Hi Raja,
How I've been trading these last few months especially there is no actual 'system'. There is a method to my madness and I have various rules to keep myself in check.
I don't use indicators and unfortunately it's not something that you can programme an EA on (unless you can get inside my head).
There is something I'm putting together with someone and
1) If we remain consistently profitable over a few months initially and
2) Subject to the consent of Merlin and his team,
we can share freely exactly what we're doing.
Kind Regards
Steve
- #2,947
- Dec 8, 2007 5:50pm Dec 8, 2007 5:50pm
- Joined Jun 2006 | Status: Trader | 2,512 Posts
Has this system/play/method died?
I started the journal in Nov 06 with a view to recording all my trades for a year. I did that and now just pop back occasionally to update for those interested.
By writing the journal and interacting with people far more experienced and skilled than myself, I reckon I've learned more in a year than I would have in 5 years if I'd just gone it alone.
I'd recommend keeping a journal to anyone - and don't give up when you hit a bad spell because you will, we all do. It's not for everyone of course but all I can do is speak from my own personal experience and it was one of my better decisions.
Kind Regards
Steve
- #2,948
- Edited 3:42am Dec 9, 2007 3:24am | Edited 3:42am
Hey Steve, Glad your still here, wish you'd make a little more noise
Listen...Did you ever come across "cyclesurfer" (metatrader forum) trading method were he
puts on 2 positions at the same time on a 5 min chart and goes for a one pip profit move and caps his losing trades with a hedge if they start to run too far negative. From what I gather, its a profitable system for 5 pips a day with little margin and little risk.
Some of the guys say they do the same thing with 5 and 10 pip moves for bigger profits. Its an interesting method with the "hole" and the "pocket" concept.
He also mentions trading with a "Gut Feeling" and says its someting you pick up with enough screen time, although his method only tries for 5 pips a day, it was his hedging strategy I though you might find interesting.
Although your method produces far more pips, I thought you might get an
AH-HAH! from his method, either that , or I'm out in left field as usual.
I got my first AH-HAH from your thread when you mentioned hedging
(AH-HAH's are few and far between...Thanks!)
Sounds like a hedge is much better than a 1000 pip stoploss, as it doesn't eat up margin and you live to play another day, were you wouldn't when a 1000 pip loss is hit. With the hedge you can let the loss run 5000 pips if needed with no additional loss of margin. Thats what it looks like on the surface, but I could be under water on this also.
Anyways, just tryin to confuse you a little more with all this rambling.
http://www.forex-tsd.com/suggestions...y-charles.html
Thnx - Norm
Listen...Did you ever come across "cyclesurfer" (metatrader forum) trading method were he
puts on 2 positions at the same time on a 5 min chart and goes for a one pip profit move and caps his losing trades with a hedge if they start to run too far negative. From what I gather, its a profitable system for 5 pips a day with little margin and little risk.
Some of the guys say they do the same thing with 5 and 10 pip moves for bigger profits. Its an interesting method with the "hole" and the "pocket" concept.
He also mentions trading with a "Gut Feeling" and says its someting you pick up with enough screen time, although his method only tries for 5 pips a day, it was his hedging strategy I though you might find interesting.
Although your method produces far more pips, I thought you might get an
AH-HAH! from his method, either that , or I'm out in left field as usual.
I got my first AH-HAH from your thread when you mentioned hedging
(AH-HAH's are few and far between...Thanks!)
Sounds like a hedge is much better than a 1000 pip stoploss, as it doesn't eat up margin and you live to play another day, were you wouldn't when a 1000 pip loss is hit. With the hedge you can let the loss run 5000 pips if needed with no additional loss of margin. Thats what it looks like on the surface, but I could be under water on this also.
Anyways, just tryin to confuse you a little more with all this rambling.
http://www.forex-tsd.com/suggestions...y-charles.html
Thnx - Norm
- #2,949
- Dec 9, 2007 4:10am Dec 9, 2007 4:10am
- Joined Jun 2006 | Status: Trader | 2,512 Posts
Hey Steve, Glad your still here, wish you'd make a little more noise
Listen...Did you ever come across "cyclesurfer" (metatrader forum) trading method were he
puts on 2 positions at the same time on a 5 min chart and goes for a one pip profit move and caps his losing trades with a hedge if they start to run too far negative. From what I gather, its a profitable system for 5 pips a day with little margin and little risk.
Some of the guys say they do the same thing with 5 and 10 pip moves for bigger profits. Its an interesting method with the "hole" and the "pocket" concept.
He also mentions trading with a "Gut Feeling" and says its someting you pick up with enough screen time, although his method only tries for 5 pips a day, it was his hedging strategy I though you might find interesting.
Although your method produces far more pips, I thought you might get an
AH-HAH! from his method, either that , or I'm out in left field as usual.
I got my first AH-HAH from your thread when you mentioned hedging
(AH-HAH's are few and far between...Thanks!)
Sounds like a hedge is much better than a 1000 pip stoploss, as it doesn't eat up margin and you live to play another day, were you wouldn't when a 1000 pip loss is hit. With the hedge you can let the loss run 5000 pips if needed with no additional loss of margin. Thats what it looks like on the surface, but I could be under water on this also.
Anyways, just tryin to confuse you a little more with all this rambling.
Thnx - Norm
Firstly I'd say that the amount of pips we're talking about doesn't really matter - what does matter is % risk and returns.
I've settled on using a position size of 0.2% with a maximum of 10 positions on at any time. The 1000 pip stop loss only equates to a 2% risk on each position - I made over 7500 pips last month but that only equates to 15% without compounding.
I need a high win rate to make this work and so far haven't had a stop loss hit. To break even I can afford to have one loser every 20 trades or so. November was 165 winning trades and December so far 18.
Although I'm taking trades from the 5 minute charts I'm always looking at higher time frames and base general direction and important price points from the daily charts and even weekly charts.
There are those that won't believe that over 500 consecutive winning trades is possible but I know it is and that's what matters to me. The important thing with any method is managing risk and not to panic when things don't go quite as planned.
Glad you've had an 'ah-ha' moment lol. My method is a 50 pip t/p & 1000 pip s/l - I guess this could be very similar to a 5 pip t/p and 100 pip s/l with adjustment on position size. Why I'm comfortable with how I trade is that I don't have the 'fear' of the stop loss like I used to - it lets me concentrate on the price action at the time.
Good luck Norm
Kind Regards
Steve
- #2,950
- Dec 9, 2007 4:43am Dec 9, 2007 4:43am
- | Joined Sep 2006 | Status: Newbie...from Dubai... | 135 Posts
Hi, Steve
HAve u posted your scalping system yet on the forum. Just want it to know. i read almost everyting, but didnt find it.
HAve u posted your scalping system yet on the forum. Just want it to know. i read almost everyting, but didnt find it.
Hi Norm
Firstly I'd say that the amount of pips we're talking about doesn't really matter - what does matter is % risk and returns.
I've settled on using a position size of 0.2% with a maximum of 10 positions on at any time. The 1000 pip stop loss only equates to a 2% risk on each position - I made over 7500 pips last month but that only equates to 15% without compounding.
I need a high win rate to make this work and so far haven't had a stop loss hit. To break even I can afford to have one loser every 20 trades or so. November was 165 winning trades and December so far 18.
Although I'm taking trades from the 5 minute charts I'm always looking at higher time frames and base general direction and important price points from the daily charts and even weekly charts.
There are those that won't believe that over 500 consecutive winning trades is possible but I know it is and that's what matters to me. The important thing with any method is managing risk and not to panic when things don't go quite as planned.
Glad you've had an 'ah-ha' moment lol. My method is a 50 pip t/p & 1000 pip s/l - I guess this could be very similar to a 5 pip t/p and 100 pip s/l with adjustment on position size. Why I'm comfortable with how I trade is that I don't have the 'fear' of the stop loss like I used to - it lets me concentrate on the price action at the time.
Good luck Norm
Kind Regards
Steve
Thanks and Regards
Zamir M Iqbal
- #2,951
- Dec 9, 2007 7:51pm Dec 9, 2007 7:51pm
[quote=steviet;1750716]Hi Norm
Firstly I'd say that the amount of pips we're talking about doesn't really matter - what does matter is % risk and returns.
I've settled on using a position size of 0.2% with a maximum of 10 positions on at any time. The 1000 pip stop loss only equates to a 2% risk on each position - I made over 7500 pips last month but that only equates to 15% without compounding.
Steve, If I understood well, you would be risking 20% if all 10 positions got stopped (it would be a very rare thing to happen, but hypothetically you'd be losing 20%....right?)?
With all those monster pips that you collected in Nov, are you trading now full-time? Did you kiss your job good-bye?
Firstly I'd say that the amount of pips we're talking about doesn't really matter - what does matter is % risk and returns.
I've settled on using a position size of 0.2% with a maximum of 10 positions on at any time. The 1000 pip stop loss only equates to a 2% risk on each position - I made over 7500 pips last month but that only equates to 15% without compounding.
Steve, If I understood well, you would be risking 20% if all 10 positions got stopped (it would be a very rare thing to happen, but hypothetically you'd be losing 20%....right?)?
With all those monster pips that you collected in Nov, are you trading now full-time? Did you kiss your job good-bye?
- #2,952
- Dec 10, 2007 12:48am Dec 10, 2007 12:48am
- Joined Jun 2006 | Status: Trader | 2,512 Posts
[quote=alcastro;1751256]
Hey there
In theory yes, in practice it hasn't happened yet and if it did it would be rare. The only way I'd truly be risking 20% would be
1. If all 10 positions were open at once (that's the maximum)
2. If those 10 were either all long or all short.
What I mean by point 2 is that unless all positions are placed one way, by default not all 10 could be stopped out without some closing out in profit. Whether you would describe it as luck or whatever, so far we have ranged between 220.** and 240.** (over 2000 pips) and I've been fortunate enough not to have one stop out in hundreds of trades.
I'm still at my job unfortunately but biding my time. I'll only leave when all debts are paid off and I have a few months 'salary' in the bank.
Good to hear from you
Kind Regards
Steve
Steve, If I understood well, you would be risking 20% if all 10 positions got stopped (it would be a very rare thing to happen, but hypothetically you'd be losing 20%....right?)?
With all those monster pips that you collected in Nov, are you trading now full-time? Did you kiss your job good-bye?
In theory yes, in practice it hasn't happened yet and if it did it would be rare. The only way I'd truly be risking 20% would be
1. If all 10 positions were open at once (that's the maximum)
2. If those 10 were either all long or all short.
What I mean by point 2 is that unless all positions are placed one way, by default not all 10 could be stopped out without some closing out in profit. Whether you would describe it as luck or whatever, so far we have ranged between 220.** and 240.** (over 2000 pips) and I've been fortunate enough not to have one stop out in hundreds of trades.
I'm still at my job unfortunately but biding my time. I'll only leave when all debts are paid off and I have a few months 'salary' in the bank.
Good to hear from you
Kind Regards
Steve
- #2,954
- Dec 10, 2007 11:47am Dec 10, 2007 11:47am
- Joined Jun 2006 | Status: Trader | 2,512 Posts
Steve,
Would you please post here the results from your "account history" in MT4?
Even only from the last week so we can learn your moves better, like:
when did you open a position, modify, take profit, take another position for the same pair after taking 10 pips profit etc...
Thanks
Sam123
Firstly I don't use MT4 & I'm not going to be posting trades as they happen any more. I've had a year of listing every single trade in here and I made a promise to myself that after Nov 1st I would take a break.
To give you an idea, once a position is open I set a s/l of 1000 and a t/p of 50. There are no modifications made - it may close out in 15 mins, 15 hours or 15 days. The only time I manually intervene is when NY session ends - if a position is in profit but not reached +50, I'll close manually.
Since the market opened Sunday I've closed 5 positions (all long GJ) totalling 262 pips. 2 of those positions were opened today, the other 3 were from 3rd & 5th December.
I honestly don't think I could ever teach anyone how I trade as although there are very strict rules in place, the actual trades are discretionary.
Kind Regards
Steve
Hi Sam
Firstly I don't use MT4 & I'm not going to be posting trades as they happen any more. I've had a year of listing every single trade in here and I made a promise to myself that after Nov 1st I would take a break.
To give you an idea, once a position is open I set a s/l of 1000 and a t/p of 50. There are no modifications made - it may close out in 15 mins, 15 hours or 15 days. The only time I manually intervene is when NY session ends - if a position is in profit but not reached +50, I'll close manually.
Since the market opened Sunday I've closed 5 positions (all long GJ) totalling 262 pips. 2 of those positions were opened today, the other 3 were from 3rd & 5th December.
I honestly don't think I could ever teach anyone how I trade as although there are very strict rules in place, the actual trades are discretionary.
Kind Regards
Steve
What are positions open normally? seemed to me you need more than 10 to have that kind results you have had.
Regards.
Szbu
- #2,956
- Dec 10, 2007 2:18pm Dec 10, 2007 2:18pm
- Joined Jun 2006 | Status: Trader | 2,512 Posts
Hi Steve,
What are positions open normally? seemed to me you need more than 10 to have that kind results you have had.
Regards.
Szbu
I guess I normally have an average of 5-7 positions open at any one time. On 3 occasions during November I had no open positions by the end of NY session but that hasn't been common.
I tend to average 200-300 pips a day when I'm working full-time but the two weeks I was off work and had more screen time I averaged just over 500. As I always say though it's not all about pips, more the steady increase in account balance over time.
It's also easier to trade this way whilst the pair trades in a pre-defined range. I can often pick up a lot of pips even if the pair hasn't actually gone anywhere for days. Once the pair breaks out of this range, there is much more scope for a stop loss to be hit and I have to be aware where the longer term supports & resistances are and also how price reacts around these areas.
As I said in an earlier post, the pair has traded between 220 & just over 240 since I started trading like this in September. I've been fortunate not to have anything stopped out & the trick is not to have more than one or two positions left 'stranded' at the extreme of a current range.
I'm still learning like we all are and I guess I'll have to post a losing trade at some point lol. With my 'ridiculous' risk/reward ratio of 50 pips t/p and 1000 s/l I need to profit 20 trades out of 21 to break even. It's actually a lot easier than it sounds once you get to 'know' how a pair works and confident enough to just go with your gut feelings from what you've learned.
My outlook is that when a stop loss is hit, I'll make it back within a week and afterall, it's only 2% anyway so nothing to worry about.
Kind Regards
Steve
- #2,958
- Dec 11, 2007 12:58pm Dec 11, 2007 12:58pm
- Joined Jun 2006 | Status: Trader | 2,512 Posts
1. Suppose the trade goes against you (towards the s/l) - don't you exit on the way? you leave it running til it touches the s/l? (perhaps it will change its direction going up again to the 50 pips profit?)
2.Once the trade hits the 50pips profit. Do you close the trade or move the s/l to this point (trailing stop)?
3. If you close the trade after taking profit of 50 pips, when do you enter again? on the same day? what is the last time you enter a trade (first of the day and/or after taking profit already) through one day? till NY session is closed? even if it is 1 minute before the session ends?
3. Which pairs do you trade?
4. All pairs have the same s/l and t/p?
Sam123
1. Ok, if the trade goes against me (and it often does) it just floats until it hits the stop loss. In nearly 600 closed trades since mid September I haven't had a losing trade although a few have got to nearly -900 and still ended up taking a profit. I'm not saying this to be boastful - I may have been a little lucky not to record a single loss, however the pair has ranged over 2000 pips in that time so I must be doing something right.
2. T/P is 50 pips and the trade is closed - no trailing stops, move to break even etc etc.
3. Only GBPJPY
4. I guess you could do a similar thing on other pairs but I love the daily range of this pair & it compliments my methods.
As an aside, 3 weeks ago I started a signal service that replicates my trades, just to see how people reacted to the way I trade. I've had 74 trades, 69 wins with 5 still open. Subscribers did exactly what I thought they would - they have closed positions prematurely for a loss, used far too high a position size for their account balance.
Basically although they feel they cannot make trading decisions themselves by effectively using mine, they feel that they can override my methods and end up losing their shirts. Just shows that even if you give a person a winning system on a plate, if they have no discipline, patience or even understand what method they are trading, most will still lose.
Kind Regards
Steve
- #2,959
- Dec 11, 2007 1:08pm Dec 11, 2007 1:08pm
- Joined Mar 2006 | Status: THANK YOU MERLIN,TWEE and FF Team | 4,603 Posts
- #2,960
- Dec 11, 2007 1:27pm Dec 11, 2007 1:27pm
- Joined Jun 2006 | Status: Trader | 2,512 Posts
Hi steve, I think your entries, while important are not so important with your large stop. I would think you are just mostly trying to stay in the same general direction of the trend. Maybe on a daily to a 1hour time frame. Is that about right?
Yes, you're not far wrong. Mainly I'm looking at daily & even weekly for general direction and take special note of the supports and resistances on those timeframes.
Entries aren't hugely important with such a large stop loss although it's still great to grab those 50 pips in a 5 minute breakout
. It may seem weird to some but trading off the 5 min charts whilst keeping a close eye on the longer term (& I mean much longer term) can be done with some success.Take today for example. Although we have seen a bounce up in GBPJPY the last week or so, I remain generally bearish until we see 230+.
In view of that I took shorts in the 228.40's, 228.70's & 229.20's. My view was 229.30 area was as far as we would get before bouncing back down. I was wrong as it pierced this level but no panic - took a long just before work at 229.24 & closed at 229.74 before the expected retrace where this afternoon the other shorts have been picked up for another 150 pips.
Sheesh Scott, I can't believe you've made me miss the US interest rate decision lol. Only joking, I don't trade news hehe.
Don't tell me I've been lucky again - my 5 open positions are all shorts under 225 hehe. Suddenly they may be back 'in play' again in the next day or two. It may seem strange to say, I was more nervous taking that single long at 229.24 this morning than I was about the shorts I was holding below 225.
Hope this gives you a little insight into my weird & wonderful way of trading these crazy markets.
Kind Regards
Steve