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Multi-Lot Multi-Timeframe Position trading

  • #581
  • Edited 12:02pm Dec 17, 2014 11:43am | Edited 12:02pm
Expert Exits- 2) The trade is winning

So, lets say we have been trading well and cutting our losers short and adding to our winners and now we find ourselves carrying a very large unrealized profit. We have three choices, take all the profit, take part of the profit, let it all ride. Let's drill down into why we might do any of the three possibilities:

Take all the profit- There are several reasons we might just want to close all of the trade and take all of the profit. Suppose the price has just made a huge and unusual move in your favor, like a daily candle much larger than the usual daily atr. More often than not, price will retrace before continuing it's move with the longer term trend. Taking all the profit ensures that profit is taken out on a peak price. If price retraces, it may be possible to re-enter the trade after the retrace ends. If price doesn't retrace, but continues in the direction of the longer term trend, then re-entry is still a possibility. In either case, profits are locked in and the only risk is to future opportunities and that is less serious of a risk than one to large unrealized gains. Our goal is to buy low and sell high. Selling high is a relative thing of course. If the current peak in price is much higher than anything recent, we can't say for sure that it is the highest point price will ever reach, but we can say that it is "a high point". As long as we are buying low, or lower, and selling high, or higher, we will do well in this business. We just don't always have a clear cut vision of what the relative lows and highs are, but in this case, we are sure we are on a high point, so there is little risk and much reward in taking our profits.

If there has been a major change in a critical fundamental factor that was driving your trade, it might be time to take your profits out and stand on the sideline while the market sorts it out. If the concern proves to be unfounded, you can always re-enter the trade. If it proves to be as serious as you thought, you'll be a happy camper with real profits in the bank. Once again, the risk is only to possible future opportunities, which is less serious than to large unrealized gains.

There are times when you can just sense the real risk mounting in the markets. Like right before a major economic report or a Fed meeting. Wars break out, foreign economies falter, bad stuff happens. If you aren't sure which way these earth shaking events will move the market, taking out your profits might be the wisest move. Our goal is to ride the steady trends over a long period to massive profits, not to catch a lucky break on the next news flash. Risking large unrealized gains on the flip of a coin is probably not a good way to make a steady income from trading. When in doubt, always default to the side of reducing risk.

There are personal issues that can occur that would cause you to cash in all your chips. If you get the flu, if you are going to be away from your computer for a long period like a vacation, if you have some sort of personal problem that keeps you from concentrating on your trading. If you find yourself in a situation where you have large profits but can't continue trading effectively, take your profits and come back later when things are sorted out.

Next- Take part of the profit
  • #582
  • Edited 12:46pm Dec 19, 2014 12:25pm | Edited 12:46pm
Take part of the profit- We've discussed this at length here. This is my preferred method of taking profit. I scale in with 3 to 5 steps, then take profit off the oldest and largest position as near the peak profit as I can and then add another position back on at the deepest part of a retracement as I can. Even if I miss the very peak point to take profit off, and I often will, I am still buying lower and selling higher and taking steady profit out of the trend. Of course, that is just my method. Every trader has to find what works for them.

Let it all ride- A central tenant of good trading is to cut losers short and let profits ride. There are times when price is moving steadily up (or down for a short), we have all the lots trading that we are comfortable with or that our money management will allow, and we have no reason to take profit. These are good times and we will want to just sit comfortably and collect pips. At times like this, remember all the great traders who said something like, "I made most of my money sitting on my hands". Most of our pips will be made through patience and just letting a good trade run as far as it will. Of course we don't want to lose all our pips back on a huge retracement, but as long as there is no retracement at all, it is reasonable to let a good trade run until it hits a natural reversal. Most profitable traders profits for the year are made from just a few of these long running good trades. Good trades are hard to find and are few and far between. When you have one, drain every last pip out of it before giving up on it. I try to never quit a trade just because it's made a lot of pips already. What I think is a lot of pips may just be a small fraction of what is to come. Don't get greedy, nervous or anxious. It might run for another 1,000 pips and you don't want to bail out after just 100. Just let the market tell you when the trade is done.
  • #583
  • Dec 19, 2014 12:46pm Dec 19, 2014 12:46pm
We are still going through every possible reason to exit a trade. Next will be 3 of 6, It's doing nothing.

Any questions, comments, complaints?
  • #584
  • Edited 2:04pm Dec 19, 2014 1:49pm | Edited 2:04pm
Quoting Graviton
We are still going through every possible reason to exit a trade. Next will be 3 of 6, It's doing nothing. Any questions, comments, complaints?
We are good G. for the long run. VERY clear. No rush.

Currently I am Short EU with 2 positions spaced 100 pips apart and up 300 pips total at this point in FP. I have been reluctant to add more particularly on Friday afternoon, but will hold over the weekend. SL is at BE, at the net Short level.

Best, AG
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind.
  • #585
  • Dec 19, 2014 3:39pm Dec 19, 2014 3:39pm
That's great AG. Steady as she goes. Moving on with reasons to exit:


3) It's doing nothing

Trades can stall right after entry, after losing or after winning. I've had a trade stall almost to the pip right after entry and do nothing for three days, and then go on to make hundreds of pips. The market moves in it's own time, not ours. If a trade stalls right after entry, be patient. If your patience runs out, make a list of all the reasons you entered the trade and all the reasons you should exit. You'll probably find that the initial decision was a good one and you'll just have to wait a little, or maybe a lot, longer to see things work out.

If a trade stalls after losing, exit it. Since it's losing, it will probably lose more after the stall. If a trade stalls after winning a lot, stay with it. It's probably just sorting things out before another move. Simple enough. None of those actions will always be correct, but we are playing the probabilities here.
  • #586
  • Edited 8:52am Dec 20, 2014 8:33am | Edited 8:52am
4)- Reduce Risk

Another reason to exit a trade is to reduce the exposure to risk. The market is a risky place and there really is no way to control the risk of the market. Risk ebbs and flows and increases and decreases with political and economic events far out of our control. What we can do is increase or reduce the exposure of our precious trading capital to the risk that we have no control over. If we have been trading a very stable and predictable market and suddenly find ourselves in a very unstable risky market, we may suddenly find ourselves in a situation with considerably more capital exposure to market risk than we are comfortable with. That is a time that we need to quickly reduce our exposure to market risk. Some people might use hedging to reduce their risk, but I simply exit the most profitable trades I have running until I have reduced my capital risk to a point where I am comfortable with it. In the process I will usually bank some nice profits.

The point is, when people talk about controlling risk, that is really a misnomer. We really have absolutely no control over the risk in the markets at all. We do have complete control over the exposure of our capital to that risk. That is an important tool that we can use to increase profits and reduce drawdowns. We should come back to this and discuss it in greater detail when time allows.
  • #587
  • Dec 20, 2014 10:26am Dec 20, 2014 10:26am
5)- Increase margin to allow for better trades

This is self explanatory. We are up against our money management margin limits and see a trade much better than one we already have. A trade is exited to allow us to take a better one and stay within our money management limits.
  • #588
  • Dec 21, 2014 12:14pm Dec 21, 2014 12:14pm
6)- Live Life

As discussed earlier, there is more to life than just making buckets of pips. There are times when for one reason or another we can't devote adequate attention to our trading. Exiting our trades and taking care of the other issues first just makes good business sense. The markets will always be here. There will always be another trade and a better trade in the future.

This concludes my comments on the 6 reasons we would exit a trade. If anyone has a question or comment or wants to discuss exits more this is a good time. Exits are where all the money is made or lost in trading. I consider them about 10 times more important than entries. I will always have an exit plan for a trade before I enter it and I'd advise others to consider doing that as well.
  • #589
  • Edited 5:26pm Dec 23, 2014 3:22pm | Edited 5:26pm
We've covered a lot of ground here, entries, exits, trade management, risk management, money management, multi-lot, multi-timeframe and a bit of trading psychology. If there are no other comments or questions, I'd like to embark on a discussion of Position Trading. A position trader will hold a position for the long term (from weeks to months to years). Long-term traders are not concerned with short-term fluctuations because they believe that their long-term investment horizons will smooth these out. Whereas the swing trader is planning to catch a good swing in price, say for a long trade from a relative low to a relative high point of perhaps a few hundred pips in size in a few days to a couple weeks, that only represents a good entry for a position trader. Some would claim that you need to get into the trend very early to make a good profit position trading, but I believe that's complete baloney. Look at the Monthly chart of UJ. It's moved 4500 pips in the last two years. Even if you missed the first few months of the reversal in late 2012, there were still thousands of pips on the table. Out of those 24 months, there were only a few significant monthly retracements. Let's look at how some of the most profitable traders in the world take advantage of these long running trends. First, let's look at the Position Trade Set-Up.
  • #590
  • Dec 24, 2014 10:51am Dec 24, 2014 10:51am
Attached Image


MERRY XMAS - HAPPY HOLIDAYS G,

A few days off til the New Year.

Best AG
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind.
  • #591
  • Edited 3:34pm Dec 24, 2014 11:11am | Edited 3:34pm
Position Trade Set-Up

Most swing trades will not turn into good position trades. Just as price made a good swing up for a few hundred pips, it will swing back down reverting to a longer term mean value. If a trader has the time to spend at the computer, there are swing trades to be had almost every week. A good position trade is far more rare, perhaps occurring only once every few months on average. Of course, when one is caught, it can run for months or years. I sometimes use a good swing trade as an entry to a position trade, but there are major differences between the two types of trade and only very rarely will they coincide.

A position trade represents a long term investment in the direction of a currency pair. Typically, a position trader will see a trend driven by underlying fundamental factors, like a stronger Dollar or weaker Yen driven by long term central bank action, and take a position based on that perception. While the gains from such a trade can be enormous, so can the losses. Warren Buffett famously took two position trades in the currency markets a decade ago and made $2 Billion on one trade and lost $1 Billion on the other. Most of us can't afford to lose $1 Billion on a bad trade selection, so we are going to have to greatly reduce our leverage to be able to take one of these trades and stay with it through the daily and weekly fluctuations in price. It's not unusual to get what you think is a good entry to a position trade and have it immediately go up 100 pips, then see a reversal of 200 or 300 pips before it continues on to go up 1000 or 2000 pips over the next year or so. If we are trading at a dollar a pip, that 300 pip reversal might be tolerable, but if we are trading at 20 to 1 or 50 to 1 leverage, it's likely we'd be taken out of most position trades before they ever have time to get well into profit. Once the trade is well into profit, say 1000 pips or so, the common small reversals of 200 or 300 pips are not as much of a concern.

Before even considering taking a position trade, you need to consider the capital requirements. If you want to be able to withstand a 300 pip retracement and you only want to risk 2% of your capital on a single trade, you need 50 times that maximum risk amount in your account. So to take a trade for $1.00 per pip you'd need 50 X 300 ($1.00) = $15,000 in your account. If you have less in your account, you can trade micro lots, so for $0.10 per pip you'd need about $1,500 in your account.

Stop loss settings for position trading aren't very important as long as they are wide enough to not get hit by daily and weekly fluctuations. Almost all of these position trades will be exited manually if traded correctly. I always trade with a stop loss as a matter of principle, but I'd set the stop loss for a position trade well out of the way of daily and weekly fluctuations. If you use a good a good swing trade as an entry to a position trade, part of that stop loss risk can be financed by the unrealized profits from the swing trade. So if you entered a swing trade with a 100 pip stoploss and it's up 300 pips, and it is a super candidate for a position trade, just not moving the stop loss puts you in for a position trade with a 400 pip stop loss. Most swing trades wont be candidates for a good position trade though. Most swing trades will retrace most or all of their profit given enough time and we'd be left with nothing or even a loss if we don't take our profit out when we have the chance. Let's look at the conditions that might lead us to believe we have a good position trade set-up.

As always, discussion, questions or comments are welcome.
  • #592
  • Dec 26, 2014 11:05am Dec 26, 2014 11:05am
Some small portion of swing trades can be converted to long term position trades. That's usually the way I enter a position trade, but many traders don't have the time to spend in front of a computer trading in and out of pairs during the week until one looks good for the long haul. They will take the position trade when it sets up and trade it for months or even years checking on price for a few minutes each day. In either case, the set-up for the long term position trade is the same. The long term trades follow long term trends generated by powerful economic forces that tend t persist over a period of months to years. It's probably perfectly possible to identify these trends from technical factors and trade them with no understanding of the underlying fundamental factors, but I prefer to have a deeper understanding of the root cause of the trend. Most of these trends are so strong and persistent that they can only be driven by central bank action or very powerful economic forces, either of which will be widely reported in the financial news.

Of course, there are always reasons that price should go up and reasons it should go down. If there only existed reasons for it to go up, it would go straight up and never go down. There is a fine line between just picking a reason for a move after the fact, which ever way price went, and really understanding the fundamental drivers for the move. The trick is to see the trend early and do the research to understand it. Once the reason behind the trend is understood, it will then be clear if a change in central bank policy or macro economic conditions is signaling an end to the trend and it's time to take profits. Let's look at an example and see if we can figure one of these out. The EUR/AUD long term monthly chart has just flashed a long signal in Dec 2014. It looks like this on my charts:

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: EA Monthly.PNG Size: 58 KB
  • #593
  • Dec 26, 2014 11:16am Dec 26, 2014 11:16am
Price has crossed the 10 sma here signaling a possible long trade and that technical signal is being confirmed by the RSI above 50%. In most cases that cross is the beginning of a long running trend that will run for months or years. The weekly chart shows about the same configuration, but the daily is range bound, so we would want to see a breakout on the daily to enter, as shown below:

EA Weekly
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: EA Weekly.PNG Size: 60 KB



EA Daily
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: EA Daily.PNG Size: 63 KB
  • #594
  • Dec 26, 2014 11:54am Dec 26, 2014 11:54am
Either the Daily EA will break out long confirming the uptrend move, or it will retrace invalidating this trade idea. While we are waiting for the market to evaluate our trade idea, we can consider the fundamental reasons behind this set-up. For price to move up, either the Aussie must fall or the Euro must rise. Looking for reasons for the Aussie to fall, I type "why is the Australian dollar falling?" into Google and come up with this recent headline:

RBA says Australian dollar needs to fall further
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-0...urther/5874456

There we are. It's Central bank action. Just the reason we were looking for.

Looking at the Euro, I Google "why will the euro rise again?" Most of the articles are predicting a further fall in the Euro. There are a few that mention a recent rise in industrial production. That is mostly credited to the booming German economy. It's clear that most annalists believe the Euro has further to fall, and if it does rise again it will be because of the productivity of the Germans. It's also clear the ECB does not want the Euro to rise, but they are a particularly weak Central Bank. We never want to take a long term trade against a central bank, but this could be a question of which central bank has the most power and authority to move its currency lower, the RBA or the ECB?

While I suspect the RBA has the greater independence to move it's currency lower, I'll have to wait and see if the market confirms that belief before taking the EA trade long. Even if that proves to be the case, I am still taking this trade against the ECB, so I want to be very sure I've got it right before diving in.
  • #595
  • Dec 26, 2014 12:07pm Dec 26, 2014 12:07pm
Quoting Graviton
Either the Daily EA will break out long confirming the uptrend move, or it will retrace invalidating this trade idea. While we are waiting for the market to evaluate our trade idea, we can consider the fundamental reasons behind this set-up. For price to move up, either the Aussie must fall or the Euro must rise. Looking for reasons for the Aussie to fall, I type "why is the Australian dollar falling?" into Google and come up with this recent headline: RBA says Australian dollar needs to fall further http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-0...urther/5874456...
Hi G,

While you are waiting will you Probe with small positions to test your idea, or are you waiting for a clearer sign of Break Out?

AG
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind.
  • #596
  • Dec 26, 2014 12:11pm Dec 26, 2014 12:11pm
That's basically the sort of analysis I go through to evaluate trades. I recently went through the same sort of analysis on the AUD/USD short trade. As noted above the RBA wants to move the Aussie lower. The US Fed has clearly made moves to reduce QE and is looking for an opportunity to further reduce QE, which would strengthen the USD. In that case, a short AU trade is lined up with central bank action in both currencies of the pair AU. I checked the monthly, weekly and daily and all are trending down. I entered AU short a while back and now I'm in position to trade it long term short. Unless The RBA or the US fed reverses their stance, it looks like I have a long term trade set-up to short the AU.

I don't expect either Central Bank to reverse their stance in the next year or so, but if they should I will simply close my trade and take out whatever profit I have and look for another trade.
  • #597
  • Dec 26, 2014 12:21pm Dec 26, 2014 12:21pm
Quoting AlbinaGrande
{quote} Hi G, While you are waiting will you Probe with small positions to test your idea, or are you waiting for a clearer sign of Break Out? AG
I'm waiting for a clearer sign of a breakout in the EA for the moment. The H4 shows the range bound price pattern better, so that's the place I'd be looking first for a possible breakout. I thought we had a breakout forming up on Dec 23rd when price made a sharp spike up on the H4, and I was watching the daily chart for confirmation, but price fell right back into it's range and has remained there since. Still watching.
  • #598
  • Dec 27, 2014 9:27pm Dec 27, 2014 9:27pm
Hi Graviton,

I promised myself that I will participate in your thread once I finished reading every single post. =) And now I have. First, I want to thank you for explaining your method in detail (I am a big fan of the PipEasy thread and I have discovered your thread because I wanted to be profitable with position trading).

[Have been trading for over 7 years now and not much success, but I haven't given up yet!]

After reading your method and trying it out, I have discovered sometimes when a new candle starts, it might turn negative/positive after I have entered the trade.
However, I don't react fast enough and sometimes I confuse myself by clicking through all the time frame to check if the current price is greater than opening price, of weekly, daily, h4 and h1, etc.

so I have customize an indicator and have attached in this post.

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Screenshot3.png Size: 7 KB


At the bottom of the chart, you will be able to see if the current price is above weekly, daily H4 and H1.
The indicator is not perfect and it requires to be refreshed - but this is a easy way to spot if the current price > opening price.

-------------------------------
I have revised my trading strategy over the weekend to incorporate some of the new elements that you have suggested:
(haven't tested if it will actually make money - just trading with 0.01 lot)

1. Use a demo account before I enter the real trade - if the demo trade becomes positive, then I would enter the real lot.
2. Lower my leverage - I previously was trading $100 to 1K (which is ridiculous in hindsight), now I have increased the account balance to lower the stress on myself and my account
3. I am setting a maximum loss per week (10% of my account). I hope I will never have to hit that but that will be my control to make sure my account survives throughout the hard times.

-------------------------------
Since this thread is talking about exit, I would also like to contribute my research over the weekend.

To trade successful, we need to be able to extract small gains to cover small losses (I have previously tired to just aim for big gain and it is really painful to see my account balance keep decreasing and have eventually blew my account many times *weep*). So we would need:

1) short term exit - small gains (aim for 100 - 150 pips)
2) medium term exit - smooth equity curve
3) long term exit - exit before major reversal happens

We are looking for a local maximum to exit trade and re-enter at a local minimum. (Note: every time I enter, I separate my lot into 3 parts - one for short term exit, one for medium term and one for long term)

The current method I have chose to use is called "flying buddha" which is mentioned in the PipEasy thread. It essentially means, the open, close high and low is not touching the 5 & 10 ema at all. To demonstrate what I mean:

Attached Image


The bar circled would be considered a flying buddha. Preferably, the candle is PIN bar which would indicate the trend is becoming weaker and would turn around soon.

So how should we exit on a short term, medium term and long term basis?

I am thinking that, the exit rule is essentially the same for all 3 types of exit. It is simply applied to different time frames.

So when I see that candle (flying buddha) on H1, then I would exit my oldest and most profitable lot and keep the other two lots for a medium and longer term exit. This is my small gain and will re-enter once a local minimum on H1 presents itself. This is similar to what you have mention about the 3 lot trade and exit at every 100 pips.

For my 2nd lot, when I see a flying buddha on Daily chart, then I would exit half of my positions. This is the medium term to ensure my account balance is rising.
For my 3rd lot, when I see a flying buddha on Weekly chart, then I would exit the remaining half of my positions. This is my long term exit - capturing most of the trend before a major reversal happens.

Once I have exit all my positions, then I would wait for it to major reversal on weekly and will re-enter retrace once I start to see the weekly trend to turn up again.

PS: As for breaking even, once the trade is 30 pips in my favour, I will move the stoploss to breakeven.

This is my plan so far. =)

So far, I still need to work on my entry - my entries always get stopped out at breakeven and stopped out at small loss (I place my stop at every dip on H1)
Hope I will improve in January.

Cheers,
Eric
Attached File(s)
File Type: mq4 4TF-OpenClose-Eric.mq4   10 KB | 314 downloads
  • #599
  • Edited 11:36am Dec 29, 2014 11:23am | Edited 11:36am
Quoting setoeric12
Hi Graviton, I promised myself that I will participate in your thread once I finished reading every single post. =) And now I have. First, I want to thank you for explaining your method in detail (I am a big fan of the PipEasy thread and I have discovered your thread because I wanted to be profitable with position trading). [Have been trading for over 7 years now and not much success, but I haven't given up yet!] After reading your method and trying it out, I have discovered sometimes when a new candle starts, it might turn negative/positive after I have entered the trade. However, I don't react fast enough and sometimes I confuse myself by clicking through all the time frame to check if the current price is greater than opening price, of weekly, daily, h4 and h1, etc. so I have customize an indicator and have attached in this post. {image} At the bottom of the chart, you will be able to see if the current price is above weekly, daily H4 and H1...

Nice indicator. Thanks for sharing. Different indicators seem to work well for different traders. If you find something that works well for you, I'd say stay with it and become the expert on it.

1. Use a demo account before I enter the real trade - if the demo trade becomes positive, then I would enter the real lot.
A very good strategy. You can avoid a lot of bad trades this way and you'll still get the good ones.

2. Lower my leverage - I previously was trading $100 to 1K (which is ridiculous in hindsight), now I have increased the account balance to lower the stress on myself and my account
Good move. Too much leverage will make profitable trading impossible.

3. I am setting a maximum loss per week (10% of my account). I hope I will never have to hit that but that will be my control to make sure my account survives throughout the hard times.
I've set my loss limits by looking back over my previous year of trading and asking how much would I be ahead if I had a loss limit in place and where should I set it to have improved my trading the most.It took a few hours of study, but the peace of mind was well worth it. Mine is lower than yours, but I think that will vary with each trader.

------------------------------- Since this thread is talking about exit, I would also like to contribute my research over the weekend. To trade successful, we need to be able to extract small gains to cover small losses (I have previously tired to just aim for big gain and it is really painful to see my account balance keep decreasing and have eventually blew my account many times *weep*). So we would need: 1) short term exit - small gains (aim for 100 - 150 pips) 2) medium term exit - smooth equity curve 3) long term exit - exit before major reversal happens We are looking for a local maximum to exit trade and re-enter at a local minimum. (Note: every time I enter, I separate my lot into 3 parts - one for short term exit, one for medium term and one for long term) The current method I have chose to use is called "flying buddha" which is mentioned in the PipEasy thread. It essentially means, the open, close high and low is not touching the 5 & 10 ema at all. To demonstrate what I mean: {image} The bar circled would be considered a flying buddha. Preferably, the candle is PIN bar which would indicate the trend is becoming weaker and would turn around soon. So how should we exit on a short term, medium term and long term basis?
I've discussed my partial exit method here, but I'm sure some variations on it would work better for different traders. The one thing that any good system must do is buy low and sell high, so as long as you are putting a lot of effort into entering at a local minimum and exiting on a local peak or maximum, the long term trend will carry you to profit.

I am thinking that, the exit rule is essentially the same for all 3 types of exit. It is simply applied to different time frames. So when I see that candle (flying buddha) on H1, then I would exit my oldest and most profitable lot and keep the other two lots for a medium and longer term exit. This is my small gain and will re-enter once a local minimum on H1 presents itself. This is similar to what you have mention about the 3 lot trade and exit at every 100 pips. For my 2nd lot, when I see a flying buddha on Daily chart, then I would exit half of my positions. This is the medium term to ensure my account balance is rising. For my 3rd lot, when I see a flying buddha on Weekly chart, then I would exit the remaining half of my positions. This is my long term exit - capturing most of the trend before a major reversal happens. Once I have exit all my positions, then I would wait for it to major reversal on weekly and will re-enter retrace once I start to see the weekly trend to turn up again. PS: As for breaking even, once the trade is 30 pips in my favour, I will move the stoploss to breakeven. This is my plan so far. =)
This is an interesting approach. Let us know how it works out for you. Once again, as long as you are buying low and selling high and trading with the longer term trend, you should do well.

So far, I still need to work on my entry - my entries always get stopped out at breakeven and stopped out at small loss (I place my stop at every dip on H1)
You might be moving your stoploss to breakeven too soon. If you can exit bad trades manually in most cases, rather than depend on a stoploss to take you out you might be able to reduce your average loss enough to allow you to hang in there longer for the good trades. Look at your past trades and see if they really worked out over a longer holding period or not. If they would have worked out with a longer holding period, then your trade selection is good and you just need to give the trades a little more room to breathe to realize those profits. Usually my stoploss is 50 to 100 pips for longer term swing trades, but I'll usually take a manual exit much earlier, like -20 to -50 pips, or as soon as I can see that the trade isn't developing as I had hoped.

Hope I will improve in January. Cheers, Eric
We can discuss any of the above issues more if you like. Best success to you in the new year.
  • #600
  • Jan 2, 2015 5:16am Jan 2, 2015 5:16am
Thanks Graviton for the thread, been looking for sometime to find a philosophy of trading which is close to my personality.

Once I get my head around most of the overall picture I might come back and ask a few questions.

But thanks again for persisting with the thread, loads of sound advice.
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