Multi-Lot Multi-Timeframe Position trading

I guess that makes two of us who would just rather trade what we see on the charts

Yes, I was short 2 lots on AU for the last two days based on longer TF trends, but I got tired of waiting on it to continue it's move down and bailed out with very small pips earlier today. Of course, then it moved down 70 pips. I'm happy with my positions now though. And I agree, trade what you see. I never take a trade just because of fundamentals. I only decline to take a trade because the fundamentals are opposite the direction I see price moving. I look for the technical to line up first, and then if fundamentals agree I take the trade. If not, I study it some more. Usually I've missed something that everyone else knows. But yes, always trade what you see. Believe your own eyes. It's a good rule.

lol never bail until your system confirms trend will or has reversed. At some point you have confidence enough to enter so let the market do its thing and reward you for it. I have had trades sitting for days before the move I predicted happened. Sometimes time runs out and other things move it the other direction but thats all part of it. Put on your trade, add your TP and SL and let it run. Manage it as it grows for sure, adding lots to it and moving TP and SL up as you go but always give it time to prove you correct! It wants to do this for you!

Still looks like further short action on H1 based on my 2xstochs still being together and below the low red line. However, I am aware we are approaching UK open and news so I have moved my stops just for those positions I am happy to close to my usual 2 candle high so if a big move occurs it will close me. Unless that happens, I will continue to ride this down on the H1 chart until the green stoch closes above the bottom red line

Here's an example of entering without confirming my 2xstochs. I logged in and saw the Daily USDJPY spiking up and thought "oh no it moved without me and I need to enter ASAP to ride it!". So I opened the H1 chart to look for a pullback and confirmation and saw the candle was large and added another position risking my usual 5% of account. But look then when I double check it after it closed the candle finished with a huge tail up top and stochs were not BOTH in overbought territory and so price is now up and down for a few hours. I have a wide stop but still its unnecessary worry I could have avoided by waiting for the hourly candle to close and then waiting for a later candle to close with stochs above the top red line (which is actually my system rule). I have no doubt it will grow up from here over the next few days but you want to get BEST BEST entry price in order to cover the risk ASAP!

OUT!

Big spike took out my stops for +187 pips. Don't wanna drive myself insane with whatifs but will keep an eye on where it goes now to see if that exit strategy was a good idea or not.

That 2 candle countback line can also be used to enter positions as well. Let the pullback work itself out but if price rallies fast and strong you get into the ride instantly.

After trading for God knows how long you would think a guy would learn a thing or two
but NO gone 50 PIPs I gotta buy another
Right into a heap of resistance that's its already bounced off twice
Someone kick me quick
And that's the first time my sig has had a horrible red colour -0.5 all time return

Very high volatility this morning. Several things going on. As UJ hit the Big Round Number of 110, several large Take Profit orders triggered. That caused lots of stops below to trigger and price may cascade down until some buys support it, right around 109.30 to 109.00

That caused the USD to plummet and that triggered more stops. In addition, the first case of Ebola was reported in the U.S. and fighting mid-east terrorists has them stirred up, making investors nervous anyway. This is all temporary, but if you got caught in the downdraft of the USD just consider re-entering after the carnage is over. It should be over soon.

This is the reason I tend to bail out of trades quickly that don't act right. After doing this long enough, you develop a sense for which trades are acting like great trades and which ones are not performing right. I don't really know of any indicator that can reliably do that for me and I don't know how to explain it to anyone else. But even though I tend to bail out quickly from trades that act badly, I rarely use a stop to exit. My stops are very wide and I only hit about one a month or so. If I never hit one, they would be too wide, and if I hit one every week they would be too narrow.

So, what has really changed? The one Ebola case in the U.S. is well contained. There is 0 chance of having an outbreak like in West Africa. Once that person dies or gets better, the press will quickly move on. There may be a few more isolated cases in the U.S., but the outcome will be the same.

The terrorist fight has been going on for over a decade. Perhaps it's being fought a bit more stupidly now than it used to be, but really, nothing has changed. I can't discuss this without black helicopters appearing overhead, but there's a lot more going on there than most people are aware of. Anyway, nothing much has changed there.

The USD is till the most stable currency underpinned by the most stable economy and political system. The BOJ is pleased with their devaluation of the Yen and show no concerns at it dropping lower. Basically, the only thing that has changed is some traders took some profits and that triggered a retracement.

Seeing some support now at UJ = 109.10 and we'll see if it can hold.

Hi all

I thought I share my stats from September. I think they will show the power of trend trading. By the way, they really far from being good (too many silly mistakes).
I have taken 49 trades:
21 lost ( average SL 20-30 pips)
24 BE
2 wins (average 70 pips)
I still hold 2 AU short trades one taken at 0.9130 (+400 pips) and the other one at 0.8770 (+40 pips)
If I would close them now I would be BE for September, with win ratio around 4%. (8% if close both AU trades now)
If I would manage some of the BE trades bit better and cut few losers bit quicker I would be well ahead (to many IFs). As you can see I really suck at it yet, but I hope this may convince few people to hold on to their trades bit longer.
Regards

Yes this caught me off guard and hit my stop for all 4 trades I still had open on this pair. Now I'm very glad I closed one yesterday for a few hundred pips but with these closed I lost most of those wins

So many trades with "-" stops. Probably need to work more on money management. Open to ideas if anyone has any. I used open a trade with 5% risk and then when the stop moved up to BE would open another for 5% but found the movement to BE would sometimes take days and weeks and then another days and weeks to get into enough profit to cover the risk on the 2nd trade. So often the 1st trade would close for say +1% and the 2nd would close for -5%. So then I would wait for at least 1% profit and add a 2nd trade but using the same stop as the 1st trade so the lot size was bigger. This didnt help if it reversed. So open to new ideas.

=> Grav. Just as an idea of when to exit and take profit. I have a daily system so I look for trend development and confirmation on daily charts. But then I drill into the H1 or H2 charts and look for the same confirmation as time to enter. I have worked out that my exit conditions on the H2 could be a sign of declining support for the trend and therefore could be good time to exit. I prob should exit EVERY trade at that point and re enter on entry conditions on the H2 as the drop and exit could actually be the beginning of a trend reversal. If you check the image you can see the black stoch dropped below the top red line a few times over the past few days but primarily both stochs dropped below the 50% line just 3 times and so that may make up my exit and take profit rules. Need to ponder a little. What we see right now is potentially a new long entry signal in the making. I need the 2 stochs to move upward out of the bottom red line area for confirmation. Remember every trend on the daily charts begins on the H2 charts. And the H1 charts. And the 5m charts. Drilling down 1 or 2 levels can help to get a jump on any new strength or weakness.

Great thread, Graviton, thanks for sharing.
I had forgotten how good the linear regression is for determining trends.

The EUR and CHF are holding up pretty well during this retrace so it looks like the best trade might be EUR/USD when USD trend resumes.

There is no other real strength anywhere except the USD.

AH well this is a pretty pickle
Come back from a day away from the market with 10 trades on and everything is negative- I mean 10 out of 10

Short eur short aud long gbp everything has turned
what is this - GBP has green in every Calendar slot on the fundies and its still going nowhere!!!

Ah well guess I just trade my stops and if I have 15% to make back up I just have to do it

all the charts look OK so I really don't want to make a rash decision and trade out of them all.
See what the US open does to the market and trade another day

Bloodied but unbowed. Looks like the dollar found some support. Betting it will hold. Gone to Galveston today. Be back later.

Thanks Lemna. Yes, looks like the dollar slaughter is about over. I'm getting good signals now on both UCad and UJ long. Trying a second lot on UCad now, and if UJ can maintain it's recovery I'll probably go in there as well. My EU short rode through the bloodbath pretty well, but it's a little behind right now. Don't want to get caught too far long on USD, but hard to believe this is anything more than a technical correction with some major profit taking and stops tripping.

Wow what a shocker! Was up 30% for September and in 1 day yesterday complete reversals across the board to finish the day down almost 50%. So my Sept profit and then another 20% on top for good measure. Thanks markets!

Take the emotion out and keep looking for opportunities.

Sorry to hear that MarshalMax. This is the reason I'm so quick to take an exit when the market moves against me unexpectedly. I've been killed in the markets more times than I can count by hanging in there with large trades and watching while the market continues to run against me. Of course, I will exit many trades that would prove later to be profitable, but that's not a problem for me if I can get out at BE or with a very small loss or gain. As long as I protect my capital, there will always be more trades in the future that act properly and produce piles of pips. My almost mechanical system limits my losses at the expense of missing a few good trades, but I can only know they would turn out to be good trades after the fact. At the time, the best I can do is take off reasonable profits if they win or exit quickly if they lose.

I've tried to demonstrate how this can be done with live trading examples, but I haven't given many examples of trades failing since the record of the trade on the chart is erased once it's closed at BE or a small loss. That was my oversight and I'll give some examples of failed trades going forward showing how losses can be limited on entry and with two lots running and how they are eliminated with three or more lots running.

Can you take a look at my earlier post about where to add to winning trades. I'm really keen to see how others do this.

MarshalMax, I think this is the post you are referring to? This is quite different than what I do, so I'd have difficulty in evaluating it. It would take lots of backtesting and trading under many different market conditions for me to make any informed comments. I can point out the differences between using this method and mine though.

The main difference is I don't use indicators at all to exit and I don't use them for most of my entries. Determining the trend direction for the first entry is the only possible exception. I simply exit profitable lots as price moves in my direction as close to a profitable peak as possible and I put new ones on, as long as price continues to move in my direction when price gives me a good point to buy a new one cheaply. Essentially, what I do is buy low and sell high as best as I can, over and over.

My overall trade exit is always forced by a price reversal at some point. I just don't know of any indicator or combination of indicators that will give a reliable signal on when to enter and exit and I've tried almost every combination imaginable.

I only use indicators to provide a consistent confirmation of trend direction before the first entry. After that everything in my trading is triggered by price movement. If price moves consistently, I make a lot of pips. If not, my goal is to cut my losses as short as possible.

That's the main difference between what I do and what you presented.

So, my first lot goes on when I have a consistent trend direction on 8 or 9 of my 9 timeframes. If I can easily visually confirm those trend directions I'd call it a good trend. If I have to use indicators to verify trend direction, I'd use the regression, rsi and ma crossovers to make the determination, but I trust my eyes more than any indicator. A top trader said, "You should be able to see a great trend from across the room". I think that's true.

That first lot is a test. I'll watch it carefully. I don't want it taken out by a quick news spike, so I may have a wide stop on it, like 1 daily atr or in very volatile markets even more, but if it doesn't turn positive and act right very soon, I'll exit it and try something else. My bad entry exits average around 50 pips loss with around 60 pips being the maximum, but I'm sure I can do much better if I apply myself and cut them down to about 30 pips in average markets. That's something I need to put more effort into. It's always beneficial to know exactly where and by how much you need to improve on your trading system.

I don't consider that any indicators have any predictive powers at all. They only "indicate" what has happened in the past, and we could actually see that on a bare chart with our own eyes and not take a chance of getting lost in the indicator zoo. Some prefer that method and I can't argue that point. I don't actually use indicators to trade and don't advise using them. I only use them to confirm the trend direction that I am seeing with my own eyes before my first entry. Once that first lot is on, for me it is all about price movement and mostly mechanical.

If price turns against me on the first lot, my goal is to cut my loss as short as I can. I believe I can spot most bad trades by -30 pips or so loss on the first lot and get out of them, though as I said, I'm currently averaging closer to -50 pips average loss on first lot bad entries. If I exit, I can always re-enter later if I get another good signal, often at an even better price.

If price goes in my direction on the first lot, I'll put a second lot on at about +30 to +50 pips and usually adjust the first lot stop up some to reduce risk a bit. If price then moves against me, I don't want to take a loss more than about 60 pips on the combined two lots and really any loss of more than about 30 pips on the combined first two lots is probably excessive in all but the most volatile of markets.

If price moves up another +50 pips or so the third lot goes on and the game is afoot. I will NEVER take a loss with three or more lots running on a trade. I will exit all with a small profit before I allow that to happen. That is a cardinal rule of my system.

After the third lot is on, it is just a matter of waiting. The first lot is taken off at around +100 pips profit as near the top of an impulse up in price as I can and it is replaced with a new lot as near the bottom of a retracement as I can maintaining my spacing between lots. That assures that I am buying low and selling high. I then just repeat that process over and over.

I try to keep this as simple as possible. My system simply implements 5 principles, buy low, sell high, cut your losses short, let winners run and trade with the trend. I suspect that any system that does those 5 things and implements good money management would be profitable. If there is a mistake, I want it to be that the market did something funny (which it will do often) and not open the door to second guessing my simple system or even worse, my own judgment. This system has a defined edge, trading with the trend, and has worked well for me over a very long period of time.

If you want to try this in demo, I can answer any questions you have about it. I wish I could give more feedback on what you presented, but I just have no experience with it.

Best success,
G

Exited EU short and UJ longs for nice pips this morning. Wanted to just take profit on UCad long, but it was moving steadily in my favor so I set a 30 pip trailing stop on it and just let it run a bit. I've already locked in more than my 5% profit for the week and I'll probably finish well above that upper range.

It was a very volatile week, with some wild swings. I was well ahead, and then behind about 40 pips on EU short for a while when the USD took a dip. I also lost 62 pips on a 2 lot position with an early exit during a fall in the UJ and exited a 3-lot UCad just above BE, though I had taken a profitable lot off it earlier.

I have some pretty strict loss controls on as stated in my previous post (~60 pips for 1-lot and 2-lot trades and a strict 0 loss limit for 3-lot), so that's usually about as bad as it gets for me. But as I stated here in great detail (twice!), fundamentals did not agree with this correction, so I saw it as a temporary technical correction. I said, "This is all temporary, but if you got caught in the downdraft of the USD just consider re-entering after the carnage is over". I can't really describe how to tell the difference between a temporary technical correction and a real reversal powered by a change in fundamental data, but when I see one, I'll note it here and say why I think that's the case. That's about the most help I can be with that.

When the USD seemed to bottom, I went back in UJ and UCad long and added to the EU short and noted it here. The result all worked out just fine. Below is the 3-lot UCad long with the 30 pip stop still trailing, +279 pips at the moment total. I'll take profit off it before the trading day is over if it doesn't hit this tight trailing stop, and go flat for the weekend.

I hope to reduce my risks a little next week while still making my target of 3 to 5% increase per week. As promised, I'll save pics of my failed trades as well as successful ones and explain with pics in more detail how I handle losers. After a week like this, I think some good reviews of loss controls would be helpful to all. It's important. Twenty years ago I'd have lost a months profit in a downdraft in the USD like this. I'd hope I've learned a few things since then, and I intend to lay it all out here as best as I can.

This was just a little too much excitement for an old fella. Going to get a nice massage now to work out the kinks. Have a great weekend all!

G



Questions? Comments?