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The College Trader

  • #441
  • Jul 26, 2010 8:07pm Jul 26, 2010 8:07pm
Quoting mfoste1
lol im stupid.....i didnt understand any of that.....you should never let price move more than 100 pips against you......if you need more than 100pips to get a trade right, youve obviously done something wrong in your analysis.....go back to the drawing board.
Doesn't that depend on your trading system? A 100 pip loss on the 5M is very different than on the W1
  • #442
  • Jul 26, 2010 8:12pm Jul 26, 2010 8:12pm
I don't do intraday trades unless I see very good support from indicators and want a quick 10 pips. Otherwise, I stick to the game plan and stay on the side of a pair in which I know the longterm trend is moving. I use ADX, RSI and Stoch to determine entry positions on Daily charts because as we all know from the law of large numbers and fractal geometry, it's easy to beat volatility if we stand farther back and watch things move.
  • #443
  • Jul 26, 2010 8:18pm Jul 26, 2010 8:18pm
Quoting lolpie
Doesn't that depend on your trading system? A 100 pip loss on the 5M is very different than on the W1
like i said regardless of what chart you are trading on, your stops shouldnt be more than 100 pips....if you need more than 100 pips of drawdown to get a trade in the black, your analysis was clearly off the mark. If youre trading off a weekly or monthly chart, your definetly NOT going to use that chart for an entry lol. Weekly and monthly are for analysis, not entries. Lets not forget the fact that we're buy side traders here guys.....trade like one......sure Ive heard of banks using "catastrophic stops" ie meaning that something of that nature(war, disasters) would have to occur for their stops to get hit. But hey, they have billions and can withstand tremendous drawdowns, even though they dont. So who are we? Were retail traders......
  • #444
  • Jul 26, 2010 8:22pm Jul 26, 2010 8:22pm
And why can't retail traders trade like the big banks? It's all relative.
  • #445
  • Jul 26, 2010 8:24pm Jul 26, 2010 8:24pm
Quoting sqrt(-1)
And why can't retail traders trade like the big banks? It's all relative.
because they trade other peoples money, and a lot of it.......you dont


anyways, most of the big moves you see intraday are by prop traders at large banks trading off 1m 5m and 15m......
  • #446
  • Jul 26, 2010 8:30pm Jul 26, 2010 8:30pm
Quoting mfoste1
because they trade other peoples money, and a lot of it.......you dont


anyways, most of the big moves you see intraday are by prop traders at large banks trading off 1m 5m and 15m......
Yeah, I know about their methods, but I'm not concerned with their trading protocol, I'm concerned with mine.

"They trade other peoples money, and a lot of it.......you don't." Not what I meant by "relative". I don't need lots of money, that's the point.
  • #447
  • Jul 26, 2010 8:35pm Jul 26, 2010 8:35pm
Quoting sqrt(-1)
Yeah, I know about their methods, but I'm not concerned with their trading protocol, I'm concerned with mine.

"They trade other peoples money, and a lot of it.......you don't." Not what I meant by "relative". I don't need lots of money, that's the point.
what is your trading protocol?
  • #448
  • Jul 26, 2010 8:44pm Jul 26, 2010 8:44pm
Quoting mfoste1
what is your trading protocol?
I posted it earlier. For entries though, I wait for support from indicators on Daily Charts. RSI is so closely correlated to "trend" -the partial derivative of price change with respect to time. For my GBP trade I've entered a little early because of the strong 3 HR support, so I plan on killing this position within days. I hate the pound anyways, haha.
  • #449
  • Jul 26, 2010 8:52pm Jul 26, 2010 8:52pm
Quoting sqrt(-1)
I posted it earlier. For entries though, I wait for support from indicators on Daily Charts. RSI is so closely correlated to "trend" -the partial derivative of price change with respect to time. For my GBP trade I've entered a little early because of the strong 3 HR support, so I plan on killing this position within days. I hate the pound anyways, haha.
i might attempt a short here......5683
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  • #450
  • Jul 26, 2010 9:01pm Jul 26, 2010 9:01pm
I'll be shorting at 1.5681 if it doesn't drop 100 pips tomorrow. Looks like we're not that different after all.

It seems because our backgrounds (pure math vs. finance) are different our trading styles reflect that. I look forward to discussing trades.
  • #451
  • Jul 26, 2010 9:03pm Jul 26, 2010 9:03pm
Quoting mfoste1
whats ur "mental stop"? 5 pips?
I'm against having a set/predetermined static SL (in pips). It depends on the situation. In other words, when the price goes against my position by X pips, I would exit manually.

X = A level that once the price reaches, I would know that my 'reading' of the situation (before I enter the trade) was wrong and I should be out, and start thinking about the next trade.

Quoting mfoste1
so that means youre RR is less than 1:1? come on dude........you dont find anything wrong with that strategy?
I don't use any strategy/system, it's literally 100% discretionary (except for the position sizing formulas, those I never change).

My RR varies from trade to trade (as a result of the fact that my Target/Stop parameters vary from trade to trade based on price behavior). I don't see why you think that if RR goes below 1:1 then the "strategy" is wrong. I'm guessing you haven't studied statistics.

I get the feeling that you believe that anything outside of your limited (apparently classical) approach to the market is crazy/wrong.

One thing I agree with you on is that trading should be kept simple. But by simplicity I mean eliminating all unnecessary noise and approaching price directly as it is. For instance, I firmly believe indicators are completely useless. They simply are re-productions of one thing = raw price, and raw price is all you need to trade. It has all the information you can obtain from a chart, including raw trend direction/strength, raw momentum, raw volatility etc. etc.

I'm sure you'll disagree, but that's ok.
  • #452
  • Jul 26, 2010 9:12pm Jul 26, 2010 9:12pm
Marv, how do you usually pick out tops and bottoms from merely charts alone? Slope change? Many times charts will behave not as even-degreed functions, but odd-degreed, how do you manage when slopes reach zero, then previous trend continues? Or do you not trade tops/bottoms and trade with the trend and buy/sell on 'dips'?

Sorry for the questioning, I just like hearing other traders' methods of action.
  • #453
  • Jul 26, 2010 9:35pm Jul 26, 2010 9:35pm
Quoting Marv
I'm against having a set/predetermined static SL (in pips). It depends on the situation. In other words, when the price goes against my position by X pips, I would exit manually.

X = A level that once the price reaches, I would know that my 'reading' of the situation (before I enter the trade) was wrong and I should be out, and start thinking about the next trade.



I don't use any strategy/system, it's literally 100% discretionary (except for the position sizing formulas, those I never change).

My RR varies from trade to trade (as a...

right......indicators are useless.....theyre historical numbers! a lot of new traders think that indicators drive price, that if a condition is ob os it has to go up or down. This is so far from the truth.......price prints what an indi shows. Indis hurt more than help....i dont use them.
  • #454
  • Jul 26, 2010 9:52pm Jul 26, 2010 9:52pm
Quoting mfoste1
like i said regardless of what chart you are trading on, your stops shouldnt be more than 100 pips....if you need more than 100 pips of drawdown to get a trade in the black, your analysis was clearly off the mark. If youre trading off a weekly or monthly chart, your definetly NOT going to use that chart for an entry lol. Weekly and monthly are for analysis, not entries. Lets not forget the fact that we're buy side traders here guys.....trade like one......
You'll have to forgive me, I've only started reading your thread but how can you say that every entry requires <100pip stop loss? There are plenty of times you can afford to give over 100pips if you stand to gain 500-1000 pips. If you're only banking 25-50 or 100 pips on your trades, then yes, I suppose 100pips is probably more than enough, but to make a blanket statement like that is kind of silly.

In the attached chart if a trader had only given himself/herself 100pips, they would have been literally stopped out the next day and missed 1,000 pips in the next 30-days...

Attached Image
  • #455
  • Jul 26, 2010 10:22pm Jul 26, 2010 10:22pm
Quoting InfinitySL
You'll have to forgive me, I've only started reading your thread but how can you say that every entry requires <100pip stop loss?...
Your argument is valid........ however, I would have never shorted on the break @ 1.14 though, i dont trade breakouts like that....I would have waited for the retrace and rejection. Its just patience, I dont like chasing, thats how you get stops hit and large drawdowns.....

ive come a long way since i started this thread lol
  • #456
  • Jul 27, 2010 10:50am Jul 27, 2010 10:50am
Quoting mfoste1
Your argument is valid........ however, I would have never shorted on the break @ 1.14 though, i dont trade breakouts like that....I would have waited for the retrace and rejection. Its just patience, I dont like chasing, thats how you get stops hit and large drawdowns.....
I suppose it's a question of perception & what you're comfortable with. YOU wouldn't have shorted it but others might have. For example, I wouldn't consider it "chasing" to sell a currency trading near its 1yr+ high. Then again, I don't trade 10 or 20-1 leverage either, so I can afford to hang with a currency that moves against me. The real money is in the big moves: The GBP went from 1.63 in late 2009 to 1.43 in may... that's 2,000 pips right there. The EUR went from 1.50 to 1.20 -- 3,000 pips. Also, don't make the mistake of assuming each currency behaves similarly -- the GBPJPY went from 220 to 120 during the credit crisis (10,000 pips) where as other currencies trade in very narrowly defined ranges... How did you pick 100pips as the magic number, why not 50 or 150? Seems rather arbitrary. I like to size my stops relative to the volatility of the underlying instrument and size my position accordingly.

As for stops, again, that's a question of personal preference. Some people don't like the idea of showing their broker the level that they want to get out if a trade goes against them. Having a mental stop is fine, as long as you stick to it. I know plenty of people who have hard-stops (i.e. placed on the system or with their broker) who move them every 5-minutes, so it's like having no stop at all.

I'd be curious to know what your avg hold time, avg profit, avg loss, winning % was on myfxbook -- If you're a short-term trader, having 100pip S/L makes sense, if you're holding for weeks & months, 100pip S/L might not make any sense depending on the currency...

OH well, I shouldn't be on this thread anyway -- i graduated college in 2002...
  • #457
  • Jul 27, 2010 1:10pm Jul 27, 2010 1:10pm
anyone here trading candlestick patterns?
  • #458
  • Jul 27, 2010 2:19pm Jul 27, 2010 2:19pm
Quoting InfinitySL
I suppose it's a question of perception & what you're comfortable with....
I make entries based on 4h charts, so my trade duration can be anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks( while adding to the position).....like i said ill never let a trade go more than 100 pips against me, therefore my wins are generally 300-400 pips....i dont have fxbook but thanks for telling me about it, i think ill create one.
  • #459
  • Jul 27, 2010 2:33pm Jul 27, 2010 2:33pm
WOOWWWWW i have missed a lot and several of you definitely have different types of strategies and obviously put a lot of work into each and every trade.


I like to keep it simple. Be careful with the math on this. The moment you are calculating how you wont get a margin call on large dd's you have to rethink what your spending your time on and why you are on the wrong side of that trade lawl. xD



nice foste. ive been doing much better and making money. almost back up to even. and i was down about 20%. Sqrt(-1) do you trade live?
  • #460
  • Jul 27, 2010 2:38pm Jul 27, 2010 2:38pm
Quoting Br_pippin
WOOWWWWW i have missed a lot and several of you definitely have different types of strategies and obviously put a lot of work into each and every trade.


I like to keep it simple. Be careful with the math on this. The moment you are calculating how you wont get a margin call on large dd's you have to rethink what your spending your time on and why you are on the wrong side of that trade lawl. xD



nice foste. ive been doing much better and making money. almost back up to even. and i was down about 20%. Sqrt(-1) do you trade live?

hey man, Im thinking a lot of these dudes arent trading live bc the strategies theyre talking about( no stops ) just isnt believable.....trust me if ur trading with your hard earned capital, anyone knows you use stops lol and they arent over 100 pips! unless ur trading what? 1cent, 10 cent per pip?

if it walks like a duck, acts like a duck it probably aint a chicken!
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