Building an equity millipede

Moreover, there will be those days where out of 39 trades, 25 will be break-even and 14 losses. What then ? A change of trading system ?

Cam

That's what I meant. It can easily become 30 to 40 trades in one sitting, if you start playing around M5/M1 stuff.
WAITING WAITING and more WAITING is the key.

Thanks
TS

i will reply to your concerns... trading AUD at the moment. Am I overtrading?

EDIT: Cam/Calc et al, Graeme recommends 3-5 10K positions per account size of 5K. That's effective leverage of 2 per leg. I am trading 2 microlots per $1000 account size with max of 30-35 microlots with the same effective leverage. One loss of 20 pips ($20) is same as 100 pips loss for me. As I scale in and out, I don't consider it overtrading. My Stacking account of $1000 is just a tiny single digit percentage of my overall investment capital and under 10% of my capital allocation to FX. It does NOT matter how many consecutive losses I will have as the max loss at all times is always under $1000 per month per account and I keep adding new sub-accounts as my equity grows ! It's all part of MM for trading this strategy for US traders were FIFO and Hedging becomes a painful reality !

Hi Vee,

In my view, overtrading refers to trading outside your rules, for example more than your pre-plan number of trades, if you said to yourself at the beginning of the day "I will trade, and if I get 3 losses in a row I will stop for today" ... if you have 3 losses in a row and then still continue to trade, that is overtrading.

Hence, nor me, or someone else can appreciate if you are overtrading ... but that wouldn't stop us from having an opinion

Cam

Yep, one man's overtrading is another man's standard daily activity.

However, if there's a litmus test for overtrading it will show up in the costs. When your costs are out of whack with net profits then something is very wrong.

If you look at my spreadsheet of stats, I'm averaging about 75 basis points a week just in commissions. Trade 40 weeks of the year and that's 30% of account size! That fact haunts me...

Usually one has a few setups that makes them enter a trade, if there are 10 of these one day but normally only 2 per day then I wouldn't say that is over trading. It would be like saying a car salesman is over selling by selling 50 cars in one month instead of his normal 10.

However if you take trades that do not strictly fit your plan or random trades then this is just poor trading.

Hello Vee,

Pls give a try for Multipurpose Trade Manager - has a lotl of different options and one of them might suits your needs.

Have a nice day.
miekra

Veex, I gather you were possibly upset at a near margin call, even if its only a small % of your total accounts, the fact you broght it up shows you were overtrading on that account.

small pairs always give you trouble. kiwi, aussie, swiss, wild spread, hard to get out, etc. you are manipulated by market makers, dealers.

go yen pairs, next week, big move come in.

I digress and refuse to reply to any more posts on the subject of "margin call" or "overtrading". In order to continue this dialogue, I will have to explain my entire MM/RM strategy which is geared towards US traders with FIFO and hedging restrictions in their trading account. Without the knowledge of what/why these regulations hinder in the implementation of this position building strategy, I fear I will generate more questions and clutter.

I noticed I received another vouch and I am far for deserving any vouches! I better stop sounding like I am giving advice as I am still a student of this market. I choose to remain humble and nimble in my pursuit and avoid ego to hinder. Apart from that, if I really share what I have learnt so far in my 5yr journey in FX and what I do every day to extract pips, I will be disappointing a lot of gurus out here. Let us all continue on our path of 'conventional' wisdom while I remain focussed on my journey.

EDIT: Some nice quotes to ponder upon from "trading in the zone":

- "It's a fundamental shift in attitude that accounts for their success"

- "As soon as you put on the larger-than-usual position, you're in danger. The larger the position, the greater the financial impact small fluctuations in price will have on your equity. Combine the larger-than-normal impact of a move against your position with a resolute belief that the market will do exactly as you expect, and you have a situation in which one tic in the opposition direction of your trade can cause you to go into a state of "mind-freeze" and become immobilized."

- "When you accept the risk the way the pros do, you won't perceive anything that the market can do as threatening. If nothing is threatening, there's nothing to fear. If you're not afraid, you don't need courage. If you're not stressed, why would you need nerves of steel? And if you're not afraid of your potential to get reckless, because you have the appropriate monitoring mechanisms in place, then you have no need for self-control."

- "Each trade is simply an edge with a probable outcome, and statistically independent of every other trade."... very important when you are stacking!!!

- By establishing a belief that anything can happen, you will be training his mind to think in probabilities. This is by far the most essential as well as the most difficult principle for people to grasp and to effectively integrate into their mental systems."... this is why I trade position size of 1x or 2x account balance

- When you are at peace with not knowing what's going to happen next, you can interact with the market from a perspective where you will be making yourself available to let the market tell you, from its perspective, what is likely to happen next. At that point, you will be in the best state of mind to spontaneously enter "the zone," where you are tapped into the "now moment opportunity flow.".... This is my Holy Grail ! I have trained my mind into taking positions with under 60 seconds of analysis and under 3 minutes of deciding which pair to trade in the moment, in real time, in the NOW !!! The trick is to stay in tune with the market sentiment of major economies at all times.

- Trade with a relaxed, carefree state of mind.... This is why I trade a constant position size of 1x or 2x account balance and NEVER increase my position size but increase exposure in more pairs.

Too true. I used to trade USD-CHF and USD-CAD and got frustrated by the market makers games so I stopped. Watching some of them do their work, you can only have respect for their skills. It's not so much the money (power) they have behind them, it's how slick their operations can be. Blink and they've run the stops, got many people out and them BAM it's off, and often it's so quick it's impossible to get on board (with a good stop).

But I do trade the EUR-AUD, yes it can piss me off sometimes, but when you get that one right it's normall a good payday as it can run 50-100 ticks easy.

No trading for me last week as I was learning to fly a Glider and no trading for the next 1-2 weeks as in the 5m world you need excellent liquidity. Too many of the boys are at the beach in August. Am looking to get back into the swing of things the last week in Aug and then full throttle starting Monday 2nd Sep.

USD-CHF and USD-CAD... agree, I stay away from CAD and CHF pairs as well. Tey just move too 'slow' for my taste but no such rule to exclude them exists in my plan.
"Too many of the boys are at the beach in August" ...I think that applies more to stocks than currencies.

no trading for the next 1-2 weeks as in the 5m world you need excellent liquidity.... There is excellent liquidity and volatility on every pair. We just have to be at the right place at the right 'time' to extract some pips. Look at the weekly moves this past week in the attached screenshot (and these are moves from open to close and not high to low!). If we cannot extract 10% of these moves, something tells me to look into the timing aspect of when these moves happen.

Attaching my statement which I will remove in the next 24 hours... I was able to extract almost 10% of gains (231 pips and $93 last week within my account size of $1000 as of 1/1)

EDIT1: Removing my trade log. Further analysis reveals that if I remove the partial position loss I took by filtering out all my 1 microlot positions, I would have made 13.22 % or 732 pips last week as in the screenshot attached. I do partial close of trades that run in loss after a certain threshold.

learning to fly a Glider - Just curious if you are learning at the london gliding club. I was in London for 6 months a decade ago and this club was our favorite place to hang out almost every weekend before I got transferred to Paris (which was another great adventure for us 'newly' weds. We had our honeymoon in Paris and Interlaken, Switzerland so going down the memory lane was a perfect opportunity! We had a 18 month old daughter at that time so I couldn't participate in any risky sport but man, the view and surrounding landscape at Dunstable downs is just awesome !

Here's the link.... http://www.londonglidingclub.co.uk for those who want to check it out !

veefx,

first of all thanks for keeping this thread alive - am a more or less lurker since day one....

1. You posted your 3x20 exercise recently and subsequently removed it after 24 hrs which you indicated in the original post - can I ask one or two questions about it here or do you prefer via PM?

2. in your post # 5998 (that means I get post 6000, yeah....) you showed screenshot of movers & shakers - is that an MT4 indicator? Do you mind sharing it?

Cheers & keep up the good work here / Mop

Hey Mop,

No need to ask if you can ask a question :-

Just post it here and I am sure there are a whole lot of us out here who can share their experiences with 3x20. I don't save any of my posts that I delete in 24 hours as their intention is to provoke thought and to keep this thread alive. Speaking of keeping this thread alive, Graeme is definitely not coming back and I wouldn't count on seeing his book published anytime soon either (also trying to address a PM I received asking about the book) which leans me to find an exit out of this thread. I am sure there are others who will try and keep this thread alive.

I don't use MT4 but here's an indicator posted in this thread http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...99#post6673199

- I consider anticipate > participate as the most important ingredient. Low risk entries is a sub-conscious thing now. Growth is a process of evolution which has to come naturally (similar to how mankind has evolved through out history since stone age... earth is flat then oval then round... you get the idea)

- I consider what inevitably happens every day to be more important rather than trying to pinpoint a price level that will never visit for next 12+ months.

- I consider trading without emotions to be my strength and the ONLY way I can personally do that is by preventing one trade to have a devastating effect on my account. I am a strong advocate of trading a fixed position size of no more than 1x or 2x of trading capital. You increase exposure by trading more setups on the same pair or across many pairs and across many timeframes. Growth across a dozen plus positions will automatically push your account to newer heights. No need to overexpose yourself in one setup in just one pair. Most importantly, it will unknowingly enforce discipline as an added bonus and control your greed/fear at a controllable level.

- I consider determination of risk before taking an entry to be pre-defined. Graeme would be disappointed in me as my trading has seen newer heights by NOT placing SL at the tip of wick or 50% fib or whatever. I do not move SL to BE either like Graeme. My aspect of risk management is part of MM and margin management at the account and sub-account level. I had to do this primarily due to FIFO and no hedging restrictions enforced upon US traders. Like me, many struggled in this thread.... now FIFO is my best friend and hedging or bi-directional just causes my mind to flip backwards. I hedge/freeze with other correlated pairs if I have to.... same cause and effect.

- Gurus out here advocate focussing on loss control of capital at risk before taking the trade. I focus only on capital appreciation before taking the trade (laws of attraction). I trade only compelling momentums (not breakouts!). Sitting on a trade a second more than necessary is not my style. If it is not moving, get out and protect capital. It becomes irrelevant to me whether that trade is in profit or loss. If I have a strong conviction on a pair, I look for different setups/TF in the direction of trend regardless of whether previous trade is in profit or loss.

- Entries are NOT important. How you exit is what affects your profitability. I can trade without charts. My decision making process to choose a pair to trade across 20 pairs is under 2-3 mins. My decision to trade or not on a chosen pair is under 30-60 seconds. If it takes more than that, you are not in tune with the overall market fundamentals, technicals, price levels, sentiment etc. Do you homework on weekends. Read news articles. Listen to Bloomberg/CNBC etc. Understand market behavior at the macro level, understand the correlation between money flows, trade balance, PPI, CPI, consumer confidence, jobs report, unemployment rate, GDPs, interest rate, stock market open/close, session open/close etc etc. All this takes time and dedication. It took me 3 years of intense 10+hours per day !

- I do NOT analyze my trading stats on a daily (or weekly) basis. If historical performance is no guarantee of future profits then why bother ! I do monthly, quarterly, annual trading stats analysis to find the hidden 'trends' and behavior patterns in my trading. If you ask me why I took a specific trade 2 weeks ago, I won't be able to answer. I don't care what I did last week. I do not track individual performance of my setups. I have over 20 setups across 20+ pairs across all timeframes. If price movement against time is universal for any tradable instrument then why bother! One setup must work in all time frames!

- I do not have a trading plan with all the rules and conditions on setups. Rules are just roadblocks. Rules like No more than x number of trades or stop after x% of capital appreciation are just roadblocks. If market is constantly changing, why would you want to trade the same setup with the same set of rules like a robot. You need rules for the overall market behavior and not for a specific setup or only trade this pair in this session and ignore these pairs during x duration of the day etc.

- I am going on a rant here so I will stop now.

I just updated my post http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...04#post6884204

This would be it folks... I am asking my wife to change my password of FF. I am done posting on this public forum. Good Luck !

Yes there's movement in the pairs Vee but I'm not sure about liquidity over the last few weeks.

Liquidity to me is not volume, it's the amount of traders (of whatever size) conducting 2 way business. Volume therefore could be 200,000 lots a day (assume a pair is a futures contract) but if there are only 100 traders the pair is not that liquid although volujme would indicate otherwise. Conversly, if volume is 100,000 a day and there are 5,000 traders, that's plenty of liquidity.

In the last 2-3 weeks down in the 5m world I've noticed many more quick fake out moves than normal and I put that down to lack of traders hence lack of good 2 way business. Things will get better towards the end of the month as everyone returns from the holidays.

My euro usd shorts.Most of my positions are at BE


Had an atempt at gpb usd,2 sell,both died at be,added another 1 short at support,still alive.

Nice work! I hope they grow into a massive leg for you!

I thank you so much to this enlightenment about position trading!! I must commend on your wordy approach to explain things to the newbies like me in forex trading. With reference to the above quote . Please throw more light. Also I want to know whether is relative to the close of yesterday's price?

Thanks.