Trading for Charity

Hi all

Ive decided after quite a bit of deliberation, and gentle persuasion to journal the progress of a charity trading account.

Its been running a few months now, and Ive been detailing the progress on a blog. From the emails and messages I've received so far aside from the kind words and great support quite a few people have suggested I should make it more public as its a worthy cause, hence starting the journal here at FF.

The first charity I'm trading for is Plan International.

Plan is one of the largest childrens development organisations in the world, and have been running for over 70 years promoting child rights and lifting many out of poverty.

I'll keep this journal updated with the trades, I'm trying to cover many of the trades live, so in recent times have started to make some videos of them.
Making videos is a new thing to me but in terms of relaying information and the thinking behind the trades I think there's been some improvement. I think the hardest thing is little things like voice clarity and trying not to err!

( I'm not sure whether I can embed the videos here? or if Im allowed to post links? if anyone could clarify that would be great. )


In the meantime In the posts below are some of the trades taken so far shown as stills with recaps.

In terms of the charity account Ive recently hit the 50% return on Cap, the original funding is £1k of my own money.

All the best

Limey





A trade back in Jan.. EJ (the first taken on the account)

The first trade was on EJ, an early evening opportunity after I was done for the day paying bills, tight range of around 40 points encompassing around 12 hours trading time. I'd been scalping the range quite a bit in the day and was pretty certain of a true break to the upside as imminent. Did okay in this one, long for 66 pips at a pound a point, caught the top in terms of profit taking okay as well.

I donated all the profit on this one, moving forward I hope to grow the Capital up to around 5k and transfer the trades to BARX so will probarbly just compound or take out a %.

Heres another of the trades so far on cable, and a live trade video of a charity account trade on EU & coverage of another I took on my own account on GBP/CHF.


http://www.viddler.com/explore/limey16/videos/4/


14th Jan 2010

"Completed another trade, on Cable this time round, probarbly the greatest influence on my trading is good old fashioned support and resistance, arguably subjective but an essential factor which I base my trades around. 4 hr major sr zones in blue and red (the red level I was expecting to hold as support) orange on the 15 minute minor SR which I waited for price to clear and hold before entering long.

1.6300 has been a very much a used and abused whole number in recent weeks and days, fading whole numbers is viable but how often have they been hit and have they been respected..Other levels were far more likely to offer resistance. I exited on a quickly developing pin through another zone.

Slightly higher risk on this trade as was in at 2 pounds a point, 58 points profit. To keep things even Ive donated 34 straight away to take the ammount donated so far to a 100, and will keep the remainder in the account to help us on the way to BARX."

There was a monster move March 1st on cable, took a trade on the charity account - faded the rally short at 1.5000 .

http://www.vimeo.com/9870196

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Whole Number

50% retrace of the move after the weekend

Strong divergence - hidden on 30 min, regular on lower tfs 5 min, quad div on 233 tick.

No convincing closes above 1.5000 on hourly

With overall trend.

Cons:

Percevied SR zone not a price actuality.



Anyway worked out well 50 pips for 20 risk, could have had more actively managing but not doing that through the night for a couple of quid!! lol.

Hope its of use/interesting to someone, my voice is quiet in the video as I didnt want to wake the other half!

Cheers

Limey

Below is a live trade video of fading another level on cable on March 3rd for the account.

The live trade video is in two parts the latter covers a lot of different factors and subtler nuances so is more informative.

The first is pretty much the entry. The trade netted a another 50 pips for the charity account, and as a top pick went well and as planned. Again the twilight hours meant no trade management just a common sense target derived from the PA.

PART 1

http://www.viddler.com/explore/limey16/videos/7/


PART 2

http://www.viddler.com/explore/limey16/videos/8/




All the best

Limey

A final couple of trades to bring everything up to date is a trade on AU and another on GJ. A lot of the trades I take are based around selling at prior support now tested as resistance and buying at prior resistance tested as support. Quite straightforward and simple

The AU trade was on the charity account, GJ on my own so I donated a percentage.

In terms of trade confirmation and entry I use lower tf charts and did in these 2 trades, I will post up some charts of trades I take in the future to show what I look for.

What I may also do is start a thread in the interactive trading section to run over the other factors I look at when trading SR.

The charts are from my MT4 as I couldnt get my PRT to load.


All the best

Jon

Semi Automated....

Taking a bit of a break at the moment for Easter but in the process of transferring the charity account trading funds to Oanda to help with the compounding as they offer any unit trade size.

I have been working hard on finalising some semi automated/mechanical strategies to run on the account enabling me to trade the account on more of a set & forget basis more frequently, as opposed to looking for opportunities outside core hours when frankly I've had enough staring at charts!

The projected return wont nearly be as high as discretionary trading but the expected weekly returns should hopefully help the compounding cause. Hopefully this way the account can get some much needed action without interfering with my own.

It will be more of a steady drip than a torrent, and a case of patience over greed. The compounding doing more of the work - working a smaller edge harder.

It should mean more frequent posts, along with (fingers crossed) the associated growing account statement. The Monday after Bank holiday Monday everything should be in place.

Cheers

Limey.

Great thread Limey, thanks

Thanks for the kind words Sim.

Hi All

As promised though a little late (sorry)the beginnings of the mechanical strategy Im running on the charity account.

The last week has been the first week of the forward test/live trading so still not the finished article....


Monthly target is 10% to be compounded weekly and left. Its been backtested quite extensively.


Trade management optimization as ever is tricky/pain in th a**.

Ive used half the balance (£1500.00) of the account £750 initially. The RR on some of the trades is solid, small stops with this. The targets will be larger than at present.

It works across the more lively pairs (cable, EJ, EU etc) and Ive been running it prior to my full trading day really kicking off early am UK time.


Heres the 1st week of the forward test (myfxbook documented) of what Ive imaginatively named SAM, lol. (semi automated mechanical)

Risk is no more than 2%, 1/1000ths pip unit size to account size as trade ammount e.g £750.00 = 0.75 unit equivalent per pip/

Weekly compounding, so next week 0.81 per pip.

Its still early days but am hopeful this is the answer to giving the account regular attention. If it isnt satisfactory then obviously I can donate a % of my own trades and journal around that.

All the best

Limey

Hi All

Been a solid second week for the S.A.M strategy for the charity account, now achieved just over 20% growth on Cap, taking the ammount raised for Plan International to £1652.00.

20% in 2 weeks is over double the minimum I hope to achieve with this strategy in a month, and strangely its still to have a losing day.

The fundamentals and criteria for entries/set ups are set but trade management I do need to crunch the numbers more, so will hopefully spend some time on that next week with some data work.

MyFX book somehow splits scaled out solitary trades into 2 seperate trades so the stats below the graph are off somewhat, perhaps it doesnt take into account Oanda tran codes, not sure.

Anyway I'll post up those stats more accurately later. I'll also try and post some charts of some of the trades to add a bit more detail.

All the best

Limey

Was out late last night and had finished on my own account for this week so started looking for the charity accounts set ups a bit later than normal this morning....needed a lie in.

Managed to balls up a stop level on one trade, little bit hungover! but got the second trade right.

Updated Fxbook below, next weeks trade size for the compounding element will now be £0.91 per point.

As mentioned previously FXbook treats one trade scaled as 2 for some weird reason so lists largest winner as £20.85 - this is only half of one trade, the highest should be £38.61. Attached a grab of the Oanda statement to show what I mean.

Charts of some trades to follow.

All the best

Limey

Have you looked into eventually drawing "charity investors"? I've always liked the concept of trading for charity and have given further thought as how to introduce more funds into the trading (via donations, etc)...

It sounds like an easy sell - "Your donation of $5,000, compounded over x years, will be equivalent to donating $50,000" or something like this. The concept that kills me every time is that the donation is always at risk. There is always risk in trading and I don't know how one could get around that concept or come up with a reasonable justification to a would-be donator.

Another thought was a 1:1 match policy. A trader down the road from me did this a couple of years back. He put up 10k of his own money and had a wealthy gentlemen agree to match whatever his gains were within 48 hours of day trading (locked up in his office w/continuous supply of pizza and diet coke ha) and the sum would go to help a family who had recently lost their house to fire (or something). It was a cool concept, the trader takes the risk but...if one is a consistent trader, the risk vs reward over time would pay out well and surely help many. And in this specific local example, the family was able to temporarily support themselves and get jumpstarted on a home rebuild.

Any thoughts on this?

It's a lot to think about and I constantly get turned around when I try and figure out a method of how this could work.

Nice thread, keep it up.

Hi Sam

I presume its you pulling a wheelie in your Avatar pic ? Owned quite a few bikes in my time, but alas my fiance is not too keen on me getting another!! really do miss it sometimes.

I havent really looked at drawing investors for charity now or in the future , trouble here in the UK for any type of fund management you do need to be licenced by the FSA, trading others money without is illegal.

I have had a few financial offers from friends and family members since going full time but have declined for this very reason, just not worth it. My personal pots an okay size so I just stick to that.

Also the process of being licenced is rather protracted and as far as Im aware involves unrefundable fees and quite a bit of jumping through bureaucratic hoops, and even if you do it might not be granted.

I agree with you the premise for compounding a donation over time is sound, but does involve the risk to the initial capital, I dont think there would be a way round that.

If the licence wasnt an issue, I think the best concept to sell in such an idea would be an "Ethical Fund". Those of high net worth would invest receiving a % return/yield and at a certain level of performance X ammount of the % is contributed directly to the charities being raised for.

The investor is incentivised with a personal return on there capital and at the same time consciences are clear as funds are raised for some worthy causes. The trader is also motivated to achieve greater returns as more is donated.

Thanks for the kind words btw.

All the best

Limey

Below are some example trades of the SAM strategy being run on the Charity account. Not all were taken.

I dont really wish to turn this journal into a system thread and am not so keen on promoting mechanical trading.Discretionary trading incorporating higher TF SR imo gives greater advantages & yields. The reason for this SAM strat is so this account gets some attention without interfering with my own. Anyway I won't go into too many specifics yet, especially as the TM is still a work in progress. But it should give an idea of the approach.


As far as SAM goes it involves trading with overall market sentiment/trend, hence MTF, utilises no indicators, and has a rather unconventional signal criteria (not ma's or candlestick patterns) Moreover its based upon good old common sense more than anything!.


The levels drawn in arent a requirement of the strategy, more to show the entries developing around intermediate SR.

I'll crunch the numbers on the trades to give more accurate data than the FXbook anomalies and will post up later.


All the best


Limey

Hi All

Another positive week utilising this SAM strategy for the charity account. Growth now just over 27%. £1703.00 now raised for Plan International. Not sure I'll be trading tomorrow as am out most of the day.

I did this week on occasions utilise a slightly different timeframe chart for entries based around the same methodology, and also ran live some of the ideas for optimisation.

I did auto enter a GJ trade with a limit, but didnt change my default paramater for stop!! , anyway took quite a hit due to this error, ended losing 90 pips, should have been half that, was having a fight with Oil at the time on my own account so wasnt paying too much attention, would have probarbly gone passed the £1k mark without this and not adversely affected my drawdown stats so much.


Also ran more multiple positions on different pairs and transferred another £150 from the other £750 to allow this with the 1:50 leverage. Now taken the £150 back out as no real need from the conclusions Ive drawn. I'll put in the other £750 in full after a few more months of ironing out the creases.

Getting close to finality, probarbly will take less trades than this week and have no more than a couple of open trades at once.

In terms of compunding next week will be £0.95. (I wont revert back if I have a losing week, it just wont go up, otherwise compounded accounts can often tread water)

Overall pleased with things so far (apart from my silly errors, lol) % gain is way too high, the most important thing and the killer with compounded accounts can be the consistency, but so far so good.

FX book is to fully update today but does include it, I put it at 27.19% not 27.98%. Oanda screen grab as well with all trades closed.


All the best

Limey

Up early this morning so had a check for some set ups, another 2 trades taken.

Growth now 35.75 %, ammount raised for Plan £1783.00.

Will post up some charts of trades over the weekend, off out to enjoy the rare occurence of sunshine! here in the UK.

All the best

Limey

Charts of some SAM trades from this week below, signal criteria generating around SR. Gives an idea anyway. After todays trades next weeks trade size will be £1.03 per point.

All the best

Limey

Final week of the month on the Charity account, been a solid week a few scratches trades and small losses but some decent winners. Its Bank Holiday Monday next week so Im off on a short break, will start trading again in June.

Finish the month just short of 51% growth, and its given this SAM strategy a strong start. The ammount raised for Plan International is now £1927.26. June unit size will be £1.17 per point for the first week. I'll run this a few more months before putting the other £750 in.

MyFXbook charts below and final balance on Oanda. Will post up some charts on an EJ trade, took this both on my own account and the charity account, quite a nice set up.

All the best

Limey

The EJ trade on the account below, a short a 110.50 yesterday.


The level at 110.50 was initial support/daily low back on the 6th May.

Was holding as a support level for the majority of core hours yesterday until breaking late in the day with a close below on the hourly.

Faded the rally as the level now held as resistance. Hidden divergence on 15 min, but with agreement between price and indicator prior to its formation confirming the bearish sentiment.

Divergence formed from the other side of the SR zone, something also I always look for as well as the agreement, basically overdue a cross/recross at the SR zone.


All the best

Limey




Daily



Hourly



15 min.

S.A.M week 5

A shorter trading week because of the Bank Holiday & NFP tomorrow, okay gains on the account.

Growth now just over 64%, ammount raised for Plan International now £2053.73. Achieved over 100% growth on the original £1k so quite pleased.

Will post up some charts later including a couple of trades on my own account of which I will be donating a % to Plan. Btw the charts in the post above is not a SAM trade though some aspects did qualify it didnt fit all the rules, was a discretionary trade.


All the best


Limey

Two trades of my own below that I will be donating a % of to Plan Int, a long on GJ now closed and a short on UCAD, part of the position still running. Pretty much all trades I take are based around SR levels. I use a top down approach for drawing in levels - daily then 4hr down to 1hr. 90% of the time I utilise a lower tf chart or tick chart for entry and confirmation. I does mean a lot of screen time but with alarms its not too bad.

Other factors/confluence include, fibs, pivots, divergence & pysch levels. All in all pretty simple.

This SAM strategy does "naturally" create set ups around some of the levels I work to but not all, some of the time also its a tad annoying pretty much because i'm not a fan of mechanical, It could be improved with some discretion but for now Im sticking to the rules.


The next few weeks Im going to be v busy with stuff going on in my life, so likely will only have time to focus on my account and donate a % of the trades, next time I run the SAM strategy though stake size will be £1.30 per point.

All the best

Limey