$100 to... not $0?

Sitting on some profitable trades right now. Also watched ZAR/JPY and TRY/JPY fall quite far in the past few days. Thinking about picking some up.

Current Balance: $4116.25

CrabmanDan http://www.forexfactory.com/images/s...ser_online.gif
Crab...man
Crabman, amazing performance, keep up the great work. You are part of the 5% now.

Thanks, that's a really nice thing to say. It's funny though, I can't say that I know what the market is going to do any more than the day I started.

Still sitting on some profitable trades, waiting for them to inch a bit higher.


Current Balance: $4170.02

are trading carry trades? lot of leverage? just wondering if you good give me some details/pointers because i also want to take on a similar small account "project" over the summer months..

I feel the same way Dan. I've been trading for four years - first 2.5 years, I lost money steadily. In Nov 09 I started a new idea and since then, through various iterations, it has worked better than I imagined. I went live in July last year and have been profitable every month since (range of 3% to 16%, averaging 9.5%).

I think I have an "OK" idea of when a move stops, but I can't figure out when it will start moving or which way it will go! Alot of times the market will stop, but I'll leave me money running because I think it will pick back up again. It doesn't. Next time I'll take my profit when it stops, only to see the trend continue a few hours later! AUGH! :-D

Congrats again on your success. Keep posting.

Let me start be saying, this is not advice on how you should trade. This is the approach I'm experimenting with.

I have a pretty simple approach that seems to be working well for me, and has survived some very wild swings in the market (like the 2010 flash crash, or the more recent Japan troubles) without much trouble.

I generally just eyeball the chart at the daily level, try to get a feel for where it might be a good buy or sell. This usually includes times when it's dipped quite low relative to the price for the last few weeks or months. I'll throw down some limit buy/sells with a small tp (I use 10 pips) and no stop with extremely low leverage (less than 1:1). Most trades hit for about 0.1 - 0.25% profit. Sometimes I set a higher tp if I think it can go there without trouble, otherwise I'm content to make money off the noise.

That's about it really. It may not sound like much, but even just 0.25% per day translates into 5% per month which I'm quite happy to take.

with no stop i'd imagine you probably get out around -10 pips? or since you're using no leverage do you manage a losing position by adding to it? or do you just get out very quickly if it begins to move against you?

Hi staffpro,

I do just about everything "wrong". I hold on to positions forever (since I'm carry trading), and I do average down if it goes against me and simply wait until the total position is positive to cash out for a larger profit than I would holding the carry trade.

yeahhh... well my personal opinion is:

I think carry trades are great obviously if you trade them after they have unwound in a big way like in 2008... however the longer they go without unwinding the harder the eventual unwind and then no amount of averaging down... unless your putting on absolutely miniscule positions says 0.1 : 1 or something.

I think i will get into carry trading when all the current carries unwind and now going into some uncertain times that might actually happen.

Hi CrabmanDan

Seems for me a realistic target.

I wish you success & happiness!

Kindest regards
FXcube

any updates i'm interested in strategies to grow a small account $100-300 over the next 2-3 years. In retrospect when I think of your strategy and averaging down with such insignifigant amounts of money is probably actually a great thing because you will make money, and when it goes against you, you average down, and when it goes against you some more you can add money to your account if you run out since you started with an insignifigant amount whats adding another $100-300 more.

Is that the basis of your strategy or am i missing something. Ever since I started trading I have had a wierd fascination with any stratgey that involves averging I can just never succesfuly incorporate it into anything i do and im thinking I should.

dealing with such small numbers is awesome because you put on a trade and you don't care if it works out or not...

...and since August 2011, how have things worked out for you, Crabman?