Second day of trading Forex - I love stop losses!

[minwa]

A week of demoing and going live is "much later" ?! This impatience is not a good sign for long term prospects in my opinion.

Your last two months do look a bit more encouraging, but if you had no strategy then not sure how reliable that is.

I don't get how you have a exact figure for commission, when you only pay spread ? Makes no sense to me, spread is factored into the entry/exit don't know how you (or the platform) calculated it. Just make sure it's not commissions on top of spread that you were not aware of.

Well good luck.

 

[NickF]

A week of demoing and going live is "much later" ?! This impatience is not a good sign for long term prospects in my opinion.

Your last two months do look a bit more encouraging, but if you had no strategy then not sure how reliable that is.

I don't get how you have a exact figure for commission, when you only pay spread ? Makes no sense to me, spread is factored into the entry/exit don't know how you (or the platform) calculated it. Just make sure it's not commissions on top of spread that you were not aware of.

Well good luck.

Hi Minwa,

It's not only that I'm very impatient, I change my mind quite frequently.

I asked FXCM about the commission. When I opened the account it was a standard account and I was paying commission. In Sep 2015 they changed my account into a mini account (which is for beginners). Funny enough, they gave me now leverage of 1:400, while the standard account has 1:100. For a beginner, such a high leverage can be suicidal Now I can only trade a limited number of pairs (19 instead of original 40) and I pay spreads. And I can not do automatic trading, which will interest me later.

I am also not sure about long term reliability, considering the lack of a defined strategy. I guess the future will clarify this.

Thanks,
Nick

 

[Jason Rogers]

I am with FXCM Australia and I pay on spreads. I haven't paid too much attention to how many pips it costs me, I think at best times and for some pairs, it is one pip. But sometimes it costs me 3 or more pips, when I trade at market and there is a large difference between bids and offers.

Hi Nick,

You may be interested in the 2015 spread data FXCM reported earlier this week. It gives a breakdown of the spreads for the top currency pairs during peak and off-peak hours: http://ir.fxcm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=958098

If you typically place market orders, you may want to use the Market Range feature on Trading Station. It will help you minimize negative slippage when prices are changing quickly, but still let you get the full benefits of any positive slippage that's available in the market: http://bit.ly/1QyB36A

 

[myfxpt]

Stupid AUS200, it was supposed to go down! Anyway, who is moving it, now after the Aussie markets are closed???... And how in the world did I set my stop loss so large, I would lose a fortune until it is met... Time to take another (well deserved ?) loss... Or maybe should I wait some more? Maybe a fortune it is to be made, if conditions come right?

PS - whenever I was looking at the chart, it was not moving at all! Later I discovered I was on an 1 hr timeframe. When I went to 5 mins, I could see some idiots keep raising the price of AUS200! I am quite angry on them!

Would love to hear the live voice recording! Love your attitude towards the market. Try longer timeframes H4 upwards...far less noise! Good luck!

 

[NickF]

Hi Nick,

You may be interested in the 2015 spread data FXCM reported earlier this week. It gives a breakdown of the spreads for the top currency pairs during peak and off-peak hours: http://ir.fxcm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=958098

If you typically place market orders, you may want to use the Market Range feature on Trading Station. It will help you minimize negative slippage when prices are changing quickly, but still let you get the full benefits of any positive slippage that's available in the market: http://bit.ly/1QyB36A

Thanks Jason, that's good to know. I do both types of transactions, I typically place market orders when I don't want to lose a fast trend. I would like to get some statistics on my trades, to see for example what percentage of market trades were losers and what percentage of limit trades were losers and so on. I am afraid that when I am impatient, I may be losing more often

Nick

 

[NickF]

Re: I sometimes love stop losses!

Well, it's me again. I just celebrated one year of Forex trading on April 24, 2016. My initial deposit of $2000 got down to $1800 after about six months, then I topped it up with another $2000. After some ups and downs I am now left with about $1770. In fact, I just transferred $100 to a mini account, where I can use MT4, instead of TradingStation. I want to run some scripts, because when I sleep I don't seem to lose as much as when I'm awake, so why waste precious time...

Reflecting back, I am not sure I managed to learn too much in one year. A few things which got stacked in my head is that levels of resistance and support have to be considered and it's usually less risky to trade in the direction of the trend. And yesterday I just discovered that I may do better to enter a trade by only setting a dynamic trailing stop loss (without setting a take profit limit), which avoids cutting the winners short and also protects against change in trend. I also developed more accurate expectations about the size of my losses based on the size of my investment. And sometimes it seems to be a bad idea to add more when losing. And today I just realized that when RBA drops the interest rate, one can expect a short term raise in ASX200.

I thought I should share a screenshot from today, to prove what level of finesse I reached. Easy 71 pips in less than three hours. Looking at the screenshot, I wonder why I didn't care about the Doji star just before the bar I entered and the proximity of the SMA200, where the price could bounce back. Well, I know why - because I was looking at the daily chart

Who said one can not pick bottoms and tops? Unfortunately I experienced plenty of such transactions...

Nick

 

[Jason Rogers]

Thanks Jason, that's good to know.

It's my pleasure, Nick

I do both types of transactions, I typically place market orders when I don't want to lose a fast trend.

You mentioned using limit orders, but do you ever use stop orders to open new trades? I ask because limit orders can't have negative slippage, but stop orders can due to the momentum of price movement when such order types are triggered.

I am afraid that when I am impatient, I may be losing more often

I know that's the case with me. That's why I now do automated trading exclusively. That and the fact that forex trades 24 hours a day.

 

[Jason Rogers]

I would like to get some statistics on my trades, to see for example what percentage of market trades were losers and what percentage of limit trades were losers and so on.

While it doesn't include a comparison of your trades opened with market orders versus those opened with limit orders, you can get other statistics using our new Trading Analytics: https://taweb.fxcorporate.com/

 

[NickF]

While it doesn't include a comparison of your trades opened with market orders versus those opened with limit orders, you can get other statistics using our new Trading Analytics: https://taweb.fxcorporate.com/

Wow Jason, thanks a lot for the link. I had no idea I can analyse my trades in there.

Here are some of the statistics. I am not very proud of them.

I will have to have a careful look at what is going on and alter my strategies. I think I should try again to play for a target profit/loss of $5 / -$5 per day.


Nick

 

[Jason Rogers]

Wow Jason, thanks a lot for the link. I had no idea I can analyse my trades in there.

It's my pleasure, Nick

Here are some of the statistics. I am not very proud of them.

Your stats seem to be improving, particularly since you reduced your trade frequency in the middle of last year. November through February was especially good for you. What worked for you at that time?

I will have to have a careful look at what is going on and alter my strategies. I think I should try again to play for a target profit/loss of $5 / -$5 per day.

I believe risk management is every bit as important as strategy. If I may ask, what percentage of your equity are you risking per trade? And what is your effective leverage?

 

[NickF]

Your stats seem to be improving, particularly since you reduced your trade frequency in the middle of last year. November through February was especially good for you. What worked for you at that time?

I wish I knew the answer I need to document more my trades, to see if there was something that caused me to become profitable. I know that in the past for a period of about a month, I set a daily target of $5. This target still seems very small (and very achievable) to me, but I am aware that if I could obtain this most days, I would probably have the best month. Back then, I had a lot of consecutive days where I was profitable, with small profits.

I believe risk management is every bit as important as strategy. If I may ask, what percentage of your equity are you risking per trade? And what is your effective leverage?

Yes, and risk management is even more important when I use a strategy that keeps changing every day (which in fact is not a strategy - maybe just a recipe for disaster). I usually make trades in $1000 lots. I tend to stay between $1000 - $3000 (which I already is too high for my account and level of experience).

Now that I got aware that I am losing double than what I make, I decided to limit my losses to $5...$10.
Yesterday I had a pretty good day. I made about $5 three times during the day and I lost it all. In the end I ended the day with $12 profit.
Today it started good. Based on the slight drop in US stock market, I expected AUS200 will also drop. My theory may be poor, but it worked in the morning.

Because I do trading while at work, I am able to check the evolution of Forex once in a while. I missed the opening and the price dropped quite a lot without me. However, I entered short and I made about $2.50 in less than half an hour. I was pleased with that, there would be plenty of time till tonight to make another $2.50 or even more.
So when the price rose, I put some more short orders at various levels. Seeing how quickly AUS200 was dropping, I was anxious for missing the action, so I was chasing the price down. I already got aware I should not do that. I sold when the price was raising and it appeared to me it will never stop raising. I closed the three units I had un AUS200, and at the moment I am on a loss of -$20, which I should have never let is happen.

As I already learnt, as soon as I sold, the price went back down. Now I have no idea what it AUS200 will do for the rest of the day. The bitter lesson is that I can lose money even if I guess correctly the trend. My theory was good, my impatience and lack of discipline sucked.

Anyway, the smartest thing I've done so far is to trade with a small account. Although losing $1200 is quite painful (even if it took me one year), it's not the end of the world. The smarter thing would be to trade with the demo account until I learn better what the heck I'm doing. But I'm not sure I'm smart enough to do that

Nick

 

[NickF]

Anyway, the smartest thing I've done so far is to trade with a small account. Although losing $1200 is quite painful (even if it took me one year), it's not the end of the world. The smarter thing would be to trade with the demo account until I learn better what the heck I'm doing. But I'm not sure I'm smart enough to do that
Nick

OK, I switched to a brand new demo account, with $5000. I decided to do some crazy trade - on the daily chart of SPX500, I see a head and shoulders forming, so I placed the long trade at 23:26 on 2016/05/06. It is now 23:42 and I am up 92 pip - $12.57, in less than 30 minutes. I already closed the trade (put $1000 into it). On my Demo account! Oh boy, I hate simulated trading...
I feel it is such a wasted opportunity of making real money...

Nick

 

[NickF]

OK, I switched to a brand new demo account, with $5000. I decided to do some crazy trade - on the daily chart of SPX500, I see a head and shoulders forming, so I placed the long trade at 23:26 on 2016/05/06. It is now 23:42 and I am up 92 pip - $12.57, in less than 30 minutes. I already closed the trade (put $1000 into it). On my Demo account! Oh boy, I hate simulated trading...
I feel it is such a wasted opportunity of making real money...

Nick

I hated that much making virtual money on my account, I switched back to my real account. Got a nice change of 67.5 pips, only with the wrong sign (-$9.18). In total, a loss of -$30.8 for the day. Time to switch back to my demo account... Maybe I need to attend some tai-chi classes

Nick

 

[Jason Rogers]

I wish I knew the answer I need to document more my trades, to see if there was something that caused me to become profitable. I know that in the past for a period of about a month, I set a daily target of $5. This target still seems very small (and very achievable) to me, but I am aware that if I could obtain this most days, I would probably have the best month. Back then, I had a lot of consecutive days where I was profitable, with small profits.


Yes, and risk management is even more important when I use a strategy that keeps changing every day (which in fact is not a strategy - maybe just a recipe for disaster). I usually make trades in $1000 lots. I tend to stay between $1000 - $3000 (which I already is too high for my account and level of experience).

Now that I got aware that I am losing double than what I make, I decided to limit my losses to $5...$10.
Yesterday I had a pretty good day. I made about $5 three times during the day and I lost it all. In the end I ended the day with $12 profit.
Today it started good. Based on the slight drop in US stock market, I expected AUS200 will also drop. My theory may be poor, but it worked in the morning.

Because I do trading while at work, I am able to check the evolution of Forex once in a while. I missed the opening and the price dropped quite a lot without me. However, I entered short and I made about $2.50 in less than half an hour. I was pleased with that, there would be plenty of time till tonight to make another $2.50 or even more.
So when the price rose, I put some more short orders at various levels. Seeing how quickly AUS200 was dropping, I was anxious for missing the action, so I was chasing the price down. I already got aware I should not do that. I sold when the price was raising and it appeared to me it will never stop raising. I closed the three units I had un AUS200, and at the moment I am on a loss of -$20, which I should have never let is happen.

As I already learnt, as soon as I sold, the price went back down. Now I have no idea what it AUS200 will do for the rest of the day. The bitter lesson is that I can lose money even if I guess correctly the trend. My theory was good, my impatience and lack of discipline sucked.

Anyway, the smartest thing I've done so far is to trade with a small account. Although losing $1200 is quite painful (even if it took me one year), it's not the end of the world. The smarter thing would be to trade with the demo account until I learn better what the heck I'm doing. But I'm not sure I'm smart enough to do that

Nick

You mentioned that during the time you were doing well, you set a target of making $5 per day. What happened if you reached that goal early in the day? Would you stop trading until the next day?

I ask because sometimes, the market conditions are just right for your strategy, and you might want to make the most of those opportunities. For example, I run automated strategies that perform best in volatile markets. I wouldn't think of turning these strategies off during times when market conditions suit them best.

Also, you said you trade 1k micro lots where you're risking about 10 cents per pip, but what is your effective leverage? You can determine this by adding up the total face value of all your open trades and dividing by your equity.

For example, if you have $2000 in your account and have a total of ten 1k micro lots open, then you have 10k in open positions with 2k in equity which means your effective leverage is 5:1. The DailyFX research team did a series of studies on trader profitability which showed that traders tend to do better when using 10:1 leverage or less.

 

[NickF]

You mentioned that during the time you were doing well, you set a target of making $5 per day. What happened if you reached that goal early in the day? Would you stop trading until the next day?

I ask because sometimes, the market conditions are just right for your strategy, and you might want to make the most of those opportunities. For example, I run automated strategies that perform best in volatile markets. I wouldn't think of turning these strategies off during times when market conditions suit them best.

Also, you said you trade 1k micro lots where you're risking about 10 cents per pip, but what is your effective leverage? You can determine this by adding up the total face value of all your open trades and dividing by your equity.

For example, if you have $2000 in your account and have a total of ten 1k micro lots open, then you have 10k in open positions with 2k in equity which means your effective leverage is 5:1. The DailyFX research team did a series of studies on trader profitability which showed that traders tend to do better when using 10:1 leverage or less.

Hi Jason,

Thanks for asking me the right questions.
I can't remember what I was doing back then, if I stopped after making my target profit. I have the trading history and I could analyse the trades during my best period, to see what gains and losses I encountered back then and at what time I stopped trading.

I still don't have a rigid strategy - perhaps if I had one, I would rather make a software for it. I based my decisions mostly based on levels of resistance and support. I found (pretty late) how important the news are and I discovered the sessions indicator, which shows when each market operates. For some period of time, if the trades were going the wrong way, I used to buy more at better prices - this strategy would only work for a period of time and when it doesn't, the loss I encounter can be greater than all previous gains, so now I avoid it.

My target gain changed over time. Early, I was scalping. Later, I was risking too much money. Now I am more into making more pips with one to three micro-lots. If I can close a trade in less than one hour for a profit of about AU$2.50 (which means about 30 pip), I am quite happy. Of course, it depends on how easy I get to 30 pips. One of the big issues I discovered with me is over-trading and becoming careless when I am successful.
I sort of tend to get drunk on success and I imagine trading is in fact easy. I forget that is not often that I make a nice profit easily and then I am not patient enough on waiting for another good opportunity. After some good trades, I see opportunities everywhere

I use low leverage. I experienced early some high volatility when I was trading at some stage up to around 20 x $1000 micro-lots (when I was adding to my losses) and that was my biggest loss - I lost in one day about $400. At some stage I gave my account to my wife and she traded a lot more aggressively for about two days than I usually do and she ended up with another $200 loss. In fact she lost around $230, then out of desperation she did some scalping and she brought the balance back to -$200, when she decided Forex is not for her

During my riskiest period, I got some warnings about margin calls. Since then, I rarely go over $5000 and when I do, I get alarm bells in my head. For my account of $2000, I consider $2000 as appropriate and $5000 already very risky. That means, my leverage is under 5:1. Perhaps, if I hadn't done that, I would have not survived with 1600 trades and still have over half of my account.

A few weeks ago I started reading/modifying/writing/testing some expert advisers in MT4 and I enjoy this activity. Perhaps this should be my focus. There are many examples online, I find they tend to have a lot of bugs, but they contain a lot of interesting code. I tested some strategies that came to my mind, based on speed of trade and various periods. I run optimization on them for one or two years, then tested them out of sample. Sometimes they did remarkably well, the highest I had was like over 80% in the next year with 25% drawdown. For whatever reason, what seemed to work well for 2014-2015, didn't work at all in 2016. I made tests with optimization for shorter periods and running the EA for shorter periods of time (one week, one month), but the results are not consistent. Ideally, I would like to implement an idea and get good results without any optimization and on any currency pair. But I noticed that there are significant differences for different currency pairs. For the same strategy, each reacts its own way - so most likely it is not possible to make a universal EA with a good performance.

I have heaps of ideas and tests to do. Out of curiosity - you mentioned you are running some scripts when the market conditions are right. What kind of annual profit do you get from trading? I asked some people the same question and they said that having a consistent profit of 8% p.a. would be a lot better than having some years making a lot more, but being inconsistent. To me, for an account under $5000, a 25% would be an excellent result (expecting that some years I would get a small loss, of less than -10%). A 10% would be a good result. A 50% would be an amazing result. Perhaps I expect far too much.

Nick

 

[Jason Rogers]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for asking me the right questions.

Thanks Nick, I try to ask useful questions.

For some period of time, if the trades were going the wrong way, I used to buy more at better prices - this strategy would only work for a period of time and when it doesn't, the loss I encounter can be greater than all previous gains, so now I avoid it.

What you described is a Martingale betting system, and it's good you realize they don't work. I've tried explaining this to others, unfortunately some people insist on learn the hard way.


That said, with proper risk management, you can avoids the pitfalls of martingale betting by using stops as part of a range trading strategy.

Now I am more into making more pips with one to three micro-lots. If I can close a trade in less than one hour for a profit of about AU$2.50 (which means about 30 pip), I am quite happy. Of course, it depends on how easy I get to 30 pips. One of the big issues I discovered with me is over-trading and becoming careless when I am successful.
I sort of tend to get drunk on success and I imagine trading is in fact easy. I forget that is not often that I make a nice profit easily and then I am not patient enough on waiting for another good opportunity. After some good trades, I see opportunities everywhere

Do you trade full time? I imagine it would be hard to monitor such a strategy without automation otherwise. I'm not saying automation is necessary, but you have to find some way to avoid overtrading because that can be as costly as poor risk management, since it means you're compromising your strategy.

I use low leverage.

That is good. As the article I mentioned in my previous post showed, successful traders tend to use less leverage.

A few weeks ago I started reading/modifying/writing/testing some expert advisers in MT4 and I enjoy this activity. Perhaps this should be my focus. There are many examples online, I find they tend to have a lot of bugs, but they contain a lot of interesting code. I tested some strategies that came to my mind, based on speed of trade and various periods. I run optimization on them for one or two years, then tested them out of sample. Sometimes they did remarkably well, the highest I had was like over 80% in the next year with 25% drawdown. For whatever reason, what seemed to work well for 2014-2015, didn't work at all in 2016. I made tests with optimization for shorter periods and running the EA for shorter periods of time (one week, one month), but the results are not consistent. Ideally, I would like to implement an idea and get good results without any optimization and on any currency pair. But I noticed that there are significant differences for different currency pairs. For the same strategy, each reacts its own way - so most likely it is not possible to make a universal EA with a good performance.

Since you're interested in automation, you may want to consider Mirror Trader As an FXCM account holder, you already have login details that give you access to this platform which has hundreds of strategy/currency pair combinations you can choose. Once you add a strategy to your Mirror Trader portfolio, trades are automatically placed in your FXCM account. There is no cost to buying these strategies like there is with many EAs. You pay the same commissions and spreads in your FXCM account for running Mirror Trader strategies as you do for placing your own manual trades.

I have heaps of ideas and tests to do. Out of curiosity - you mentioned you are running some scripts when the market conditions are right. What kind of annual profit do you get from trading? I asked some people the same question and they said that having a consistent profit of 8% p.a. would be a lot better than having some years making a lot more, but being inconsistent. To me, for an account under $5000, a 25% would be an excellent result (expecting that some years I would get a small loss, of less than -10%). A 10% would be a good result. A 50% would be an amazing result. Perhaps I expect far too much.

Nick

For compliance reasons, I'm not allowed to discuss my personal trading performance, since it could be interpreted as me giving a recommendation for my own trading strategies. That said, I believe it's best not to start out with a percentage target in mind, because it may lead you to taking unnecessary risks trying to achieve it. Instead, try to identify trading strategies that give you a genuine edge in the market. Once you have confidence in a strategy, you can modify your leverage and investment size to go after targets with a clearer understanding of the risks.

 

[NickF]

What you described is a Martingale betting system, and it's good you realize they don't work. I've tried explaining this to others, unfortunately some people insist on learn the hard way.
That said, with proper risk management, you can avoids the pitfalls of martingale betting by using stops as part of a range trading strategy.

Yes, I read about Martingale systems. I tried a "soft" version of it, where I was adding the same amount every time I was losing some money. Most of the time it worked. When it didn't, the loss was too high. Jesse Livermore was recommending to only add money to winning positions. I was unable to do that, but I will try to do it in the future.

Do you trade full time? I imagine it would be hard to monitor such a strategy without automation otherwise. I'm not saying automation is necessary, but you have to find some way to avoid overtrading because that can be as costly as poor risk management, since it means you're compromising your strategy.

Some of my biggest wins and losses happened when I left trades overnight. I still do it, but with small positions.

Since you're interested in automation, you may want to consider Mirror Trader As an FXCM account holder, you already have login details that give you access to this platform which has hundreds of strategy/currency pair combinations you can choose. Once you add a strategy to your Mirror Trader portfolio, trades are automatically placed in your FXCM account. There is no cost to buying these strategies like there is with many EAs. You pay the same commissions and spreads in your FXCM account for running Mirror Trader strategies as you do for placing your own manual trades.

Thanks for the tip. I noticed the Mirror Trader and I had a quick look at it before, but I was under impression it costs to join it. I looked at it last evening and I found quite a few strategies that worked quite well for one or two years. I seriously consider copying them. If I choose about 5 strategies of the better ones out there and invest $1000 in each for one year, I am quite confident they could make more money than myself

For compliance reasons, I'm not allowed to discuss my personal trading performance, since it could be interpreted as me giving a recommendation for my own trading strategies. That said, I believe it's best not to start out with a percentage target in mind, because it may lead you to taking unnecessary risks trying to achieve it. Instead, try to identify trading strategies that give you a genuine edge in the market. Once you have confidence in a strategy, you can modify your leverage and investment size to go after targets with a clearer understanding of the risks.

I understand that. At the moment I still lack discipline and my nature is to change my mind frequently, which may not be good. My last trades were quite bad. Two days ago I exceeded the maximum drawdown, which I had a while ago. Now I am on around -52%. I noticed that in some cases I've chosen correctly the trend, but I still managed to lose money, but the stop losses I set were too close to price and I got cut out very close to the desired reversal. I find it very difficult to choose a good stop loss point - set too far apart, I loose too much money, set to close, I lose money despite being right. Probably the better way is to have a vision for longer term and set larger stop loss point and chase larger profits - this way I can avoid the noise. I still haven't learnt my lesson not to jump in into fast moving prices. Just this morning I thought I will take advantage of a quick reversal in EURNZD (which I picked up too late anyway). I could have made a $1.75 in minutes (my target was $2), I chose instead to get out with -$4.42 loss. If I was wrong to be long, once I exited, I went short. Now I added a loss of another -$3.24 to the day's transaction. However, I put my full trust into the gravestone doji from the day before and the resistance level of around 1.68 and I bet it will go down, maybe to $1.64. That would cover my losses into EUR/NZD.
Luckily I covered some of my last losses with a $30 gain overnight in S&P500.

I want to check on all my 1600 trades, to get a screenshot view of where I entered, where I exited and what happened in the next two weeks after I closed my trades. Then to put all these into a short movie. Does anybody know if there is a software where I could feed a list of trades (currency pair, entry date and time, exit date and time) and show candlebars on screen, together with a straight line indicating the trade?

Nick

 

[Jason Rogers]

Jesse Livermore was recommending to only add money to winning positions.

His life came to a tragic end but before that he amassed one of the greatest fortunes in history from trading. His advice about adding to winning positions and not to losing positions is sound. One of many problems with Martingale betting systems is they add to losing positions instead of winning positions.

I noticed the Mirror Trader and I had a quick look at it before, but I was under impression it costs to join it. I looked at it last evening and I found quite a few strategies that worked quite well for one or two years. I seriously consider copying them. If I choose about 5 strategies of the better ones out there and invest $1000 in each for one year, I am quite confident they could make more money than myself

Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Keep in mind that one or two years is not a lot of time. Market conditions can change dramatically when you look at longer periods of time. That's why when I'm evaluating strategies on Mirror Trader (or anywhere else), I look at the total history. The longer the history, the better for me.

Unfortunately, Mirror Trader's search option only lets you look at the last 24 months of data. When I find a strategy that catches my eye over that time frame, I click on the strategy name in the search results. The window that pops up in the Mirror Trader platform will let you view more trading history for the strategy. I use that information to make my final decision on a strategy.

Also, I prefer strategies that perform pretty well on multiple currency pairs over strategies that did extremely well on just a few currency pairs. Call it a personal preference, but my rationale is that if a strategy only did well on one currency pair, it could have been down to luck.

Probably the better way is to have a vision for longer term and set larger stop loss point and chase larger profits - this way I can avoid the noise.

While I know some successful short term traders, I know more people who have found success trading on longer time frames.

Below is an excerpt from an article by currency analyst James Stanley on What is the ’Best’ Time Frame to Trade?

"All new traders should begin with a long-term approach; only getting shorter-term as they see success with a longer-term strategy. This way, as the margin of error increases with shorter-term charts and more volatile information, the trader can dynamically make adjustments to risk and trade management.

Traders utilizing a longer-term approach can look to use the weekly chart to grade trends, and the daily chart to enter into positions."​

In my experience, too often new traders are reluctant to try a long-term approach, because they equate longer-term trading with bigger losses. While you generally have to risk more pips on a long-term trade, that doesn't necessarily mean risking more dollars.

Consider that when you trade one micro lot (1000 units of base currency) you are risking only 10 cents per pip. That means you could risk risk 100 pips, and that would equate to $10.

I want to check on all my 1600 trades, to get a screenshot view of where I entered, where I exited and what happened in the next two weeks after I closed my trades. Then to put all these into a short movie. Does anybody know if there is a software where I could feed a list of trades (currency pair, entry date and time, exit date and time) and show candlebars on screen, together with a straight line indicating the trade?

Nick

NinjaTrader has a feature called Market Replay. It allows you to go back to a certain time in the past and play the charts forward from that point. However, I'm not sure if it will automatically reload your past trades. You can run a report from Trading Station and save it in Excel format to have a record of your trades.

 

[NickF]

Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Keep in mind that one or two years is not a lot of time. Market conditions can change dramatically when you look at longer periods of time. That's why when I'm evaluating strategies on Mirror Trader (or anywhere else), I look at the total history. The longer the history, the better for me.

Unfortunately, Mirror Trader's search option only lets you look at the last 24 months of data. When I find a strategy that catches my eye over that time frame, I click on the strategy name in the search results. The window that pops up in the Mirror Trader platform will let you view more trading history for the strategy. I use that information to make my final decision on a strategy.

Also, I prefer strategies that perform pretty well on multiple currency pairs over strategies that did extremely well on just a few currency pairs. Call it a personal preference, but my rationale is that if a strategy only did well on one currency pair, it could have been down to luck.

I checked some of the most popular strategies in MirrorTrader (PMInvestmentCapital, ThirdBrainFx, Taiyo, Sphynx)and although long term they look very good, I noticed that few of them made any money in the last year or two. It sometimes takes them more than 12 months to exceed the previous highs. The guys who created these strategies are very experienced, most have over five years of experience and none of them can say they were profitable for any selected 12 months period. This shows me the game is a lot tougher than what I was expecting.

On the other hand, looking at my performance (account opened on 24/04/2015, on 28/06/2015 - about two months after opening my account I was already down to -49.62%). After over 10 months and many hundreds of transactions, I am now on -50.14%, so in the last 10 months I lost less than 1% of my funds. And even if I don't feel like I learnt a lot in this one year of trading, I am aware that I know a lot more than a year ago.

Besides, I've done countless beginner mistakes which are avoidable. Only two days ago I lost over $8 when I took a nap in the afternoon (I took some days off work). I had open trades and I did not check when the major news concerning the my currency pairs were due. The news arrived and there was a very fast change which completely wiped off my morning profit. I made the money back, then I chased some fast movement and I lost it all again. My lesson is that if I see any fast movement, I would have more luck to trade in the opposite direction (at least for short term, like next 30 mins).

While I know some successful short term traders, I know more people who have found success trading on longer time frames.

Consider that when you trade one micro lot (1000 units of base currency) you are risking only 10 cents per pip. That means you could risk risk 100 pips, and that would equate to $10.

Thanks for pointing that out. You are right, I am also afraid of longer time frames because of risk of losing too many pips. But I also closed short term trades at the worst moments because I panicked and I thought there is no end to a fast move, only to find out I closed it on the very top or the bottom.

For now, my personal challenge is to get a better month by month performance compared with last year (i.e April 2015 (last week only) = -2.5%, April 2016 = -14.05%, May 2015 = -23.97%, May 2016 = +1.66% (at the moment). I will also try to stay on the positive side, no matter how small the profit. A +1% for the month is a lot better than anything negative.

 

[NickF]

Yesterday I had a memorable day. I played on S&P500. My belief is that it should go down in the future. So, I went short on it. I lost some money. So, I went long on it. I lost some more money. So I went short on it. I start losing serious money. There is only one way I know to fix this. Add another short position. Immediately lost money on it as well. Hmm, something must be wrong in my strategy. But I know the solution! I added another short position. Lost money on it as well. In total, I am down about $64. But now I realized my mistake! I was not stubborn enough. So, I made a magnificent plan. No matter what, I will keep these three positions until they become profitable again. Sounds like a good plan to me...