Profitable Scalping for the Retail Trader | Page 3 | Forex Factory

Options

Go to
Permalinks
Print Thread

Similar Threads

Scalping! Can it really be profitable in the long term? 72 replies

Trying scalping with a 1000 bucks - Scalping is expensive! 39 replies

1M & 5M Scalping System (Scalping Paradise) 21 replies

Easy and profitable IB Scalping 5 replies

Most profitable Scalping System 17 replies

Attachments: Profitable Scalping for the Retail Trader
Exit Attachments

Profitable Scalping for the Retail Trader

  • #41
  • Nov 30, 2010 12:01pm Nov 30, 2010 12:01pm
November Results 2010
Below is a snapshot of Myfxbook at the end of November. I included a portion of my spreadsheet as well.

I still made many mistakes this month, and risk management was less than perfect.

My account balance is almost back to where it was 6 months ago.
I had some of my largest losses in May 2010, most of it from “revenge” trading the extreme volatility on the day before the ‘flash crash’.

The total amount of trades this month nearly equals the number of trades I made in May.
Likewise, May and November have been my most active trading months of 2010.

Net $ gain was $231 for November. In forex, this has been my best month in terms of dollars earned. Myfxbook.com calculates the Monthly Return based upon ROI % (return on initial investment).
Based upon the $400 starting balance in September, it shows 58%.
I actually started this month with $584 and ended with $815 .
My return on that $584 was about 39%.

Actual screen time amounted to approximately 43 hours.

As they always say, past performance is not indicative of future results.
I am only as good as my next trade.
Attached Image(s) (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Nov31.jpg Size: 95 KB
Click to Enlarge Name: 2010-11-30_113332.jpg Size: 202 KB
  • #42
  • Dec 1, 2010 9:09pm Dec 1, 2010 9:09pm
This is what happens when you brag about your results.

I thought I would trade larger in December, twice the size, but cut my losers more religiously. The idea was that I would have more capital committed to my winning trades, and not double-up and waste time in my losing trades.

First three trades today, -8 pips, -9 pips, -6 pips, wasn't fun, but I was OK psychologically. Then I had a short around 1.3072, mostly in the money, and at one point, I was up about 15 pips. EUR/USD felt weak, even though our equity markets were very high. I held....

Right before 12:00pm London close, we had a big spike...
Different ideas as to what caused it, Fed releasing some statistics, blah blah... who cares... my hard stop wasn't on that trade of my (oh so brilliant) larger position size.

First 3 candles, -50 pips, next 3 minutes, -another 50 pips or so and crazy volatility. I was scrambling to find the "news" on the web. I ended up losing about 56 pips on 26,000 units. I could've covered better, I could've covered worse.

Total loss today, about $188. In terms of position sizing and pips...it would be about 72 pips. I've made pips before, I will make them again. But... obviously, I have to take the position size back down again...that makes the climb back more difficult.

Not as fun as making money.
  • #43
  • Dec 2, 2010 9:26am Dec 2, 2010 9:26am
Hey guy, sorry to hear all this. I wanted to try to give you a little inspiration here. I'm an objective 3rd party so maybe I look at things a little different than you do. I wanted to point out some observations I've noticed about you.

(Keep in mind I'm just a n00b at this, but I believe sometimes the "less market educated" people are the ones that aren't as bogged down about what the market "should" be doing. What if the market couldn't care less about Bernanke, Korea, or the # of people standing in line at the soup kitchen? What if it was just a bunch of competitive guys playing their sport / just a game of psychology and nothing more?)

Ok, so let me start with your reply.

Quote
I thought I would trade larger in December, twice the size, but cut my losers more religiously. The idea was that I would have more capital committed to my winning trades, and not double-up and waste time in my losing trades.
Sounds like you just said that you increased your risk and at the same time changed the way you've been trading (and what's been working). Those things should never be done at the same time. Do one or the other individually, and make sure neither one disrupts your good-form trades.

Quote
First three trades today, -8 pips, -9 pips, -6 pips, wasn't fun, but I was OK psychologically. Then I had a short around 1.3072, mostly in the money, and at one point, I was up about 15 pips. EUR/USD felt weak, even though our equity markets were very high. I held....
Personally I don't look at the news or equity markets. I could be wrong about this, but seems like scalping is on one end of the spectrum, and all that other stuff is on the extreme other side.

Quote
Right before 12:00pm London close, we had a big spike...
Different ideas as to what caused it, Fed releasing some statistics, blah blah... who cares... my hard stop wasn't on that trade of my (oh so brilliant) larger position size.

First 3 candles, -50 pips, next 3 minutes, -another 50 pips or so and crazy volatility. I was scrambling to find the "news" on the web. I ended up losing about 56 pips on 26,000 units.
Stop trying to find a reason for why price action happened. It just did, that's all there is to it. The reason, if there is even one, doesn't really matter. Because a technical trader as yourself shouldn't let fundamental news get mixed up in your trading strategy. I would say, at the very most, "be aware" of impending news releases and maybe form a bias based on other fundamentals like nuclear arms talks, etc. (that would be a big FAT maybe though, because again, I think scalping is more playful and less rule-following in the bigger picture)

Quote
I could've covered better, I could've covered worse.
No you couldn't, because you don't control the market. The best you can ever do is follow your trading rules and strive to always act in good form.

Quote
Total loss today, about $188. In terms of position sizing and pips...it would be about 72 pips. I've made pips before, I will make them again. But... obviously, I have to take the position size back down again...that makes the climb back more difficult.

Not as fun as making money.
One question I do have for you -- you mentioned a hard stop up above... ask yourself this: did I violate my trading rules? Did I act in bad form? Because if you did, then that is the worst offense possible. That is the single offense that could sabotage your trading career. So if you did trade in bad form by violating a hard stop rule (knowing your feelings on risk, my guess is that YES YOU DID) -- then you need to work on that discipline.

The other things I thought I would point out... at least during the trading session, I've found it really helpful to ignore the equity. I do "glance" at it from time to time, but if I get caught up in the $$ then I start making bad decisions. In my mind you should prep your brain and psychology to think only in percentages (maybe not even pips). That way when you succeed, you will be finely focused to scale your account regardless of the amount of equity. I am planning to do a test on this soon -- what I'm planning to do (when the time is right) is to start doubling my equity and units. I think I might do this week over week, assuming my trading psychology stays in check each day. Theoretically there should be zero impact on my trading, if I am properly focused on percentages and strategy ONLY.

Quote
As they always say, past performance is not indicative of future results.
I am only as good as my next trade.
#1: "They" is almost always wrong. 95% wrong to be specific. So don't listen to "they".

#2: This is reinforcing negative thinking. Instead you should say:
DAMN I TRADED GOOD! For the first time I'm starting to find real consistency and I've grown my account past the 100% mark. I still have some trading strategy issues to work out, but I've identified them and know exactly where I need to focus. I WILL continue trading in the most excellent way that I am capable -- because I am a GENIUS and the market is just a STUPID CROWD -- and my past performance WILL be an indication of GREAT things to come! So stay tuned!
  • #44
  • Dec 2, 2010 12:32pm Dec 2, 2010 12:32pm
Great respons Dusktrader
  • #45
  • Edited 3:25pm Dec 2, 2010 12:52pm | Edited 3:25pm
Thanks for the analysis, I have to agree, you are spot on.

One thing I will add-

I have a tendency to sell more than buy.
This was even apparent in October, when the Euro was blazing upward.
Somehow, even then, I was quick enough to not get crushed.

I need to respect the current trend more.
Sometimes I need to be Buying, and others I need to be Selling.

I need to have a hard stop, these strong up days...
even though my initial trades were "in-the-money"... they ran away...never to retrace.

My performance up until this month, looks pretty, until you measure it versus risk. There was always real risk, and with lack stop-loss measures, eventually a "big event" can happen. Being as that I scalp most of my trades quickly, these "big events" will mostly only hurt me. (scalp the win quickly, hold the loss)

Thanks for this!-
Quoting dusktrader
Instead you should say:
DAMN I TRADED GOOD! For the first time I'm starting to find real consistency and I've grown my account past the 100% mark. I still have some trading strategy issues to work out, but I've identified them and know exactly where I need to focus. I WILL continue trading in the most excellent way that I am capable -- because I am a GENIUS and the market is just a STUPID CROWD -- and my past performance WILL be an indication of GREAT things to come! So stay tuned!

Unfortunately...
Bad day again today... mostly because I was shorting.

The money doesn't bother me, even the embarrassing results don't bother me...
I enjoy trading. I just want to enjoy trading Correctly!

The account is just a tool to make money, and luckily I still have an account and time .

Thanks for the support both of you!
  • #46
  • Dec 3, 2010 8:45am Dec 3, 2010 8:45am
I know that you trade both long and short (in the same session) and that's great. Do you take a bias or preference or just look for good setups?

I have a theory about trade direction and bias. Right now I am only trading in the direction of the bias, as I see it (mostly looking at the 15min trend bias). Of course this is discretionary and sometimes I even question myself if I have interpreted it correctly. But my theory -- is that we can trade either direction with success. In other words, the bias doesn't really matter "that much". I believe this is true because a couple times now I've analyzed my trading and said to myself "geez you really got that bias wrong today" but still had winning trades (albeit difficult conditions). I can tell this mostly from the price action candles (for example, I said bias was down, but all the up moves were very forceful candles). In my mind, when you get the bias right, trading is more pleasurable and less stressful, because price always wants to magnetize in your direction.

I'm not discounting bias altogether because I'm pretty sure that it helps with my edge. I think it is just 1 component in a bigger picture of making your trades high-probability winners. I think you could win either way if the setup is solid. But I think trading with a preference towards the bias (or in my case, ONLY in the direction of the bias) could lead to higher win %. That's my theory anyway.

One other question I had for you... do you have a hard stop on either trade ideas or account loss for the day? I wish I could say I had a more solid plan myself. In my head I would like to think per-trade(-idea) losses are limited to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2%. But maybe even more important would be a hard stop to stop trading altogether that day. I'm not exactly sure what that level should be because my in-trade drawdown can sometimes be large.
  • #47
  • Dec 3, 2010 1:00pm Dec 3, 2010 1:00pm
I think bias is important even if you are often wrong.
Something I have picked up from CrucialPoint's posts, which I like....
Have a definite way of determining your bias...then only trade in that direction until it changes.

He's not saying sometime or maybe, he literally always follows his indication of recent trend. I like the 15 min TF trend for my entries also. But I haven't been as strict as CrucialPoint says. He says 'Just Buy/Sell the best pullbacks or retracements WITH your bias until it changes.'

I have no indication that CrucialPoint is profitable, but he writes well .


As far as daily-loss limits, I used to use 4.5% of account balance. Obviously, I haven't done that lately. Just like yourself, I have often had in-trade drawdowns much higher than that. One to two percent trade risk seems about right.

Crazy week, Non-farm payroll weeks are usually odd anyways. I can't remember seeing the Euro act like this....ever, hence my results...if I fight the uptrend... it goes higher.

I'm tired of the 1.2-1.5 spreads, it's been almost two weeks it seems.
I'm working on a firm set of rules (which I need to follow)....no matter what. My discretionary trading allowed me some slow, seemingly consistent gains.... but I was 'picking up pennies in front of a steamroller'.

1. A definite way to determine trend for my time frame entries.
2. Only trading with the trend on retracements.
3. Per trade hard stop-loss no matter what the volatility.
4. Daily hard stop-loss no matter what the volatility.
5. A time stop-loss on losing trades (for me... I really think -- 3min).

If I can scalp with those rules, every day, and be profitable monthly, then I would say the risk is limited. If I can't....then I'm just 'gambling' until I get 'steamrolled' again.

Keep up the good work! I'm peeking at your journal as well!
  • #48
  • Dec 4, 2010 9:34pm Dec 4, 2010 9:34pm
what happened with the big losses recently?
  • #49
  • Dec 5, 2010 12:59am Dec 5, 2010 12:59am
Heya Richy...Thanks for checking out the thread.

December 1st's losses mostly centered around the 11:55am EST EUR/USD "spike", run, breakout (or whatever)... I had no stop-loss on a short trade. The movement upward of 70-100 pips happened in 7 minutes. Smaller losses centered around fighting a strong trend.

December 2nd, after being frightened into a strict stop-loss..., I took a lot of losses shorting again. Both this day and the previous I had been trading larger size (but not averaging into trades).

December 3rd, I stuck with a strict stop-loss again, until late in the day.... I had a short "in the money" about 20 pips....I held it through the close... it went against me in the late afternoon movement upward.
I was very temped to gamble with this trade and hold through the week-end...as I felt 400 pips upward in 3 days was a bit much. The daily chart looks like a perfect retracement. Often times, when it is impossible to be short.... it is the best time to be short.

But, alas, after reading news, and realizing that Bernanke was going to be on CBS Sunday evening '60 Minutes' defending his QE2 and saying there could be more.... I covered the trade at a loss. Who knows what will happen?

So....for the rest of the month... I'm just going to try to get back in "my groove" but with solid rules and foundation.

And we will see what 2011 brings....
  • #50
  • Edited 12:34am Dec 22, 2010 12:13am | Edited 12:34am
I'm not sure what size account I am going to trade for 2011.

I have been working on my own trend "indicator" which is a little more responsive than the single 30 SMA I had on my charts previously. Basically, I've been researching and testing a 15 SMA paired along with a 60 SMA on my 1 min charts. When the '15' is below the '60' we are in a down trend, and the opposite for an up trend.

I still want to allow myself opportunities to scalp a consolidating market technically still "in-trend", in either direction.

I have to be more comfortable trading both directions of the market. I had a significant bias trading short over the past 3 months. (About 6:1 - short vs. long trades)

I've come up with a fixed stop-loss of under 9 pips (spread inclusive).
I'm sure I will take more frequent losses than before, but this is a 'must-have'. Even in crazy volatility, I should be able to profit with this tight stop-loss.

I also have determined a time stop-loss. If my trade entry has not been in profit within the first 3 minutes, it should be closed. It can go in profit and then out, but it has to show potential within three minutes. (at least beating the spread, for example...)

Generally, I should take profits at around 9 pips as well. With my style and entries, there is a very high chance for a retracement after 9-10 pips of a price move. I will have much smaller wins also, but at 9 pips or so... I should 'bank' it, and look for a retracement and enter again perhaps. Holding trades for +30 minutes and making 20 pips is great... but there is usually opportunity to be in and out multiple times.

I have to remind myself that every move is not trade-able. No system will catch every move. Covering a loss and reversing my position out of frustration has been a downfall for me lately. This fails usually because I am not entering on a retracement and getting a 'good' price.

You can't trade your P/L, or chase losses to make them back quickly.

Most importantly, I'm not going to trade against a trend after a recent trend change. It takes time for the market to go where it wants to go, and then enter a ranging period... where it is much safer to counter-trend trade.
  • #51
  • Dec 22, 2010 12:25am Dec 22, 2010 12:25am
Imagine you are a momentum trader. What if you only traded with the trend when price was in motion?

So... on the 1 min chart... could you take the second continuation bar of a move in a certain direction... jump on... and get out quickly with some profit as the momentum carries you?

Not really. Or I should say, I couldn't do it. (on the 1 min TF)
Why? Because you are mostly late. Price has already started moving... and you are jumping on the second candle. You are just way too late.

I don't trade this way... but we can use this idea to our advantage.
Let's fade a second continuation bar (again... on the 1 min TF) as it is almost completed against the trend for a quick couple pips.
So... we are selling to the people buying way too late against the overall trend in a mini-move.

I've added this to my repertoire lately, when I don't have a solid support/resistance area picked out on the charts.
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: 2010-12-22_004809.jpg Size: 205 KB
  • #52
  • Dec 26, 2010 10:16am Dec 26, 2010 10:16am
I've been lucky enough to be able to arrange my life around trading Forex for at least a couple hours each trading day.

I work about 30 hours a week and have a good paying job during the evenings. I'm single, and live relatively modestly, and have little debt.

This has been a great year for experience, and I've made many trades.
I think even my primitive scalping methods as they are now provide a significant edge... better than what most believe is possible. The sacrifice I make for this edge is screen time and stress, as I am not a longer time frame trader. I sit with my finger on (or near) "the button" ready to execute or close trades during most of my trading days.

My weaknesses are removal of stop-losses, fighting strong trends, and exceeding daily stop-losses.

I want to move to the next level and improve my discipline. Don't laugh... but I'm calling my next step "Semi-Pro". I expect a fairly high rate of return each month, above 25% on average. I'd rather build a small account than deposit more money.

I don't want to spend another entire year making mistakes. I could easily work more at a traditional job, make more money, have less risk, and get to socialize with people somewhat .

I hate to set absolute $ value goals... but I have to honestly evaluate what my time is worth. I'm leaning toward 100% account growth (doubling it) within 3 months approximately, and returns of greater than 25% per month. For now, $800-$1000 profit per month on a small account would satisfy my Semi-Pro goals and justify the time spent trading Forex instead of pursuing other work.

Somewhere around a $2000 account value, I will withdraw more, and slow the growth for 6 months. I'll take the income and build a secondary back-up account. By the end of 2011, I'd like a main account of $3000-$5000, a backup account of at least $2000... and average returns of +25% per month with risk managed properly and professionally.

That is my idea of Semi-Pro.

I truly understand that I can only take what the market offers me. But after trading actively for over a year, I know there are many opportunities to exercise an 'edge' during each day.
  • #53
  • Dec 27, 2010 4:14pm Dec 27, 2010 4:14pm
I have always kept my stats public. Anyone is free to see all of my mistakes and blunders. You can see all of my Oanda trading for 2010. (I also have a small account at MB Trading, which I seldom use)
http://www.myfxbook.com/members/Intu

This year has been a great experience, with volatile ever-changing market conditions. I'm glad I was able to participate.

I've just noticed the staff at Myfxbook.com has added some new statistics. Average trade length, Sharpe Ratio, and others...
Unfortunately, they are not retro-active, they will apply to all trades going forward.

I am particularly interested in Average Trade Length. Combined with Avg Win/Loss and Avg Win/Loss %, I think I will have very concrete evidence for the availability of extraordinary profits on very short time frames.
  • #54
  • Dec 28, 2010 10:37am Dec 28, 2010 10:37am
Heya Intu, just popping over to your thread with some comments for you:

Quoting Intu
I have to be more comfortable trading both directions of the market. I had a significant bias trading short over the past 3 months. (About 6:1 - short vs. long trades)
I think you are trading in the way that I am aspiring to trade... taking a bias on the trend direction, but allowing yourself flexibility to change that bias as the market unfolds. In 2010 I traded only with the bias that I would define ahead of time. Moving forward, I'd like to have a more dynamic way to ride the markets like you do with the SMA lines.

One thing I wanted to point out regarding the shorting bias -- if you are following your trend indicator rules, why does this matter if your shorts are not equal with the longs? To me the only thing that would matter is good-form trading. Now if you are ignoring or overruling your SMA trend indicator rules, then that's definitely a problem to work on. But if you're following the rules and you end up with more shorts, that seems fine to me.

Quote
I also have determined a time stop-loss. If my trade entry has not been in profit within the first 3 minutes, it should be closed. It can go in profit and then out, but it has to show potential within three minutes. (at least beating the spread, for example...)
I like the time stop-loss idea. I might steal it for myself. Let us know how this works out. I think pip-siphon did something similar but his was more discretionary. (Random sidenote: since you picked 3-minutes, you could use an egg-timer)

Quote
Generally, I should take profits at around 9 pips as well. With my style and entries, there is a very high chance for a retracement after 9-10 pips of a price move. I will have much smaller wins also, but at 9 pips or so... I should 'bank' it, and look for a retracement and enter again perhaps. Holding trades for +30 minutes and making 20 pips is great... but there is usually opportunity to be in and out multiple times.
Totally agree here. For me it's actually a really hard discipline to take profits early instead of waiting for homeruns. I'm hoping after enough screen time, my brain will be able to detect high-probability homeruns and everything else can be cut quickly.

Quote
You can't trade your P/L, or chase losses to make them back quickly.
Yep yep. Revenge trading is a constant psychological battle you need to stay on top of.

Quote
Most importantly, I'm not going to trade against a trend after a recent trend change. It takes time for the market to go where it wants to go, and then enter a ranging period... where it is much safer to counter-trend trade.
Sounds like a rule. But I'd make it solid so it's not wishy-washy.

I agree also about your fading technique -- works great for me too! I think I probably fade everything.

Quote
I've been lucky enough...
Hmmm. I personally don't believe in luck. I think what you are trying to say is that you have purposefully aligned your schedule for your success in trading. I would call that "focus".

Quote
I'm single, and live relatively modestly, and have little debt.
Don't mean to get too personal... but if you can find love, it's full of positive energy! You would not believe how much of my trading is in sync with my love life And WOOHOO on the debt situation. If you will notice, the people who achieve true financial wealth in life are debt-free. So you are definitely on the right track here. They also typically live modest lifestyles.

Quote
The sacrifice I make for this edge is screen time and stress, as I am not a longer time frame trader. I sit with my finger on (or near) "the button" ready to execute or close trades during most of my trading days.
In my (limited) experience with scalping... I have learned that it is what you make it. The perception I had of scalping (coming from a swing background) was that it would be stressful. However, on the contrary, I have found it to be fun and playful. This is how trading should be. If you find that you are battling stress, then you need to work on relaxation techniques and confidence in your methods. You also might have too much at stake $-wise. Reduce your risk until it becomes fun again, then master your technique as the highest priority. The rest will come naturally when you achieve true mastery. If you are constantly looking at this as a stressful situation, then it will ultimately become what you create it to be. And perhaps that should be an indication that you are not in sync with the trading style at all. You know that you can't force anything out of the market, so why even try? Just focus on fluid trading that is fun and playful, and in good-form. Study your failed trades to determine if they are form-errors or just duds. If they are duds, then there is no reason to dwell on them at all.

Quote
I don't want to spend another entire year making mistakes.
It is what it is. And it will be whatever you make of it. Focus only on positives, improving yourself. Without a doubt, 2010 was not a wasted year for your development. This year has been full of breakthroughs for you.

Some good soul-searching in these last few posts of yours. It's good to do this, to re-balance and refocus goals. Congrats!!
  • #55
  • Feb 2, 2011 5:03pm Feb 2, 2011 5:03pm
(Short version)


12 day hospital stay with surgery
I come home to a semi-flooded apartment (leaking water heater).
Stay with parents for a week to recover and organize apartment move.

Finally, get internet/phone hooked-up.

I haven't trade since January 7th.
Down 17% so far.

MyFxBook and Oanda having an API data update fight.
At present you can no longer update Oanda accounts from FXTrade to
MyFxBook.

Oanda says they are working on a "fix". There is some talk of MT4 and Oanda. I don't want to create another sub-account. I have no interest in MT4. For what I do, I need the speed of Java FXTrade.

I'll keep trading the same account with the hope that Oanda and MyFxBook arrive at a solution.

I'll try to update here as I get back to trading.
  • #56
  • Edited 11:59am Feb 17, 2011 11:43am | Edited 11:59am
MetaTrader 4 went Live (for real accounts ) with Oanda yesterday. This potentially solves the Myfxbook.com compatibility problem, BUT...

You have to open a new sub-account to get MT4 compatibility. They haven't (so far) figured how to get "histories" to show up in MT4.

I don't intend to trade with MetaTrader, I just want Myfxbook.com compatibility [I can have it MT4 enabled, so it'll update to Myfxbook.com, but still trade it with FXTrade]. Let's see if they can get the third party API working before March 1st, or I may consider opening a new sub-account for Mar 1st onward...though I really want to show the whole year from Jan. 1st.

I guess I could "break up" the months like I did last year for my results, but I'd rather not. I've essentially lost the trade results (as far as Myfxbook.com is concerned) from Jan 8-through now... until I can show that history. I really wanted just one account for the entire year.

Current Balance $707.95
Yesterday was the only significant losing day this month, -27 pips total on 20,000 unit lot sizes.


On a positive note, as long as the introduction of MT4 does not create Oanda "server" instability... this will bring more people into the "pool". Most will generally pick worse prices with worse timing, leading to more (or larger) potential inefficiencies to exploit for the fewer profitable traders.
  • #57
  • Feb 18, 2011 10:54am Feb 18, 2011 10:54am
I could be wrong about this, but I thought I read somewhere that the MT4 accounts would not accurately reflect nonstandard units in them. I took this to mean that, unless you traded exact-pip equivalents in fxTrade, that those trades would not appear in MT4. In other words, it might be useless for what you are trying to do (I hope I'm wrong about this because I too would like to use MyFXbook)

Separately, my theory is that the MT4 price feed will NOT match the fxTrade feed. The reason why is technical: Oanda themselves has stated that a bridge (middleware) was created to link MT4 to their system. Based on this, I believe there will be subtle (but potentially disastrous) delays in the execution for MT4 users vs. fxTrade.

Btw that's an interesting (and positive) spin to put on the influx of new MT4 users. I have been mostly negative about it, because my fear is that the robot EAs will clog up the system and create traffic jams for the discretionary traders, reducing overall responsiveness. I hope I'm wrong about this. I like your outlook and you're right -- more traders is probably a good thing. And I'm betting it will be a massive increase.

Seems like Oanda might be beefing up its infrastructure ... I think this month (Feb) is the first time in a LONG time that traders were not complaining about an outage during NFP. I'm excited to see if the same thing happens in March.
  • #58
  • Feb 25, 2011 11:56pm Feb 25, 2011 11:56pm
Quoting dusktrader
I could be wrong about this, but I thought I read somewhere that the MT4 accounts would not accurately reflect nonstandard units in them....

Separately, my theory is that the MT4 price feed will NOT match the fxTrade feed. The reason why is technical: Oanda themselves has stated that a bridge (middleware) was created to link MT4 to their system. Based on this, I believe there will be subtle (but potentially disastrous) delays in the execution for MT4 users vs. fxTrade.
I think you are right on both of these points.
I've read some posts in Oanda's forums that support your theories.

I've been "bashing" Oanda about the API fix and high spreads in those forums...
... but it looks as if I am going to "break down" and use MT 4 to update to Myfxbook.com and Trade Explorer here on Forex Factory.

I have some results from the beginning of February which I can only show after the end of the month from Oanda's Beta Account statement and my own spreadsheets. I have recovered some of my draw down from January.

Unless something miraculous happens over the week-end, I will start another sub-account (sigh) so that I can continue to review and post my results.

I like my Myfxbook.com page because it has all my trading from last year...
http://www.myfxbook.com/members/Intu

...but I am VERY excited about what Forex Factory has done!
http://www.forexfactory.com/news.php?do=news&id=282228
  • #59
  • Feb 27, 2011 3:01pm Feb 27, 2011 3:01pm
We have one more trading day in February. I've mostly recovered from my January draw down.

On January 5th, I had a large net loss mostly because I was very excited to see a 0.9 pip spread. It was the first time since mid-November. I over-traded. I ignored daily stop-losses. My conversation to myself was "this is your 'element'... it's ok, you can trade this, you can make back $xx dollars, just get in your groove".

It was a thin market, and they fleeced me pretty well.

February had a few days where the spread was 0.9 pips for a short while during the times that I traded, but honestly... I am fearing that 1.2 pips will be the new normal spread. Hopefully, I am wrong.

I've had just under 30 hours screen time for February. I missed many good trades. These were trades that went to my resistance levels or stop-running areas that I had determined long in advance. Unfortunately, I had stopped trading for the day. Many days I am satisfied with 1% or even 2% and stop trading. Sometimes I get to this milestone in minutes or less than one hour with a couple of trades.

I've said the same thing for 8 months. I need to trade a near full trading day and be available for opportunities, ideally from 9:45am-2:00pm.

I don't want to over-trade, but I am missing trade-able opportunities that fall within acceptable risk. Looking back at my spreadsheets for previous months, about 45 hours is the most screen time I have spent in one particular month (about 2 hours/day).

Even though I think the market is more difficult lately, I'm going to be available for 80 hours of trading in March. I am not always 'glued' to the screen, I take plenty of breaks.... but I need to have ideas where I will buy/sell and have the computer on from 9:45am-2:00pm.

I want exceptional returns as I have always stated, so I have to be able to do "the work". That is one of the main reasons why I haven't been able to put in those hours. It does feel like work. You would rather do something else, because "you are up 1% for the day, and that's 20% a month and that's damn good..."

It's not good enough.
  • #60
  • Mar 1, 2011 4:49am Mar 1, 2011 4:49am
Hi Intu,

You were interested in finding out your trade duration stats:

Just downloaded the .csv of your trading record from myfxbook, and loaded it into my excel spreadsheet.

I have removed a few of the extremely long trades (> greater than 224 minutes) as they will skew the rest if the data.

maybe you already know these:
Average trade size - ± 3.1 pips
% of trades long direction - 16%
Average pips per Long trade - -(negative) 0.17 pips,
Average pips per Short trade - 0.78 pips,
Average Trade count per day - 6.9 trades per day

You were interested in duration stats:
Mean Trade duration - 8.2 minutes,
Mode Trade duration (most common) - 1 minute, (01m00s - 01m59s)
Median Trade duration (middle value) - 2 minutes (02m00s - 02m59s)
Mean duration of Winners - 5.6 minutes,
Mean duration of Losers - 14.6 minutes,

See the attached charts for more details:
Top Chart:
Distribution of trades across trade duration, x-axis is minutes, y-axix is trade count

Middle Chart:
Distribution of trades across p/l, x-axis is p/l in pips, y-axix is trade count

Bottom Chart:
Duration against P/L, x-axis is trade duration in minutes, y-axix is sum total p/l in pips for trades of that duration
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Screen shot 2011-03-01 at 10.40.11.png Size: 64 KB
1 trader viewing now