Set and Forget

An absolute PHENOMENAL week this week, with some massive gains, especially in my AUD, GBP, And EUR trades, which has rounded off an extremely good month. Overall, increase on equity was above 12% for the month.

All but 1 of the orders I placed last Sunday were taken, and I took a few more orders throughout the week as my TPS and SLs were hit. In total, I had 17 TPs hit, 1 closed at BE, and I took advantage of the increase in equity to close some of the longer trades/positions, 3 of them with a loss, to reduce drawdown and "reset" my positions.

So currently I only have 7 trades open (2 on Soybeans, which I couldn't close) and DD is at 0.9% (unsure why the FX Graph stats are not 100% accurate - current balance is $11367, yet they show $11491? -and the yellow equity growth line should be up on that last day, not down). After such a good month, annualised IRR for the last 5 months is sitting at 45.4%.

Given the movements in some of the pairs, and EUR in particular, there may not be as many opportunities this month, however the system is currently working well and I will be depositing more money in July.

In fact, here is the graph with the correct stats, and correct balance & equity growth lines, zoomed in to show just the S&F trading months.

[Post for week ending 09Jul]

Well as (likely) expected, there was some pullbacks this week on some of the trades, and equity loss for MTD is currently at 1.9%. However, all still very manageable with drawdown at only 3.3% (below the average 4% to 6% range).

This week, we had 5 of our TPs hit, so right on target, and as well we closed out the 2 soybeans trades at BE. On the negative side, some of the currency pairs are moving out of this system's trading zones, which means there will likely be fewer trading possibilities over the next few weeks. Therefore I may need to look at some of the more exotic crosses, which have a higher financing rate.

Annualised IRR is now around the 28% level, so tracking very nicely. Given my forecast for a lower number of upcoming opportunities, however, I feel this may decrease over the next few months. Target is a minimum of 25%.

Another good week this last week, with 9 TPs hit, and the two SilverJPY trades closed at just over BE. With the increase on equity this week, in particular on GBP late in the week, we recovered the dip in the first week of July, and MTD we are currently up 1.6%. This has brought our annualised IRR back up to 44.8%. Current drawdown is sitting at 0.7%, which is very low.

On the downside, most of the pairs I have been trading over the last year are now in, or moving into, a price range where this system advises against trading. As such, I currently only have 6 trades open, and 3 of those are silver crosses. I am looking at more exotic pairs to trade, but the swap rates, and spreads on these are not that attractive, and some have very low volatility, which doesn't help.

As such, and given that trading purely Set and Forget my highest drawdown ever reached just over 10%, I am considering increasing the percentage gain on each TP by 50%, or perhaps doubling it. This would mean that same drawdown would have maxed out at 15% or 20%, which is still very manageable, and still allows room for a worse case scenario than that. If I had doubled my percentage TP target, it would also have meant that my annualised equity gain would be almost 90%. That seems like quite a good risk-to-reward ratio., but it has only been a little over a year since using this method (and coming up to 6 months of pure S&F trading) and I have been trading long enough now to know that FX can change quite dramatically over a period of years. Without volatility, for example, this method will be a slow gainer.

As a first step, I will increase me TP target by 25% only, and see how that affects things.

I will also be depositing a further $4000 into my account this weekend.

Nice job Xeniz

Best,

Dave

hello Xeniz,

from a few words here and there, you seem to trade from a historical high/low.
buy AUD, CAD, GBP - sell CHF, NZD, USD
if that is the case, RedLineFred in Xaron`s Low leverage thread in Trading Journals
has a similar starting point.
interesting system.
good luck

Hi Yonnie,

Yes, I came across that a week or so ago and starting reading through some of his posts. Seems like something quite similar, but he also talks about having severe drawdown and getting/managing close to 100% drawdown. That's not something I'm comfortable with, especially as the account size grows. Getting a margin call on an account of $200 is one thing, but having one on an account of $200,000 is something quite different

An average week this week. On the positive, another 9 positions were opened, taking the total to 15, with 8 hitting their TP and one at BE. So still sitting with 6 trades open, the oldest being only 5 days old. On the negative, equity dropped a little, so we are currently at about 0.4% down MTD. 4 of the Open positions are GBP, so hoping for some comeback and volatility in the pound in coming weeks.

Drawdown is currently sitting at 2.6%, so well below average.

The trades taken this week had a slightly higher % TP target, and I will continue to do that, so hopefully we will see this converted into good equity gains over the coming months (while also expecting a higher drawdown level, possibly as much as 15%-20%).

The annualised IRR is still over 30%, which is above target, although as mentioned last week trading opportunities are fewer now, so I will need that higher TP percentage to cover the lower number of trades.

All up, very pleased with how things are tracking,

A very pleasing week: 13 new trades taken, and 15 TPs hit, with a gain on equity for the week at around 2.9%, and up about 3.5% MTD now. Currently only 4 trades open (3 on GBP), with drawdown sitting just below 1.5%. The oldest open trade is 12 days old.

With the slight increase in the TP targets, and the increase in equity this month, the annualised IRR over the last 6 months is up to 47%, well above my target of 25%.

I haven't studied the positions to open next week yet, will do that tomorrow.

Six Month Summary

While it has been over a year now with Set&Forget, it has only been the last 6 months where all trades open or closed have been taken in this account using this method. I know this is still a relatively short time frame, and I'm sure there will be greater ups and downs over the next few years, but this system is actually performing better than expected so far. There have been some phenomenal months, and there have some negative months too. July has also finished on a high, with 8 TPs hit on Monday, the last trading day of the month.

That brings equity gain for the month to 5.1%, and the annualised IRR for the last 6 months to 50.2%! That is double my annual target of annual 25%! Highest drawdown to date was just over 10%.

Of course, I am expecting some slower months ahead, and some months of higher drawdown (perhaps even as high as 15%-20% with the increased TP percentage targets), however I'm confident that I will still be over 30% equity gain for the year after 12 months.

I realise the MyFXBook stats are slightly skewed when analysing a different time period that isn't since inception date. The actual balance is currently $16058, so current drawdown is only 1.46%, and while it shows maximum DD to be only 7.88% during this 6 month period, if did reach the 10% mark back in May.

Let's see what the next six months brings!

Not a bad week overall, with 15 TPs hit in total (3 times the target). Some were hit quite early in the week, so I went back and opened more positions mid-week, which helped boost the overall TP count. Equity-wise though, with the lower GBP against the EUR, and lower Soybeans, we saw a small decrease of 0.15% in equity for the week.

I have made another deposit of $1000 - the intention is to keep trying to increase account size. Drawdown is currently at 3.2%, so still on the low side, and there are 7 trades still open, with the oldest being 20 days old.

I have placed 14 orders this evening. Of the orders placed last all week, all but one was taken. Several of them are GBP trades, so I am wary of having too much exposure to GBP.

A very average week this week. 5 TPs hit, which meets target. Of the 14 orders placed, 10 were taken. So currently sitting on 12 trades open (with 2 positions open on EURGBP, the oldest now 4 weeks old).

With the GBP and Soybeans both losing ground this week (and I was wary of taking too many GBP trades) there was a drop in equity this week of 0.9%. With the increase in balance, drawdown is now up to 4.6%, which is at the lower end of the "average" range for DD, so quite comfortable with that. GBP makes up a little under 50% of total current exposure, so I won't be taking any more GBP trades at this stage.

Well, August is proving not be to a great month. Only 7 orders placed last weekend, with 6 of them being taken. This week there were only 4 TPs hit, and the drop in equity for the week was over 2%. So MTD the drop in equity is almost 4.5%, and depending what happens over the next week or two it looks like my worst month to date.

But that's ok, because I've had some very good months, and obviously there will be ups and downs. On the positive, even with the increase in lot size per trade, drawdown is still only at 7%, just a little above average, and I'm comfortable with that.

So now on 14 trades open (still 2 positions on EURGBP), although 9 of those are GBP crosses and GBP exposure is 38% of all position value at the moment. Only 5 new orders placed this week, quite low, so probably not much to report by next weekend either.

I've looked back at August 2016 and the Set&Forget trades. For the whole month I only placed 14 trades, with 8 TPs hit, so there has actually been a bit more activity this year, however it is still a relatively quiet month it would appear (European summer holidays etc). Roll on September!

As expected, not much activity this week, 5 orders placed, all of them taken, and 5 TPs hit. So meeting targets as far as TPs are concerned, but another 1% drop in equity for the week, and that means i'm at about 5.4% equity loss for the month of August so far. Still 14 trades open, 9 of which are GBP crosses, and the EURGBP trade currently about a third of the total drawdown.

Drawdown is up to about 8.4%, still at a reasonably comfortable level, but the problem is now two-fold; as that DD increases I need to watch how many new positions get taken as to not overextend myself, and as many pairs have now moved into what I call "no-trade territory" I have fewer trading possibilities anyway. So short term it looks like there won't be much trading for me either way I look at it....

With this poor months results, annualised IRR has dropped right down to about 13%pa. While that's still much better then bank rates, that is well under my annual target of 25%.

This week was a much better week, with some strong gains in GBP and CAD, especially on Friday. So nearly a 4% gain on equity for the week, and about 1.5% on Friday alone. There weren't a lot of new trading opportunities for me this week, with only 3 orders placed last Sunday (all three taken). However, with the rallies on several currencies, I ended up having 7 TPs hit, so a few of the older trades closed in good profit too. Currently I still have 10 trades open (8 on GBP crosses)

So that means August was still a losing month, with a 3% drop in equity. However, with just one day in September so far, we are up over 1.4%, so everything is balancing out. Drawdown is sitting at 5.7% which is within average range(the Myfxbook stats show 5.4%, as their figures are not 100 accurate, and I'm not sure why the last day shows a drop in the equity line on the chart, as this was a strong up day - this has happened before though. Margin used is under 14% of NAV, so all very comfortable. Annualised IRR is 26.9%, back over the 25% target.

Once more, looks like there won't be many orders placed this coming week either.

September has been a very positive month so far, with over 2% increase in equity this week, bringing the equity gain MTD to 3.5%. I only placed 5 orders last Sunday, all of them taken, and I had 7 TPs hit, over the 5 per week target. That leaves 8 trades still open (6 on GBP crosses) with the oldest being EURGBP from about 8 weeks ago.

Drawdown has reduced to about 4.6% which is at the lower end of the average range to date, and margin used is about 10.8% of NAV. Trading opportunities are getting a little thin though, and while I could get back into some more GBP trades, I don't want to expose myself too heavily on one currency.

With these gains over the month to date, for the last 7+ months annualised IRR is has bounced back up to 34%. Really happy with that. Unfortunately it looks like I won't be able make any more deposits for a couple of months at least, and hope I can add some more funds later in the year.

As well, it looks like FF may have fixed the issue with the Oanda v20 accounts, so will try and get the TEs back up and running.

Another great week with almost 4% equity gain for the week, which brings the equity gain MTD for September up to 7.5%.

There were 8 orders placed last Sunday, 5 which were taken. During the week, 7 TPs were hit, as well as the 2 EURGBP positions being closed out just over BE. The movement in GBP that I had been waiting for was responsible for most of the TPs, and I'm happy to see my GBP exposure be brought right back down, as well as being able to close the old EURGBP trades for a small profit as well.

So I now only have 6 trades open, with Corn and Soybeans being the oldest (July) and GBPCAD (Aug). The others are all September trades. Current drawdown is 1.7%, so very low, and margin used is just over 6% of NAV. With a couple of NZD trades open, that is where I currently have most exposure, and the election results next weekend may prove to be quite close.

Annualised IRR is is now 46.9%, almost double my minimum yearly target of 25%

Trading opportunities are still quite scarce though, with only 18 trades opened in the last four weeks. I would rather stay away from trades like Soybeans that have high holding costs, but I am a little limited in what I can trade currently. I have already increased my TP targets by 25%, which has proven beneficial and hasn't seen DD increase significantly either, and if trade opportunities remain low I may consider increasing the TP target by another 25%. At the moment I am being quite conservative though, and I will continue my "wait and see" approach.

A reasonably quiet week this week. 7 orders placed, 6 taken, and only 3 TPs hit all week. The rise in the NZ dollar meant a 1.6% drop in equity for the week, reducing the MTD gain in equity to around 5.8%.

This leaves me with 9 trades open at a drawdown of 3.5%. Annualised IRR is sitting around 38%. Very comfortable with those figures.

The way things are looking it seems there will be a few more quiet weeks coming up though

Another average week to close out the month of September. There were only 4 trades placed last weekend, with all 4 being taken. There were 5TPs hit, so we met target there. Mid week we were up about 1.5% equity gain for the week, but we closed the week out at only 0.2% for the week in the end. However, that still gives us over 6.1% equity gain for the month of September, so very happy with that. (Once more, the drop in the equity line in the MyFXBook chart on the last day is greater than it should be, but its a minor flaw that corrects itself....)

Coming into October, we have 8 trades open with drawdown at 3.7%. Margin used is about 8.6% of NAV.

The important figure is annualised IRR, which after 8 months sits at slightly over 36%. During that period, the highest drawdown percentage was just a little over the 10% mark, averaging between 4%-6%.

There has been sideways movements in some of the currencies over the last few weeks, and that is the negative part of this system. I need volitility, and the higher the better. Sideways movements just costs me in holding costs. That said, as long as I can make, on average, 5 TPs per week, I will achieve at least 25% return per annum.

I'm still not in a position to add more funds to the account, hopefully that will change in the upcoming months.

One of the slowest weeks to date. There were 8 orders placed, all of which were taken. But only 2 TPs were hit, so under our 5 TP target for the week. Equity was down 1.2% for the week.

Currently I have 14 trades open, and have just placed another 6 orders. Drawdown is just a tad over 5%, so within the average range, and Margin used is about 17% of NAV. In regards to exposure, GBP is the highest and makes up about 20%.

Annualised IRR is sitting around 30% and is above target.