Items Tagged With profit

There is a new poll on the top of the right column of the website.  What was your Profit/Loss this week? Be honest.  I'd be interested as well as others in seeing the results. 

It has been a pretty uneventful trading week for me so far.  The lack of any major economic announcements this week will mean a lot more waiting during the US session. 

I have managed to squeeze out 11 pips so far on 3 trades but I remain on the sidelines with no longer term trades.  I've been looking at the charts the past couple of evenings but they seem totally foreign to me right now.  I cannot seem to make sense of anything and I'm not going to jump into anything until they do make sense.  

The poll from last week asked the question, "How many pips did you make or lose last week?"   It garnered 14 responses which showed that most of us did pretty well last week:

8 respondents were profitable, 5 unprofitable with 1 losing 100+ pips, and 1 respondent broke even. 

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.

All I can say is that I had quite a setback today.  I'm writing this as my positions just closed out so I'm really disappointed at my stupidity.   Quite simply, I was trying something new and I got bit.

I was short on a 3 position GBP/USD trade that was profitable most of the European session yet not enough to hit breakeven or profit targets.  Then came the US CPI economic announcement this morning.  I have never felt comfortable being in any position going into an important US announcement and this time was no different.  I took my stop losses off the positions with the thought that I would close manually 1 minute after the announcement if my positions were down.  My reasoning? I wanted to prevent from a false spike taking me out of the positions which had happened many times before only to find out I was right.   If anyone was watching the market, you know what happened.  The price did spike but got pegged GBP bullish, the complete opposite of my positions.  I didn't even have time to close out my positions in a timely manner.  I painfully closed all 3 positions at a 75 pip loss each which was 2 1/2 times greater than my normal stop.  

This trade hurts for many reasons:

1. I went from being profitable by 129 pips in December to -96 pips in December
2. Went against my own good judgment
3. I was very patient all week and lost it in a minute
4. Not only does this wipe out my profits for December but also for November and part of October

So you can see how damaging 1 trade can be and it's not even the money that affects me as much as the mental setback.  It's going to take some work to get back to where I was.  

The positives from all of this? I don't foresee ever taking my stop loss off the table again.  Never, ever.  In addition, sometimes I need a big punch in the face to remind me that things like this can happen. 

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.

Greg made a comment regarding a trader that interests me:

Two books worth their time: Market Wizards, and The New Market Wizards. One of the traders interviewed made the observaton that on any given day trading is probably luck, but if the trader is consistently winning over time, it's not luck. Another trader said the whole purpose of entering a trade was to preserve capital (he has never had a losing month.)

Entering a trade with the purpose of preserving capital is an interesting way to go about things.  I will probably read more about this in the upcoming days. 

For next week, I think I will change my exit strategy which may help with my early exits.  Instead of entry of 3 lots and exit of 3 lots, I will start to use a multi-lot exit strategy, one in which is probably based on multiple targets.  This will definately require more management per trade but if my worry all along has been with giving back profit, this may help curb it a bit.

This weekend I will also be working on formally drafting a real trading plan.  I will post sections as they are completed.

Thanks to Forex2stay for the following comments.  Visit his blog at http://forex2stay.blogspot.com/

I do think it's possible, but I believe money mangement is the key. This needs to be a marathon not a sprint. One thing I've realized is that you can't use the same lot sizes for all of your trades. For example on one trade you might be risking 30 pips and another 20 pips. So if you trade 4 lots on both of them (standard account) you'd be risking $1,200 on one trade and $800 on the other. That's not good money management and it can get you a person in trouble.Here's what I do.....

When I position trade (4hr and daily charts), I won't trade unless I have a 2:1 risk reward ratio. I figure out the proper stop loss for my trade, based on TA. So for this example say that's 40 pips. I then make sure based on TA that I'm comfortable getting at least 80 - 120 pips profit. Once i'm comfortable I put my information into the following formula.

S=(E*R) / (P-X)

S = Size of Trade
E = Account size (Cash)
R = Maximum Risk percentage per trade
P = entry price on the trade
X = pre-determined stop loss or exit price

So let's put in some numbers.....

My account size $10, 000
Entry price on EUR/USD 1.2600
Currently I'll risk 3% of my account on a trade
My pre-determined SL is 1.2560

So how many shares of EUR can we buy with our money management rules??

S=($10,000 * 3%) / (1.2600 - 1.2560)
S = $300 / .40
S= 75,000

Anyway this is the way I do it. I hope it helps...

Forex2stay

Here's a posting by Troy Peterson (private trader) titled, "Do you have confidence as a trader?."

Your level of confidence as a trader will have a huge positive impact on your success. The more confident you are the less time you will spend on second guessing your decisions. The more confident you are the more positive energy you will focus toward your desired outcome.

Confidence is based on two things; what you do and who you are. When a trade stops for a loss your confidence becomes rattled. This is because confidence is based on what you do. When confidence is based on who you are and your ability as a trader, one who is prepared for all outcomes whether a loss or a profit, then you are consistent with yourself no matter what the result. You will feel confident because you took the loss as intended or because you closed with a profit. You will choose correctly in either scenario! This is because confidence is based on you.

Each time you correctly make a decision in trading whether it is for a loss or gain, the more confident you will become with your ability to act accordingly to the current market situation in a manner that is appropriate. Your confidence is now based on your awareness as a trader (you) not on failures, mistakes or missed opportunities. Let me say that again . . . Your confidence is now based on your awareness as a trader, one who will make the correct decisions.

Help build confidence by reviewing your trades diligently to discover when, why and how you chose to act during the time of the trade. It will help your understanding of the markets and yourself. The more you choose to learn from each trade failure and success the stronger and more confident you will become. This confidence will increase your flexibility in your decisions and your behavior. This flexibility will help create comfort in your trading. This comfort will feed your confidence and the cycle continues.

Begin working on your confidence today. Believe in yourself and have faith in your abilities. Please don't fall prey to falling someone else's calls in the market blindly. Stick to your edge and realize that trading the markets is about you.

Keep An Eye On Momentum

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/05/MomentumMACD.asp

This article states the obvious yet brings up a simple setup that I never thought about.  The basic premise is that momentum precedes price.  Any momentum indicator can be used but this article uses MACD as an example.

1.    Define a MACD segment.  Segment #1 below.

2.    Measure the highest bar of segment #1.  In the above case, the highest bar was .004.

3.    Wait until the next segment forms; segment #2 above.  If a bar from segment #2 falls below -.004, downward momentum has exceeded previous upward momentum.
Segment #2 consists of 10 bars.  The values are in order from left to right (-.001, -.004, -.006, -.007, -.008, -.008, -.008, -.006, -.002, -.0008)

The third bar from the left is -.006, showing greater momentum than during anytime in segment #1. Sell at the close of this bar (price=1.7579.)  Exit the position at your discretion but a good time to do so might be when momentum slows.  Momentum stalls 2 consecutive bars at bar #7.  MACD value is -.008.  Exit at the close of this bar (price=1.7381)

The profit is close to 200 pips.  Like every other setup, this will not always be successful and should be used in conjunction with other confirmation tools. 

What I like most about this setup is its simplicity.

This week was my 4th straight losing week.  I lost $1220 this week which drops my overall profit over 15 weeks to $1243.  Even though my P/L isn't looking good as of late, I really am not discouraged.  I have the confidence and determination to continue onward and I have the belief that I will be successful.  I am just going through the stages of learning and if it costs me money to learn, so be it. 

This week I used my first self designed trading system and followed through on every signal it gave me.  Unfortunately it is a range trading system and the EURO had some pretty nice gains against the dollar this week.  Therefore, my trading system did not perform well.  I will continue to use it.  I will stick by my hours upon hours of work.