Steviet's Live Trades!

Quoting parlenk

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Hi There Steve,

Congrats, Party Mode ON .Well actually I'm not surprise.You have it all..The heart and the ability..I'm glad for you mate.Hope you getting better and better to the future.

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Quoting steviet

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Hi there zoopy

Thanks for your kind words - I've seen you about, must have been on the Jacko thread?

Kind Regards
Steve

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Quoting Isotonic

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Well, as promised, here is the next statement. Now the drawdowns are kicking in, the real test begins!

As you can see, I've added 1K in closed trades since last week and am carrying unrealised losses of about $1200. Past couple of days price has been stuck in a smaller range, so I've just been buying and selling at the same time.

I'm carrying 3 longs & 3 shorts between 209-211, which is just about the middle of the current range, so this is an excellent time to just collect the fifties as quick as possible to cover potential losses.

Steve, I have another question for you, if you don't mind: when do you increase your position size, is it after all positions are closed or are you just using your current balance?

So in my example, I could start the next trade at around 101,900 or 1.9% increase (in 8 days) on the starting capital or should I just plug away at the 2% * 100K / 1000 (stop loss) / 0.92 ($ pip value for yen) = 2.1 (rounded down) mini lots which should be something similar to what you started out on the investor account (apologies if the math is wrong).

Any general thoughts or comments on my performance so far is, as always, much appreciated!

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if you use the same % per trade then every 20 or so winners you are covering 1 stop loss being hit. At present price would have to hit 201 on the low or 219 on the high & you'll close plenty more trades before that happens

Quoting smjones

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Even less, because if you are using a % of balance, when you lose, it will be on a % from a cheaper balance than the current wins. so it would most likely be less than 20 wins per loss.

Looks good Iso.

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Quoting steviet

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That's right Scott

As it often takes weeks for a stop loss to actually get hit, by that time the % loss is less. I said there was a method to my madness

Kind Regards
Steve

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Quoting steviet

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Thanks Iso

As you say, once the inevitable unrealised drawdowns kick in, the discipline of sticking to the rules becomes very important.

It looks like you're using different lot sizes (2.1, 4.2, 6.4). I basically keep to a percentage of the current balance. In that way, as the trades are closed in profit, the next trade placed will have a slightly higher position size. Of course when a loss is taken, the same situation applies and the next postion size is reduced in acccordance wth the new balance. I only do this on my own live account at the moment as I feel the % being used on the managed account is on the high side.

It's looking really good at the moment Iso - if you use the same % per trade then every 20 or so winners you are covering 1 stop loss being hit. At present price would have to hit 201 on the low or 219 on the high & you'll close plenty more trades before that happens.

As you say we've been in a pretty tight range the last couple of days and at most times I've had the maximum 10 trades on. So for me it's been a case of being very patient and picking up between 50 & 150 pips a day this last week.

Any other questions please ask....

Kind Regards
Steve

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Quoting smjones

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Iso, did you see my calc for determining the lots size, based on a given % of balance to risk? It was a couple of posts back.

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Quoting Plutonite

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Let me tell you something beautiful:

Pretty much everyone I know (including moi) who trade discretionary setups, almost all of them NEVER close trades right away. Letting your losses run while they are in a range that is within your bigger picture is actually common practice - as long as you are able to make money in the meanwhile then your balance should improve as you said, and when the price comes swooping back into your field again the wins are usually very big. So instead of losing you wind up riding it back to base.

The only thing I found peculiar with your setup was that you specified 1000 pips. The people I'm telling you about will exit in different ways.. some will consider time to sucess as the stop - i.e if you dont achieve the trade in X hours/days then it has failed. Some (like myself) will consider decisive/trend reversing price action as triggers to exit. Fixing a number of pips, however tends to be sub-optimal in most cases. The market is indifferent to any fixed level. That is my only criticism.

I realize that talking to someone as they get their first real rewards is pretty corny, but what can I do, I am made this way.. I question anything and everything and everyone and their momma! No wait, I'm not questioning anyone's mom here, back off you animals !! Back off!!

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Quoting steviet

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4. All trades are left to hit their s/l or t/p unless a trade is in profit at New York close, in which case it is closed manually.


Kind regards
Steve

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Quoting Plutonite

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The only thing I found peculiar with your setup was that you specified 1000 pips. The people I'm telling you about will exit in different ways.. some will consider time to sucess as the stop - i.e if you dont achieve the trade in X hours/days then it has failed. Some (like myself) will consider decisive/trend reversing price action as triggers to exit. Fixing a number of pips, however tends to be sub-optimal in most cases. The market is indifferent to any fixed level. That is my only criticism.

I realize that talking to someone as they get their first real rewards is pretty corny, but what can I do, I am made this way.. I question anything and everything and everyone and their momma! No wait, I'm not questioning anyone's mom here, back off you animals !! Back off!!

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Quoting Isotonic

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I had a feeling I was doing it wrong because you don't know how long you'll have to wait for all positions to close, so current balance seemed to be the right choice, rather than playing safe with the starting balance. Thanks for clearing that up! That's quite alright

I started off with batching the trades in 3's (hence the 6 lot numbers) but realised the sensible thing to do would be to start with one trade at a time. That's what I did from this week. I've double up on the buys (4.2's) to offset the two single shorts (2.1's) that got stranded when the market moved up, figuring I had two positions to make up for. I then finished off yesterday with single trades so now I have 6 slots booked and 4 going spare for next week. Hope that all makes sense! Yes it does now -different lot sizes would be a nightmare to manage. You know & I know that the s/l that decides to get hit would be the larger lot lol

That raises another question - if I have 2 stranded positions (two shorts in my case), should I have just started the next trade (a buy) as a single trade, or did I do the wrong thing by offsetting with 2 trades straight away (2 buys)? I only place 1 trade at a time. This buy for example, if it hit t/p then I'd look for another buy on a dip. If the market went down, I'd wait for what I'd consider to be an area of reasonable support (at least 50 pips lower) before placing another buy. At this stage you would be effectively square and wait for the market to tell you where it's going next.

Really I should of been compounding this account quicker on the current balance, as scott also says.

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Quoting Isotonic

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I also queried the 1000 stop loss which Steve arrived at. As you say it could be viewed as an arbitrary number that the market ignores but Stevie arrived at that number from his own back-testing and since he has much more experience and has been more successful, who am I to disagree? The 1000 stop loss was something I thought would be reasonable considering the volatility of this pair. Anything less and you'd be stopped out far too often on whipsaws. Anything more (say 2000) and you would have to look at halving position size and having a maximum of say 20 trades on at once. If you kept it to 10 you could end up with positions so far away from each other and being effectively out of the 'pip making stage' for weeks on end. Trying to manage 20 trades would be a nightmare (for me at least).

I posted a chart earlier and came up with different interpretations based on old support & resistance levels from 1000-2000 that could also be considered, but when trialling a new system I thought it best to stick to the original rules to see how it goes first before tweaking it. I think I answered this above.

I think you were talking about time based stops in your post, which could also be considered an arbitrary tactic - Phil McGrew discussed these in another thread I think. Yes, another way of looking at it although as you say it could be considered arbitary as well.

Stevie has said earlier he is open to questions and comments about his system so I don't think he minds at all. Constructive, critical analysis should help improve things for everybody. Yes, ask away. I've now built up a fair bit of live data but remember that is MY data lol. What I mean is that we'll all have diferent entries & therefore results as the system is discretionary. I have slightly different positions open even between my own two accounts.

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Quoting Trumpcard

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congrats Steve on your first payment! I must say this thread has become very interesting lately (especially as I actually scrolled back some pages and read more and discovered the "method to the madness". Regarding the current talk of stop loss size, I wonder how yours and Iso's and smjones' success would be regarding a smaller stop loss figure of say 500 pips or 750? No doubt you probably already tested this but it's got me thinking...

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Quoting Trumpcard

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Stevie, so for example, I enter some trades long on Wednesday, and by NY close of the same day they're in profit say 35 pips so I therefore close them for the 35?

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