Set and Forget

Some decent gains in equity this week, up 3.5% overall, which means an approximate 2.3 % gain in equity MTD.

Last week I placed only 6 orders, 4 of which were taken. There were 8 TPs hit however, so above target, and retracements in some trades that were in the red helped as well (e.g. soybeans). So currently I have 10 trades open, the oldest being Corn and Soybeans (from late July, so about 11 weeks). All the rest are Sep/Oct trades. Margin Used is about 11% of NAV. GBP has the most exposure at just over 20%.

Drawdown is down to around 2.5%, under the average 4%-6% range. Even with a 25% increased TP target started 3 months ago, drawdown has still remained quite low, so I might increase the TP target again in November. I am conscious that we are coming up to Xmas though and don’t want to be carrying too many trades over the holiday period.

The annualised IRR is the important figure for me (along with drawdown – a high return that goes hand in hand with high risk/high drawdown is not what I’m after). That figure is currently sitting at just under 40%

(Once again, the last day in the equity line in the chart is showing a drop, when in fact there was a good gain over the last couple of days of the week)

Another relatively quiet week, with 3 orders placed, 3 TPs hit, and a small drop in equity, meaning total equity gain MTD is at 1.8%, so a little under target. The outcome of the NZ elections helped as the GBP and USD trades lost a bit of ground.

Drawdown is currently at 3.5%, so sitting very comfortable there, and Margin Used is under 9% of NAV.

The Corn and Soybeans trades are still sitting there in the red, although Soybeans has rebounded back quite a bit. These two trades are nearly 3 months old now.

Annualised IRR is 36.5%.

Today is a public holiday in NZ, so instead of placing orders last night, I have taken market orders today - 5 in total.

Not a bad week, some good gains in GBP but down a little with the SGD trades. So overall we were 0.6% up for the week, taking the equity gains for the month so far to 2.46%, just over our 2% target.

There were 5 trades placed last week, all taken, and 7 TPS hit. That leaves me with 8 positions still open, and I have placed another 8 orders this morning.

Drawdown is at 3.6%, below average, and Margin Used still sitting at about 9% of NAV. Very comfortable levels.

Annualised IRR is currently 37.5%, so very happy with that.

Nine Month Summary

It has now been nine months of pure Set & Forget trading. There have been over 300 trades taken, with a success rate of 93%. In dollar figures, the average loss is about double the average win.

The annualised IRR on equity during that period is 35.8%, well in excess of my original target minimum of 25%. The highest drawdown reached just over the 10% mark.

Over these 9 months, I had 6 winning months, and 3 losing months. The worst month was a loss on equity of 3.05%; the best month was a gain in equity of 12.64%, On average, the return on equity per month over this period was 3.02% (this last month of October was 2.44%)

So all in all everything has been tracking well. I am aware that Xmas is fast approaching, and at this stage the plan is to close all trades over this period. Unfortunately my personal situation has meant I have not been able to add funds to my account for a couple of months now, and I don't think I will be able to for the foreseeable future.

I am still very aware that I have only been trading this way for about 15 months all up, and the markets do have different cycles, so while I am very pleased with progress so far, I am taking a measured approach to being excited over long term (15-20year) outcomes.

Towards the end of this week I carried out a "mini-reset" of positions, as in just the first 2 days of November we had had gains in equity over 1% (so over half the monthly target). This consisted of closing out some of the older trades that were in fairly heavy losses, and reentering into those same pairs again. It doesn't affect Equity, just Balance, and the effect is two-fold: it reduces drawdown, and offers up better opportunites for some TPs being hit on those pairs.

In the end I closed 3 trades, includuing the old Corn trade that has been going sideways for a few months now. I will still be able to take some profits from this commodity if/when it does move back up. The loss on Balance was 2%, and reduced the total drawdown to only 1%.

There were 8 new orders placed last week, all of which got hit, and 3 "re-trades" also taken. In total, we had 7 TPs hit (1 from the "re-trade"). That leaves me with 9 trades currently open, Soybeans being the oldest.

After the "reset", drawdown was as low as 1%, but with some movement in the end of the week, that now sits at 1.8%. This is a very manageable level, well under average, and considering the annualised IRR is over 36%, the risk/reward ratio is looking pretty strong.

Given the results so far, I am making two more changes. Firstly, I am making another increase in my TP percentage target per trade. Secondly. while I want to continue increasing the size of the account, I will at this stage be limiting the funds with the broker at A$20000. There have been several discussions over broker risk, and while I have not had any issues at all with Oanda (on the contrary, they have been excellent to date), I want to mitigate future possible risk. As such, once the account gets over the A$20,000 mark, I will make sporadic withdrawals and keep the funds in a bank account here. When I am also in a position to add funds, they will also go into the bank account, and I will amend my trade size accordingly. I realise that will skew the results on MyFXBook, and show better returns and higher drawdown than actual, but I will somehow show it in a more accurate way here. I will also save the 3% fee on each deposit and the exchange rate costs.

(Unfortunately the drop in the red balance line is hidden by the "reset zoom" box in the graph, but it is there)

Very nice & consistent trading Steve.... and thank you so much for the insights via the pm's... I very much like the idea of holding most of your trading cash in a separate account and keeping only sufficient funds in your broker account to cover margin. I read that this was a very good way to limit the exposure of your trading capital, not just from broker-related issues, but also from "Trader-related" issues...

Best,

Dave

Thanks Dave,

I must admit it has been a good run so far, and fairly stress free (and much less time consuming too!). I'm really interested to see what fluctuations in drawdown there will be over the next few years, although I believe my "resets" will help me manage those. Mid-to-Long term sideways markets will be when this system underperforms, and no doubt that will come at some point.

Note taken about what you say about "trader-related" issues.... A good point. On the other side of the coin, I will also have to change my perspective that the money sitting in the bank account is "dead money" and resist the temptation of putting into shares or something similar. Posting here once a week with all my figures, results etc should keep everything in check.

I really am in this longterm, I have about another 15-20 years or so before official retirement, and would love to build up an account of a reasonable size, and to have modified the system to ride up all the ups and downs (and sideways) for a steady income in my retirement which lets me travel and play!

Another good week all up, and another opportunity to close a losing trade and reduce drawdown.

Gain on equity was up to almost 3% MTD fairly early in the week. The week started with 9 trades still open, and 11 orders placed. 9 of those orders got taken pretty quickly after opening, and 5 had hit TP within 24 hours or so. So I reentered 4 of them, as we were still in the early part of the week. All up, I opened 16 new trades, and we had 14 TPs hit (that must be close to a record for one week). I also took advantage of the increased equity early on in the week to close the AUDSGD trade that was in loss, and reopened it. At that time, that reduced my drawdown to only $54 (or 0.3%). There was a retracement in some of the trades later in the week, and the resulting 11 trades open are sitting in drawdown of around 1.3%.

Margin Used is 15% of NAV. Of the 11 trades open, 8 are November trades, with Soybeans still the oldest (late July).

Equity gain month-to-date is just over 2% so far, with almost 3 whole weeks left. Annualised IRR is nearly 39%, although with my plan to close all positions from mid Dec to early-mid Jan and not trade during that period, I expect that to drop to around the 30%.

An average week this week; positive that we had 8 TPs hit, but some downside movement in AUD and GBP in particular meant a losing week of about 0.8%. We are still in positive for the month, at around 1.2% MTD equity gain.

There were six orders placed at the start of the week, all taken. With the 8 TPs hit that means we currently have 9 trades open. Margin Used is about 12% of NAV.

Importantly, annualised IRR is 35%, with current drawdown about 3.2%.

A winning week, pretty much on target, nothing spectacular. 10 trades place last week, all taken, with 9 TPS hit, which is a good outcome. Equity gain for the month sitting at around 1.8% with a few days trading still left to come.

Currently sitting with 10 trades still open, the Soybeans trade gaining some ground this week so might manually close this one soon depending how the week plays out. Would like to see some recovery in the AUD, as well as a drop in the CHF too

Margin used is around 14% of NAV, and current drawdown is just over 4%. With annualised IRR at 34.9% things are tracking nicely.

Another good week. The MyFXBook stats are starting to get a little out of whack, as actual balance is $18302 (not the $18373 showing - and the discrepancy is growing each week). So real increase in equity this week is 1.2%, and for the month of November the increase in equity was dead on 3%.

We are now into he last trading month of the year, and the plan at this stage is to close ALL trades about 20Dec and not have anything open the Xmas/New Year period. And start again next year. Quite happy to do that as at the end of the day it is equity that I focus on, not balance.

6 orders placed last week, with 7 TPs hit, laving 9 trades still open. Quite a drop in my SilverJPY trade offset the gains made in a couple of the other trades. Drawdown sitting just under 4% though, so comfortable with that. Margin used is about 11.5% of NAV.

Anuualised IRR is at 36.5%.

Interesting! Care to elaborate on your strategy/method? Thanks

Nice job Steve... very consistent with low DD...

Not one of the better weeks this time round. It started off very strong, so by Wednesday I had already reached over 2% equity gain for the week. I considered closing out all trades and resetting, especially as we are getting close to Xmas, but decided not to. In the end, the AUD and Silver lost a lot of the ground they had gained, and then some, so I ended up having a losing week. Down over 1% for the week. and drop in equity is 1.1% MTD.

8 orders placed, 7 taken, and 7 TPs hit. That leaves me with 9 positions open (including 2 trades on SilverJPY)

Current drawdown is just over 6% (and the current trading plan allows for 20%+). Current Margin Used is 12% of NAV. Annualised IRR has dropped to 32.3%

I have placed another 9 trades this week.

A slight recovery this week, which was a little slow activity-wise, and likely to get slower over the next few weeks. There were 9 orders placed last week, all taken, and I had 5 TPS hit.

So while a small gain in equity this week, we are still down 0.9% for the month. Drawdown is sitting at 6.3%, and Margin Used is about 18% of NAV. Annuliased IRR is currently 31.5%

I have only placed 3 orders this week. Depending on how this week progresses, these will possibly be the last orders I place this year.

All trades closed out manually.

Not a lot of activity this week, just the 1 TP hit. Equity gain for the month was 0.6%. So not a stellar month, but profitable all the same. I was debating whether to hold the trades open over the Xmas/New Year period, but decided to "reset" the account. Yes, the Balance took a hit, but it is only the Equity I am interested in anyway.

So I will start trading again 08Jan.

Annualised IRR on equity is currently 33.7%. By 08Jan, with no further trading taking place, that will be around 31.5%. That is a good year as far as I'm concerned.

Merry Xmas all, see you in the New Year!

Excellent job Steve! Best for 2018!

Dave

First week back trading this year, and a losing week to start. The MyFXBook chart doesn't seem to have plotted the "reset" before Xmas very well, as equity was up for the month of Dec (albeit only slightly), but I suppose at the end of the day it is the best option available for me at the moment to chart my progress through a third party website.

At any rate, equity was down this first week of 2018 by 0.5%. I placed 14 orders last weekend, 11 taken pretty quickly, and EURGBP reaching the TP within 24 hours, so I rentered. In total, 15 orders placed, all taken, with 6 TPS hit, so currently 9 positions open.

Margin used is about 13% of NAV, with current drawdown at 1.2%.

Equity change MTD is currently -0.5%.

A little disappointed with MyFxBook, as the chart has not corrected. I'm currently at my highest equity level ever but the chart does not reflect this (the Balance and Equity figures shown by FXBook are correct). I've tried FXBlue, but it is only picking up the last 95 days (that could be a problem with Oanda) and the FF Trade Explorer is well out of whack too. I would appreciate any other suggestions when charting my results as I think it is important to have an accurate visual report too

At any rate, this was a good week, with equity regaining from last week's dip, and then some. I placed 5 orders, had 4 taken, and in total 7 TPs were hit, leaving me with 6 open trades. The gain on equity for the week was 1.6%, so MTD I am up about 1.1%.

Drawdown is very low at approx 0.7%. Annualised IRR for 2018 is just over 20%, a little low, but we are just starting the year.

A pretty good week all round. 8 orders placed, 6 taken, and 10 TPs hit in total, only leaving 2 trades still open (both CAD crosses).About 0.9% gain on equity for the week, taking equity gain for the month to about 2% MTD.

Importantly, drawdown is still low at only 1.1% Anualised IRR for 2018 (although we are still in Jan) is over 32%, and that is also the IRR for the last 12 months too, so right on track.

I've placed another 10 orders today, all taken.