My 30 pips Daily and my 45% Weekly Journal

Machevelli:

You first posted this thread with the intent of holding yourself accountable in a journal like fashion (good for you this is very important discipline to maintain... i think); and you also had the intent of getting feedback.

Here are a few of my thoughts. I am a new trader (only about a year in my fresh green age) so take my words knowing that I dont know much.

One large hurdle I see is that it seems your risk/reward ratio seems to bounce around and you even have trades with more risk than reward. .. I know you said your stop loss is a worst case scenario and you seem to micro manage your positions more closely it seems, but if I were you I think I would try to work on getting closer to a consistent 1.5:1 risk to reward or 2:1 (thus giving me the ability to break even at a 33% success rate).

as I said, the one thing I do know is that I dont know much. Just my thoughts,

Blessings and good luck trading!

The task at hand is not impossible just improbable. To give you a solid nudge in your current direction, I was given a verified account statement from a trader who took a challenge that his trading counterparts set up. It was to see how far he could push $500 in 2 months. His final account was just short of $360,000.

I used the statement and analysed over 200 of his (beginning) trades but could not find anything useful. I mentioned to a friend who was also going over it that it was more than likely a great market setup (was trending nicely during his 2 month period) and they had a set of solid gonads. If you can escape the feeling and emotion tied with money, that being $500, and you can avoid the emotion as the account grows while still maintain the earlier composure then sure you may have a chance. Like I say, not Impossible, just improbable and more often than not (the probable part) you will face consectutive losses that do damage, but alas it is only $500 then your laughing. Even harder when you hit the 1 mil mark.

No, I wrote correctly. To enter a 5 lot trade, I would need 5 lots of balance. But I don't just enter one trade, I add to my winners as the trend moves, so I generally end up with 10:1 to 15:1 leverage by the time I close out my trades.

It's easier to make 30 pips at 1:1 leverage than at 400:1 leverage because of drawdown. Few trades move immediately in your favor, so you need to be able to ride out the move.

Regarding Machievelli7's goals, I still think they are unrealistic, but it's possible he could achieve them. I always hear about miracle traders like Razor_trader's friend. It's just not a repeatable phenomena.

Mach,

I wish you the best of luck and will keep on eye on your journal to see how you do. However, I've already noticed you have a tendency to "break the rules" of your system. This is usually a red flag that a trader is at risk.

Post #17-
"In fact, if I had followed my system to the letter, I would have gone short ..."

Post #19-
"If I hadn't taken my trade earlier, I would have gone short..."

Post #40-
"I broke all the rules today... I will need better discipline.
If I had followed the system to the letter, my trade would have been..."

Just an observer trying to help you reach your goal...
Fix those problems above.

Good Luck!

it's possible but highly improbable in the long run (several months and on). from the 'technical' perspective, screen time is the key imo.. you've mentioned you've had a lot of it, that's good. the real killers are lack of discipline, greed, fear & overconfidence; it requires you to cut ALL emotions off with insane consistency.. very uncommon for a human.. that's why the rats can beat us.

personally, i think your risk exposure is way too high.. sometimes i risk 2% when i see a very high probability setup but normally my exposure is never more than 1%.. i'm using very tight stops (5-15 pips) and even then i do often kill the trade before hitting SL.. i also have a lot of eurusd screentime, trying to be very picky about the trades i take. If you would aim to average 2-3% daily (this is still a 'miracle') and devote everything to master the method and yourself, your plan would still be awesome (you'd make $60K off the $500 init in a year compounding daily 2%), still highly improbable but possible for say one person of a thousand to achieve. but I'm afraid that your goal is possible to achieve for one of ten millions, you don't need skills & discipline only, you also need some luck unfortunately, the losing streak definitely WILL come and leaves you with a wiped account as you risk wayyy too much per trade.

your belief that it's achievable is important, but however important it is, this belief is secondary.. your key belief should be: "i surely won't mess it up with such a stupid thing like not following the rules".

btw looking @ your statement.. no trades for thursday ?! Hope you're not finished yet

I was not able to post or trade yesterday because I had travelled. I'm now back although the week is coming to an end. Its been a nice two weeks, hitting target after target. I am grateful for all the contributions made.

I have to agree, I am taking a huge risk here, but if my plan goes smoothly, then Ill probably make a fortune in the next 52 weeks.

I'm looking at the charts and both price and stochastics indicate a long trade. I am waiting for price to close above 1.3965.I would alos be looking to sell below 1.388 if bothe price and stochastics were short according to my system.

beautiful h&s in cards on m30.. would wait for a clear break of 1.40 with a long trade.. i'm bearish atm

I just woke up and found that I have already made my 30 pips for today. Seriously. Friday was a consolidation day in the markets on the EURUSD. I set a Buy Stop at 1.39751 just above resistance and a sell stop at 1.385. The Buy stop was hit at 0313hrs EAT (GMT+3). 40 minutes later and my TP was hit.

A good start to the week. All the signals were there for me to go long so I wouldnt say I broke any rules. Following indicators without regard for S&R levels is not very wise. That is why even in my trading system outline I mentioned the use of S&R levels.

The account has now gained 92.62% since October 10th, 2010.

Green pipping everyone.

I have been branded a commercial member. What does that mean FF? I am not selling anything here or on my blog. This is a journal of my trades. Yes |I do operate a PAMM Account but I am not accepting any clients. My blog doesnt even have adverts. Not one!

This journal does not deserve to be in this section. I hope my progress over the next couple of weeks will convince FF and FF members that I am not here to do business.

I am here to benefit from the input of others as well as give my views.

In the rules of FF, if you have a thread with a title high return that seems unbelievable to them, they will brand you as commercial member.

You can ask the administrator about that.

Best regards and keeps goings-on.

OOOH. I get it now. Thanks for the clarification Dhalsim

This account was started on Monday 11th October 2010. Two weeks later today, Monday 25th October 2010, we have hit our first 100%. The total gain in profit is 109.96%. Here is a link to the statement:

http://makaveli.mt4stats.com

We have also compounded our trading lots for the third week to 2.89 in accordance to our Position sizing rules.

Today I made two trades making a total of 60 pips. The first was a pending order placed on Friday and the second was opened after there was a short signal based on our system.

Here is the Chart:

Here is a link to analysis of the last two weeks and this week:

http://iangitiha.com/2010/10/25/pamm...-to-usd-10000/

Congrats, Mach. I hope I eat my words.

24 trades for a ~100% profit... impressive taken out of context. Looking at your risk profile, it will only take about 5 losing trades to give all back.

Can you please advise of your brokers time in GMT/UTC terms?

Thanks.

Thanks dr_zeus. I am betting on it.

Slack: If my stop loss is 66 pips for each trade, definitely, 5 trades will take me out. But that will not happen. If for example my first trade has a loss of 60 pips, most likely my second trade will have a loss of around half that. Look at the attachment below. Entry short at point A based on stochastics and BB.

Then price retraces and hits the SL at previous high + 2 pips. So, if all other signals are there, we enter Long at point B. SL at previous low less 2 pips. But remember the SL is the worst case scenario. So, if price breaks back below the resistance turned support, we exit manually and enter for a short signal. As i stated in an earlier post, a short trade at point 2 has a 97% success rate according to my tests.

http://cdn.forexfactory.com/attachme...4&d=1288033656

I do not disagree its possible to have 5 losing trades but its a rare case. In which case, I think I have to work on reducing my exposure if I hit a certain drawdown. Thanx for the input.

My platform uses GMT+2




A losing streak:It will happen at some point, the question is, how will you handle it? At the moment, my maximum drawdown has been 13%.

In my opinion and experience, when following this system and you have three losing trades, quit for the day.

However for the more experienced traders, such a streak of loses indicates consolidation and it should be easy to buy at support and sell at resistance recovering the previous losses.

I do not trade what most traders call revenge trading (though I used to). Nowadays, I use the charts to determine what is achievable. I cannot put a TP at 70 pips when there's a significant S&R Level at 35 pips. I will will wait to see what price does there before putting my stops that far.

In order to be really successful in trading, I believe that a Chartist needs to:

1. Specialize in a pair or a couple of pairs. Get the feeling of the pair. How it reacts to S&R Levels, how it reacts to Moving Averages, how it retraces and so on. Its also good to have a timeframe to trade. It makes you more specialized and we all know what specialization does.

2. Know how to determine S&R Levels. S&R Levels are the key to any successful charting. I always know the immediate S&R Levels on my 30 min chart as well on higher timeframes. That way, I am not blinded by the indicators.

3. Know your indicators. If you use any indicators, be sure to know all the peculiarities of that indicator. For instance, sometimes I make a long trade when stochastics is below 50. Why? Because maybe I have observed a divergence and price is now coming to terms or some other reason. I know almost everything there is to stochastics and Bollinger Bands.

4. Know your exits. Dr. Van Tharp argues that the exit is more important than the entry. To an extent, I think he is right. You have to know how to bring money to the bank. In my case, I have lost a lot money prior to my 'aha' moment. I used to follow the saying ' cut your loses short and let your profits run' blindly. I used to take too many short losses and when my trades were in green, I'd wait too much and see them turn red.

I then realized that even a 30 pip trade daily could make me a fortune over time. Its up to you to determine your exits. No one will ever give you exit rules cast in stone. In my case, I just figured 30 is achievable. Actually, I had gone for 20 initially. I was hitting 20 too fast so i decided to go for 30 and as it is turning out, I can actually make 30 easily too.

5. Master your emotions. As my signature will tell you, the reason you are failing is largely due to you. You probably have an excellent system with a high win rate. My system has an 80% win rate. However, in the hands of a person who can't master his or her emotions, that system will lose money at the end of the day.

Learn to calm your fears; your system has an edge that you have yourself proven.Learn to control your greed; tomorrow is another day for making money.

6. Karma. Don't laugh at your losing colleagues. Remember you were there one day. And give back. Tithe. Give to the less fortunate.

All in all, trading requires a certain level of skill. Study, train, paper trade, develop a system with an edge and above all, know what the hell you are doing. Understand the risks. Many people are of the opinion that i'm taking too much risk. If there is anyone who knows about risk, its me. The important thing is I know what I am doing and I am willing to take responsibility for my trades and actions.

I love trading, I am addicted. But in order to be successful I have to learn to be disciplined. This discipline with time I am learning, is shifting to all sectors of my life. I now trade for a living and so far so good.

Green pips everyone

Some good points.

Thanks for the info.

Hello,
I like what i see so far, and i believe you can make it happen. Just stay positive and believe in yourself. Not easy, but can be done, and you started well, so just stay focused, There is actually another guy on another site baby****, that goes for only 30 pips a day, he is now doing numbers you cant even imagine, so keep it up and good luck, will def keep an eye on this

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