CHF, EUR/GBP, EUR/NOK, EUR/SEK, NZD/USD, USD/HKD, USD/NOK, USD/SGD

I kind of broke the rules of my forex trading system this morning when I got a signal at 10 am this morning.  My rules say to only trade during the US/EUR session overlap which 10 am clearly falls within but sometimes you have to adapt.  Today I did just that because of the FOMC announcement coming out at 2:15 pm.  I have to wait and see if this saved me from a loss or if I missed a good trading opportunity but either way, I think I did the right thing.  I don't want to make a habit of doing this but this is the one and only announcement where I can see doing this.  During my backtesting, I have not seen a profitable trade coming after 10 am.  By this time I would think most traders are trying to settle up on their positions especially today. 

Even though the rules were bent, I think that to be successful, you have to constantly adapt to the changing environment and tweaking rules or flat out changing them is necessary.  I'm not changing them because I'm overly emotional or fearful, I'm just doing it because when I woke up this morning, I told myself not to trade until after the FOMC announcement.  I'm hesitant to open any positions before this and expected more consolidation or the classic, Buy the Rumor, Sell the News.