Building an equity millipede

Thank you for the warm compliments.

Good night all.

Sincerely,

Graeme

very excited about the book...

dear greame,

thank you for all your effort with your post these few days, i have learn lot more than few years own experience. waiting for your books.

good night and merry Christmas to all


regards

nitroz

Dear Mr. Graeme, I`ve been a very much discouraged trader until I`ve stumbled upon this brilliant thread of yours. I`ve been trading on and off for almost 5 yrs now, though I`ve wasted the 1st 2 yrs programming and backtesting my own EAs hoping to get rich through trading robots. by the time I realised mechanical trading wouldn`t work for me, I had already blown a $5000 account testing the theory. then my son was born, so I could only trade occasionally, yet I still managed to lose 85% of a $1000 account trading on impulse. I`ve had several Aha! moments but none of them ever turned into real consistent profit. I`ve always felt that there was something missing in my trading knowledge which prevented me from becoming a real profitable trader. I think I`ve finally filled the gap by incorporating what you`ve been teaching so far into my own trading. for the last 3 weeks, I`ve managed to accumulate 8 profitable small positions, with a combined unrealised profit of almost $100, which is almost a 75% return on my remaining capital. and this is done through a lot of trials and errors, with many missed opportunities due to insufficient capital and other reasons, and without even incorporating what I consider the most important trading technique you`ve been teaching - stacking. anyway, there is still a long way to go before I could really call myself a profitable trader. but you`ve given me back hope. I don`t know how I can really express my gratitude. I hope one day I`ll have the opportunity to do so.

happy christmas to you all.

same regards
recidiviste

Thank you for today's posts (yesterday in your time zone). I just loged-in, so I need to read one by one.

I am even ready to pay for your book..Can't wait to see it.

Graeme, your PM option is not available for me, therefore I have to request for the book here.

Thank you again.

Good morning, all

Thank you for the continued interest.

Iplaygames - Thank you for sharing your experience with all of us. Well done with your new accompliment. I can see a mix of positions that range 10 cent per pip to 2 cent per pip. This is only a recommendation but it would be wise to start looking at exits on higher timeframes to diversify or close out as your current growth is already few thousand pips but I see that you have exposure on various pairs and not one particular (nothing wrong with that). Im just laying out my thoughts for you to only consider. Overall excellent job and hope this is the start of something new.

I thought to myself for a moment before I started typing this post. Its in reply to an email that I received overnight. The sender is clearly unhappy that I have mentioned the upcoming book and is questioning my motive. It is strange enough to reply to such email publically however I thought perhaps there are other individuals who also share the same view. And this makes me wonder if I unknowingly discouraged potential professional traders to-be who were just fine till now then to stop while they draw near.

It is disheartening to see that the world we live and us the inhabitants has almost zero trust with each other yet we exist upon interaction and communication. You would literally lose your mind if you were locked in a room for few days without any other human being in your presence.

However, I understand why and the need to hold doubts and uncertainties to what we hear and see. And I understand that the sender is more angry with themselves because the trust he/she has placed could be all waste of time.

The book I mentioned will be available from local bookstores. It will be submitted to a reputable publisher and will be distributed through the right channel. You can either purchase the book from bookstore or I can send you one for free at my expense or even borrow from library. It will not be sold through this forum or a website or ebay.

It might not even make it to that level but it will hold genuine intent.

Apologies if I have offended anyone.

Sincerely,

Graeme

Graeme,
May i say from my own point of view, it wouldn't bother me if you where to make money from a book, and as to the feeling that people may think they have waisted there time, well if they think that then they obviously haven't spent enough time reading and re-reading all of the information you have given to those prepared to invest there own time.
i applaud you for your obvious selflessness to give, and congratulate you on the offer to give to charity, and totally understand your wanting to leave behind something to be remembered by, i think all of us will come to this thought proccess sooner or hopefully not to much later in life.

you are a person i hope one day to meet so i can shake your hand, buy you a drink, and say thankyou thankyou thankyou too.

this is not a person trying to suck up, this is me wanting to try to express to the doubting people that we all know within ourselves what peoples intentions are, just listen to within.

kind regards
Geoff

Graeme, I wish to congratulate you on this superb thread.
I am meticulously working through it ,currently on page 130.
Your contribution to the world of trading is already first class
and we gladly await the book. It will be a tall order to emulate this thread alone. I appreciate the effort you have made to coach and educate in detail and general context,
and in so doing you have improved my trading ideas and obviously many others who contribute.

Thank you for the ongoing effort .
George.

Alright, I could write a very long essay about how wrong the person questioning Graeme's motives would be, but I will keep it short and logical:

I think we must not miss the essence of this thread, to teach a trading method for whomever wants to put in the work. If you get the method, and you make it work for you, fine, but if you don't get it, and it doesn't work for you why throw mud like that ? Think about it: does the method presented in this thread has anything to do with what Graeme decides to do ? If you visit this thread should you not care only about learning to trade this method rather than to question the author's motives ? I guess what I am saying is: if you don't see the value of the method itself, you probably should not be here trying to trade it, no method is going to work if you don't believe in it and are ready to put in the work.

Also, the amount of time anyone decides to dedicate to learn a trading method is always a personal choice, so one can't blame it on someone else if they feel they have wasted their time.

Kindest Regards,

Cam

Hi Pip Easy

Thank you for all the work you have done in this thread. I am learning a lot. The thought of building a position is intriguing and I see basicaly unlimited possibilities.

Sorry for the disheartening comments you have received. I thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood"


Have a great Christmas and prosperous 2011.

Rufus

Thank you all for the above comments. It is greatly appreciated.

It really does warm me up inside.

Let us please move on for the benefit of all.

Today I would like to talk about one more topic.

It is on the word i use often, 'inevitable.'

If there are 100 cards and only 1 card is the joker the probability of a person drawing the joker is 1%.

Now this person can keep drawing (and replacing the drawn card back in the deck for the next draw) until the joker is drawn. It might take 1000 tries or it might take even take more than 10000 draws. It could even happen on the 2nd draw.

The point is that sooner or later with the continuos course of action it is inevitable that the person will draw it. And it is this guarantee that it will happen but sometime in the future as the definition of inevitability.

A thief can steal and not get caught. He may be very skilled but every time he steals he is exposing himself to the risk of getting caught. Based on his skill he could have low % of being caught or high % of being caught. But no matter what he does it is inevitable fact that sooner or later he will get caught.

Inevitability is very important to your trading success. It is the gel that holds you in place and keep you sane. There are so much information from indicators, news, etc that all traders are at the risk of over information. This actually prohibits you to take trades and hold uncertainty in ones self. It is here that ones own belief of the inevitability of a correct hindsight on the monthly timeframe holds you on the right path.

If you have traded on the lower timeframe using price interpretation we have talked about, you will find sometimes it does not work to your forecast but sometimes it does happen exactly to what you have forecasted. However, the chances of us being right is much more than 50% of the time as we are selective with our scenario; looking for higher probability movements.

Using this price interpretation on the monthly chart has one drawback and one reward. The drawback is that the speed we are use to on 5min chart is now so much slower as each candle is now a months worth of data. But the reward is that a correct hindsight on the monthly chart will bring in huge rewards that does propel your profit levels to the next heights.

A month time could be a very long period of the average trader. And it feels worse to watch day by day price doing the opposite to your hindsight. You will question your beliefs, get anxious and start listening to the irrelevant noise of the market and other traders.

This is not the act of a trader who believes in inevitability.

The pair you have chosen to start may feel like a drag. Not moving and it might not even work out for this month or the next. During this time you notice other pairs rocketing in movement which does make you feel more miserable. It is important to believe in yourself and the fact that sooner or later you will inevitably hit it right. If in doubt look back on the monthly chart and notice how many areas your price interpretation is correct and see that the price did infact travel few candles that are few thousands in pips.

Stay with the chosen pair for now

Believe in yourself

And above all believe in inevitability and stay in the game

Persistence pays to those who persists

Once a large chunk is taken from a pair, we will start trading another pair together. And it becomes a blur after that.

Sincerely,

Graeme

P.S will answer PMs later on

Greame,
I am very exicted reading whole topic about mililipede system trading, and very glad to show up this knowlege for people. I`m your big fan!

Iam quite new trader (just one month real money, and about 8 months demo). Scalping I thought was my first nature, but my account wasn`t satisfy me becouse, loosing (near 10%) thats why I turned into millipede again. And have to learn patience! So, now I love enter into new positions, and take carre old ones. Scapling makes me so nervous, but sometimes I give up, and I enter when price runnig.

Question,

My broker (dukascopy) said, if I want (in the future) withdrwal some cash from my account, I have to close all my positions witch makes very upset. And of course, deprive me positions "hard working" witch I do not want to close. Have You ever tried to withdrwal any penny from yours? It is any good solution for this?

Kind regards form Poland and merry christmas!
Jacek

Dear Mr. Graeme, thank you for your advice. my positions are a mess as I started testing your theory with my own method which did not have stacking as part of it. so I traded all 12 major pairs and risked $1 for each position when capital permitted. this resulted in a mixed portfolio which I do not yet know how to manage. a few of my positions have been growing for almost 2 weeks, I guess it`s ok to diversify them now, however I`m still testing to find the real potential of your theory and my own comfort level. so I think I`ll keep them a bit longer and see what happens. besides, I`ve fought hard to put the few positions in and I really would like to see some of them turn into home runs so as to experience the big-jolt you were talking about :-) is this greed? or just positive expectation? i`ll see...

Your last few posts have been a real eye opener. I`ve always believed stacking is key to real trading success ever since I read Phantom. but I`ve never been able to really incorporate the idea into my trading. your last few posts have helped me overcome some mental hurdle, I realised that I might already possess the necessary skills to stack. all I needed was for somebody to show me that it was really profitable to do so. I`ve wired a bit more into my account and I`ll begin testing as soon as the holiday is over.

as for the book, may I say that I`m really looking forward to it? I also would like to venture a bit further by saying that I understand your motive behind it, which is as you`ve said to leave sth behind, and which I believe is truly altruistic. how could anybody even doubt that? the information you`ve given here is truly invalualbe. I guess the vaule of it can only be appreciated by people who`ve explored a fair amount of the trading world and have been through the ups and downs of real trading. who would give out the jewelry first and then sell the box?

I`d like to book one for now and will be very happy to pay in advance so as to contribute to your charity. and if by the time you publish your book I`ve achieved bigger trading success I`ll diversify at least 10% of my profit buying more of the book and thus making a bigger contribution. I`m sending you my contact details in mail.

wish you better health and many happy returns.

Dear Graeme, thank you for the encouragement. I would say that the points you made are crucial for any profitable trader.

Kindest Regards,

Cam

I've been following this thread since the very start and right away I was in alignment with much of what Graeme has talked about. So much so that I immediately started to explore changing my scalping tendencies towards the general philosophy behind the core concepts: anticipate, participate, and probe, stack, grow.

Yet after all this effort I have not had any winners above 300 pips. The large majority of the trades get taken out BE or at a loss and my account is still in the red. No one is talking about this so I guess I'm the only idiot that can't get this to work, and that is scary to me as I've been a full-time trader for 6 years.

Even though Graeme disagrees that time of day matters, this week has been a good example so far of where I keep getting losses and BE results only to have the general trade idea work out IF I could have stayed awake past 3am to start trading the USA morning session. With the small losses this type of trading is advocating one absolutely needs to be at the screen when the momentum is there -- so I still strongly believe that time of day does matter. If I had been awake for the early USA session my trade results for the week would be very different indeed.

I'm not willing to throw in the towel with this approach, but no one is talking about any challenges with this approach and I feel it would be of value to discuss when things aren't working as opposed to when money is raining into ones account - especially after the fact.

Good luck on the book Graeme and have a good Xmas BBQ

With kind regards,
MK

EDIT: Oh, one more thing I nearly forgot. Graeme the reason people are concerned with racking up a loss of 200 or more pips before getting some payout is because they need income. It sounds like this isn't the case for you, but for the majority of the people it is an absolute must.

MK, if you're trading full-time for the last 6 yrs you're probably profitable for a number of years or you would have gone back to a day job. So assuming whatever you've been doing for the last 6 yrs works why do you want to change your trading style at this stage. Go with whatever works for you coz nothing can argue with money in the bank.

Good post and thank you for the input.

Thank you for the continued interest from the beginning of the thread.

I'm assuming your trading approach is similar to mine and have been testing it out for some time. I am somewhat surprised to see only a growth of 300 pips over the course of your participation. I'm sure we can improve on this as there have been great moves of more than a thousand pips since the start of this thread few months ago. To be only able to catch 300 pips out of such moves on any pair is already itself lukewarm. This is not an attack but just my reply to what you might be wondering.

I respect that you have been trading 6 years and of course with that much of time you have experienced most ups and downs of the market. You will find extended experiences actually stops your knowledge growing as you become accustomed and adapt at a set course of action that is working out or still perceive to work or just a sense of I must be right cause I have been trading many years. And to be fair this applies to myself as well so i reflect on my current situation all the time not to go into such power trips.

You may be a profitable scalper and kudos to you for something I couldn't accomplish and I did try very hard. Sometimes when something works for you there is no need to search for additional methods. I have personally done this and one of the reasons I joined up this forum. When I joined this forum I already had legs growing but thought more methods mean more profit for myself. This is not the case. For more profit you expand what you currently do in all pairs. Exposure creates profit and not the number of methods.

In regards to time of the day, yes, I disagree major movements are reserved for the exclusive uk or us session. But I will agree most good opportunities does happen then. It is something that I don't need to follow with a schedule.

I have a fairly busy schedule during the day and the only thing that keeps me sane and handle all the different pairs is placing price alerts to key areas and when notified and if I'm available i will glance at the move. Most scenarios fall under the category of lack of momentum which are ignored and new price alerts are then set. I spend more time placing price alerts than watch price fluctuating.

Looking for source of income to replace your current job will not happen soon. You seem like a genuine direct person so here are the direct genuine answers. If a readers expectancy to withdraw profit is more than once per 3 months I would request to rethink.

With the idea of position building, you endure the short term losses and replenish with medium growth positions while the long term positions reward you. The definition of long term should be no less than 4 weeks of growth on a trend. You won't be able to pay yourself per week but you certainly pay yourself every few months in one large lump sum.

And it does grow to your expectations. After a year review of your trading statistics will reveal net profit in pips. Then you would work out your net average profit pip for week, month, 6 months. And this will be your minimum expectancy the following year. Even statistics by annually will fluctuate but after few years of trading the statistic numbers start stabilizing and then you will see your true return in pips and dollar value. Once your net pip profit per week exceeds your main income then you can quit your job.

You will be surprised at how fast it grows once you arrive there.

With the sophistication of current technology, you don't need to be glued to computer or quit your day job or lose sleep. I use my phone, iPad to do most.

I too, prefer to discuss why a trader is not profitable rather than traders that are profiting. And you are most welcome to ask any questions.

Merry Christmas to you as well.

Sincerely,

Graeme

Graeme, your post on inevitability could not have been better timed.

I have been trading this method since early September. I jumped in the deep end, starting off with 9 currency pairs in my roster. Over the past number of years I have tended to primarily focus only on EUR/USD, so I knew that it was going to be a challenge to adapt to widening my focus.

Fast forward to now. The only pair I have been able to successfully diversify on has been EUR/USD. On all other eight pairs I was just seeing my trades get eaten up and spit out by the market. I began to wonder if I should just go back to solely trading the euro.

I decided to ponder on it over the holiday break. Even though I've only been on holiday for two days I think I've made my decision: to stick with trading all nine pairs.

I know that being able to trade multiple pairs allows me to focus on ones that are moving and ignore those that are consolidating. I know that I have to work on upskilling my ability to identify and focus on pairs that are ripe for picking. For me, a big part of this will be getting in tune with the fundamentals of countries outside the EU and US (as I know my ability to trade the euro is in large part to being able to follow the big picture).

The power of inevitability is also evident when I review my open trades and I see that I have two legs in EUR/CHF both over 1000 pips each. I obviously haven't been able to add to my good fortune there, but I know that at the very least I'll be able to close one of those legs, which will cover my expenses of 350 pips to grow those two legs, plus a nice profit, while leaving the other to continue on its merry way.

I have a 500 pip position open on EUR/JPY and a couple of minor positions on AUD/USD and USD/JPY (all of which still could easily be closed out at BE, but are in open enough territory that they could grow quite nicely).

So EUR/USD was my first inevitably profitable pair (most likely due to my prior experience with it). EUR/CHF is inevitably next. I don't know which pair is going to be next, but I have confidence in my abilities to make it inevitably all nine pairs (and then I can start to think about adding some more pairs).

I was thinking essentially along the same lines as MidKnight: things can go wrong for a long time, how do you keep positive and work out what needs to be improved or fixed?

I had a sliver of success with euro straight off the bat, but have struggled with every other pair. My biggest current drawdown is 850 pips with sterling (I'm beginning to see why some people just can't trade this pair at all). But then I look at my surviving legs and just know that when I get a couple of legs I'll be able to clear that drawdown and reset the clock on sterling. And ditto for all the other pairs I trade.

Maybe I was slightly dumb to start trading nine pairs off the bat, rather than starting with one or two and working my way up. Even if it has been dumb, I'm still in the game. Mainly due to going with low gearing for each trade (0.5:1). My account equity is down 20% from its starting amount, but I'm not unduly worried, mainly because my unrealised profit has always been enough to see things back into the black.

Going forward I'm going to trade normally on pairs that I know I currently trade well (basically euro based pairs). I'll be more conservative on the other pairs until I get some more experience with them, and the inevitable profitable legs that will allow me to trade them more normally.

Trading is all about overcoming adversity. You have to survive and struggle through the short term roller coaster ups and downs to be able to experience the rewards that come long term.

Hanselfx - Thank you very much for the detailed input and it's not at all intrusive but inspiring to readers. I hope only the best with trading career

Horned god- Also thank you for the detailed post and thank you for sharing. You may not realize but you said the golden phrase that I would recommend traders to read and highlight.

"each pair runs on different clocks"

The good thing is that later on in your trading career when you have positions in every major trend, you will notice a minus here is overcome with a positive there. This is the ultimate and the final stage.

The bad thing is that a new trader building position over many pairs will suffer the short term lag of seeing any positive move as the dust hasn't settled yet.

Some pairs will kick start as soon as you start building and some will stall. This is just the beginning stage and it can be overcome both mentally and financially by participating in one pair for now and witnessing what the method offers. However, I started in multiple pairs but luckily it was one of the best trendy periods of 2007 on most pairs.

I'm glad to see that you made the right connection about inevitability and wish you the best trading success.

For myself, a bad few months would mean that an inevitable trend will occur on that particular pair. And the longer the stall the better as the breakout will be significantly stronger and move further. This itself is knowing the inevitable opportunity tht will arise for myself to take back my losses and to reap greatly.

In regards to answering post about dukascopy, I'm surprised to hear such implementation. I don't understand why they would not allow withdrawals if you have open positions. I'm sorry to hear that and yes that would be cumbersome. I use fxcm with no such restrictions to withdrawal.

Sincerely,

Graeme