Week 4 Performance
by Trader Rich
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
18
TOTAL Winning Trades
10
TOTAL Losing Trades
6
TOTAL Scratches
2
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% [?]
Rich,
Seems like you got your mojo back. That’s great! Keep it up! And I think you’re absolutely right saying that everybody needs to find their own style of trading otherwise you will get sooo frustrated trying to follow somebody else and seeing that they get results and you don’t!!!
Which platform do you use? I’m getting a bit fed up with FxSol…Platform freezes and recently I get constant requotes, arrgghh.
Magdalena, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, trying to follow all these ideas that others have in their books and when they don’t work frustration insues….
I use either FXCM or Gain capital. I’m thinking of switching over to Tradestation so I can trade stocks,futures,forex and also because platform fees are free. I’ve found that FXCM and Gain are very stable as platforms are concerned. I have never been kicked off and trades even during busy times are executed pretty quickly.
Congrats on the up week. I’ve been following your blog for a while and I’ve been rooting for you.
I’ve found just like you, it’s really hard to find the right style to trade with. As hard as I try, I cannot long term trade and really prefer scalping. The problem with scalping as we all know it one bad trade can wipe out 4 or 5 good trades.
So after much practice and reworking, I’ve decided that the technical style that worked so well for my stock trading just doesn’t work for Forex (at least for me). I have now focused on fundamentals and trading the news. I specifically trade the first one minute candle and get out, no retracements and no chasing the following candles.
I know this type of trading scares a lot of people but for me it’s the most relaxing type of trading I’ve found. I straddle with 10-15 pips on each side and use high leverage and look for a minimum of 10 pips but can usually full 30-50 pips on the right release. I only use a 5 pip stop loss because if it doesn’t start my way, I want out.
This week has been pretty easy since we know the dollar is taking a beating. On 4 releases, I’ve been able to pull in 88 pips. Since I started focusing on this strategy a moth ago, I’ve done at least a dozen news trades without anything going against me. My main focus has been US releases but I’m now compiling data on other currencuies to find the best releases to trade. My goal is to find 5-10 solid news trades per week.
I still have to fine tune my strategy and know I will have bad trades but I’ve found the system that makes me punch my monitor a lot less but still give me my goal of 50-100 pips per week (currently sticking to single mini-lots on live account).
Just wanted to let you know that I struggle along with you but I follow the blog for inspiration and you’ve kept me fighting
Thanks for everything,
William
What William said, nice to see you making some progress, you deserve it.