This week PROFIT GOAL REACHED!

May 19, 2006

I carefully reached my profit goal in Week 4:

Week #	Pip P/L	Gross P/L	Total # of Trades	Total Winning Trades	Total Losing Trades	Total Even Trades	Avg. Winning pips	Avg. Losing pips
4	61	$506.8	18	9	7	2	19.8889	-16.8571

This week, I profited 61 p. If anyone remembers, my goal when I started Rob Booker training was to make a total of 60 p each week. Trading 1 lot at a time isn't going to allow me to do this for a living but increasing this to 3 or 4 lots will. I personally feel that a lot of people go into trading forex (myself included) with the thought that they need to profit many many pips each week. When I say many pips, I'm thinking over 200 or so pips a week. I hear how many traders not unlike myself profiting over 400 p for a given week which is absolutely possible but you also have to be honest with yourself. Can you consistently make 400 p a week? I don't think it is possible! Imagine the additional pressure you're putting on yourself when you're expecting even 200 p a week. I find that keeping a pip target low and then raising your lot count is a more realistic expectation.

The above trades were all day trades. I do not have any position trades open and really haven't in a long time. My goal is to continue day trading and then find position trades on longer term charts.

Making 61 p isn't easy. I made 18 trades, profiting on exactly half. I was very careful today and hesitated to make a short AUD trade which would have hit my target (30 p had I made the trade) because I was at +51 p and was satisfied with ending the week here. I did see another trade this morning though and took the chance of going long on the USD/CAD. I was still very careful placing a tight stop and only looking to stay in the trade if it went a little my way I got out of the trade quickly for a 10 pip profit bringing my total for the week at +61.

To be totally up front, I really haven't sent Rob Booker email in weeks nor have I been following his "Chart School" all that closely. I've been discretionary trading all week just like last and I don't know if it is a coincidence or not that I have been profitable both weeks. I'm not trying to apply any new techniques but just trying to become more intimate with the techniques and indicators that I already have. I haven't stopped learning or exploring new techniques or indicators but it really is just for exposure and because I feel the need to learn new things regularly.

I'm away until Sunday and will be back then to get ready for next week. I hope everyone caught some good trades this week. Take care.

Popularity: 8%

Filed Under Rob Booker Training · 3 Comments

Channel Trading Failed Today

May 16, 2006

I put in 3 trades today during the US session after the Housing Report release that were Anti-dollar but all of them failed to push towards my target. I managed to recoup some of the losses with another trade placed when the price fell back into the channel so I'm not too disappointed. It could have been much worst but I wound up losing about 45 pips today. I'm even for the week.

On another note, I was reading about fibonacci and stumbled upon a site that includes some fibonacci tricks. Some of these tricks really only apply to stocks because they relate to gap trading but I found the parabola hunt interesting.

http://www.tradingday.com/c/tatuto/fivefibonaccitricks.html

Popularity: 2%

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Week 4 Performance

May 12, 2006

I'm done for the week. The channels were too wide in the GBP and Yen going into the US Session this morning and the CAD swung wildly up and down. I made no trades today. I'd also rather end the day and be up for the week. It's good for my psyche.

In my 4th post Booker week of trading, I managed to pull off a small profit of 14 pips or $111. Here are some more statistics from this week:

TOTAL # of TRADES

TOTAL Winning Trades

TOTAL Losing Trades

TOTAL Scratches

I feel like I went back to my "roots" this week. I'm trading like I did months ago when things were going more my way. The thing is, other than channel trading rules, a majority of my trades don't have any hard rules. Most were based on discretion only. Since I'm moving back towards this style of trading, maybe this is just what is needed. I was sending comments back and forth with a visitor to the site, Wim and Wim states that in 5 years of trading FX:

"I can tell you that a combination of a mechanical simple system and your own judgement will give you the best results…. Make your own judgement on trades!!!"

I've done a lot of reading over the past 12 months and a lot of it is repetitive. I've also been trying hard to go by what I've been told over and over again but maybe I've been wrong. Yes, some of the preachings are absolutely true like the recommendation to PLACE STOP LOSSES. But no one knows what your or my personality is. Just because a certain way of trading whether mechanical or discretionary works for 1 person doesn't mean it will work for you or I.

I look back at the first 11 weeks I was trading and I don't think it was beginners luck:

Week #	Pip P/L	Gross P/L	Total # of Trades	Total Winning Trades	Total Losing Trades	Total Even Trades	Avg. Winning pips	Avg. Losing pips
1	73	$650.8	11	6	5	0	29.0000	-20.2000
2	80	$748.4	21	8	13	0	41.8750	-19.6154
3	-15	$-55.1	9	4	2	3	25.0000	-57.5000
4	-15	$-242.2	10	4	6	0	31.2500	-23.3333
5	289	$2453.4	20	12	8	0	39.5833	-23.2500
6	-41	$-619.5	14	8	6	0	24.8750	-40.0000
7	189	$1727.1	13	11	2	0	23.6364	-35.5000
8	-214	$-1782.6	7	2	5	0	44.0000	-60.4000
9	169	$1425	3	3	0	0	56.3333
10	304	$2598	3	3	0	0	101.3333
11	71	$742.2	8	5	3	0	41.4000	-45.3333

Yes, I made some mistakes but overall, I was doing something right. I was up $7700 after these first 11 weeks and this was mostly trading 1 LOT. I don't know what the future holds but we will definately see if my discretionary way of trading is what works for me.

Popularity: 5%

Filed Under Rob Booker Training · 4 Comments

Week 2 Performance

May 7, 2006

After my 2nd full week of Rob Booker 1 on 1 training, my results have improved from last week, I only lost 153 pips! I'm being sarcastic and once again don't blame anyone for my results this week but myself. I made 17 trades this week, only profitable on 5. My average profit per winning trade was 18.8 pips and my average loss per losing trade was 20.58. Now it isn't unusual for traders to only "win" 5 out of 17 trades but when your risk/reward is only 1:1 like mine, it is difficult. That is why I find myself questioning Booker's channel trading strategies where most trades only give you the 1:1 risk/reward.

On an upbeat note, I ended the week on a 2 trade winning streak, my 1st was contrarian and my 2nd was during the jobs report on Friday. I actually have been quite successful trading the jobs report in the past and it was no exception on Friday. As I have done in the past, I drew channel lines for the high and low for the previous 12 hours or so. I placed a buy order 6 pips above the upper channel line with a 20 pip trailing stop. I placed a sell order 6 pips below the lower channel line with a 20 pip trailing stop. On Friday, the price broke the upper channel, my buy order was initiated and 15 minutes later was automatically closed when my trailing stop was hit with a profit of 30 pips. I could have made more if I didn't place a limit but I've never been greedy when it comes to taking profit. I'm a lot more stupid when placing stops.

Popularity: 6%

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May 2nd NY Session

May 2, 2006

I'm in short trade right now, USD/JPY at 113.25 with a 30 pip stop. It's currently down 15 pips. I just really need a winning trade right now. I'm not going to do anything stupid though and I'll follow the rules and hopefully I'll come out on top.

I opened the trade at 8:30 am when we started to get some volatility. It has since dried up. There are no major economic releases today.

I'm about to get stopped out. I have to admit that I'm fighting with myself over the stop. I want to move it up so bad. I won't touch it.

I didn't touch it but I was stopped out. Wow, I don't know how many trades I've lost in a row. Since signing on with Rob Booker, I have 1 winning trade and 9 straight losers. One thing is for certain, I'm great at picking the bottom when I'm shorting.

Trade Details

The red thumbtack is where I went short. I was stopped out
2 candles later. I went short after a close below my lower channel.
The volatility dried up and the squeeze dissipated quickly after 8:30
am.

Forex Yen Trade

Popularity: 2%

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Not Following the Rules Can Hurt!

April 28, 2006

I am attaching a PDF file that includes all of my trades this week with date/time, P/L, max drawdown, max run-up, and important commentary about the trade including whether I followed the rules.

While I was putting this together, I realized that I failed to follow the rules 50% of the time. Do you know how many pips I lost because I didn't FOLLOW THE RULES?

113

How many pips did it cost me for following the rules?

This doesn't count the fact that I failed to follow the rules today in my GBP/USD trade that cost me 30 pips or more!

If I would have followed the rules 100% of the time, I would be about even.

I take full responsibility for my trades and blame only myself. I should also note that though this trading system has rules, it is discretionary.

Here is the file:

Forex Trade Report 28/04/2006,00:08 11.74 Kb

Popularity: 7%

Filed Under Rob Booker Training · 3 Comments

It’s My Fault

April 27, 2006

A transcript between a couple of us today:

Wim Says:

Hi Rick,

Minus 180 pips on 3 days of trading seems not that
great. Wow, I would be pissed of, part of learning.. Are mentors really
that great..
Why would you coach someone if you make a ton of money?
I would not spend my time trying to learn somebody for $1000 if I can
make 50K/month with my personal trading.

Some time ago, I
took the FXCM euroshop ($169), well in my eyes, it is worth nothing. it
looks really nice on their website until you pay for it.
3 methods but none of them actually work in my eyes. Everybody can make a course or call himself a mentor.
Personally,
I won't spend a dime to education or learning anymore. Being in this
business for 3 years, I make money now but not the first 2 years.

I
think a combination of knowledge and market understanding is a lot more
worth then pulling up some indicators and following them blindly.

Magdalena Says:

Wim,
A couple of questions for you:
1) Are you saying you didnt make money in the first 2 years and are you trading full time?
2) What in your opinion is the best way to learn how to trade and gain the knowledge of the market, how did you do it?

Rich,

What
is the "touch of emotion" and how big of an impact it had on your
trading recently? Are you saying that Rob's methods work and you simply
didn't have enough discipline to stick to them, cuz that's exactly what
happened to me recently when using Raghee's setups.

Craig Says:

Hi Rich,

Bummer, I have been making a bunch of losing trades as
well. I was looking though your trade history and trying to figure out
why you made all those AUD/USD trades on the 25th, the pair was going
sideways. Is it possible to elaborate on your current stratergy?

P.S.
Have to say Wim's comment is pretty on the mark.

I Said:

I'm getting my spreadsheet together to analyze these trades but before
I jump over Rob, I have made some mistakes with execution and did so
specifically with my lost GBP trade this morning. I entered incorrectly
and got stopped out by 5 pips before the 100 pip move up. This cost me
huge. Some of the other trades were also executing issues. I can
honestly say that without even analyzing and from the top of my head,
if I was more experienced with this system, I would probably be up. A
lot of his strategy utilized multiple lots so that you can let some
more profit run. I'll post more when I know more.

I Said again:

Magdalena, I think Rob's strategies can work. I think they give you the
best shot at making money doing this. The touch of emotion happened 2
times to me:

The first was with my Aussie trade where I entered
before the candle closed. Rob says you can enter before the candle
closes but he waits and recommends you wait. After this trade, I would
definately wait also.

The second time was with my trade today. I
entered 2 candles late on the GBP/USD trade and set my stop without
reflecting the price 2 candles ago. If I would have set a stop based on
the price if I had entered 2 candles ago (when I should have) I would
have made MANY MANY pips today. Like I said before, I think I would be
in positive territory if I didn't make these mistakes.

Free Raghee Horner Webinars This Weekend

April 24, 2006

Raghee Horner announced today that she will have 2 webinars this weekend. The first is called "Setting Up Your Entries with Advanced GET Charts." This webinar allows you to watch as Raghee walks you through the three type of entries she uses. The second is "Master Order Execution with Raghee Horner" with a description as follows:

Raghee will share her entry techniques using eSignal's Advanced GET charts
which attendees of this FREE WEBINAR can get free through TradeDirectFX*.
Advanced GET charts will allow you to set up the Wave, draw trendlines, support,
and resistance as well as use all the Fibonacci retracement and extension levels she uses every day.
See set ups of momentum trades, swing trades, as well as Raghee's Wave/CCI
trade and learn specifically when to use each.

Both webinars are this Saturday, the first at 1 p.m. EST and the second at 4 p.m. EST and are FREE. I've been to her previous 4 webinars and found them all very beneficial if not for her commentary also for the contacts you meet in the room.

I've already registered for these 2 events. I would recommend you do the same.

Click Read More to see the attached email with register details.

[Read more]

Booker Analysis for Upcoming Week

April 16, 2006

Rob Booker for AUD/USD (4-hour chart):

I am considering two trades on this pair:

On a break below the redline, I think we can get all the way to the 38% retracement at .7219. A break of that level should take us as far as .7180.
I would really like to see a resumption of the uptrend that we were in before – and this would happen above .7350. On a break above that level, even to .7365, I like a long trade, stop .7300, target at least .7500. More on that if the trade opens.

Eliminating Five Basic Mistakes

April 8, 2006

There was a webinar titled, "Eliminating Five Basic Mistakes from your Analysis" this week presented by Ian Copsey. I found this webinar and the corresponding Powerpoint presentation very useful because I have been guilty of these mistakes. Before I summarize and attach the powerpoint presentation (I also converted it to PDF), who is Ian Copsey??

According to the moderator, Ian Copsey is one of the foremost FX technical analysts in the world,
with over 20 years experience in financial markets. He began his career
in Barclays Bank’s FX trading room in 1982 then moved to head their FX
sales desk in Hong Kong in 1988 where he spent almost 5 years.

Either way the guy has got experience and that's what counts.

So what are the 5 basic mistakes and also the verdict of whether I'm guilty or not of making such a mistake?

Trend Line Drawing Mistakes Verdict: GUILTY

Use 3 touch guideline. By waiting for 3 touches, the trendline becomes stronger and more reliable

Double Tops and Double Bottoms Verdict: GUILTY

WAIT FOR CONFIRMATION which comes on break of peak or trough

Head and Shoulders Verdict: GUILTY

Wait for Completion of pattern

Momentum Indicators Verdict: mistrial

Momentum studies are not meant to be used in trending markets
Use ADX/DMI to determine trend then use 2 other methods to determine better trading opportunities