Caution: Math Geek at Work

@capitallist88

I tried to get access to your private homepage www.market-geeks.com, which was available in the past.
But unfortunately the access seems to be denied?

BTW I found by name a similar homepage, maybe that’s the reason.
Would be nice to clarify the conflict.

Might be out of topic here, but btw I´d like to ask, why you do not consider scaling out by partial-profit.
Maybe I did overlook something in your thread and on your homepage.

Many thanks for your statistics, research and work.

Trade well my friend
Over60

Hi Over60,

I actually shut down market-geeks.com and built a new site earlier this year. I've been meaning to come back here and post about it, but I've been busy since leaving my job as a programmer and trying my hand as a freelance writer for The Motley Fool.

Anyway, the new site is http://capitalisttrader.com

It includes a page about my carry trade account, but a lot of the detail is gone. I'm thinking of writing an e-book about what I've learned so far.

There are three reasons I haven't considered "scaling out by partial profit."
1. This is the first I've heard of that technique.
2. The account has been doing better since I stopped trying to trade around the core position.
3. I haven't had time this year to do much more than write, sleep and eat.

If I get a chance to read up on "scaling out by partial profit" I may comment on it here at some point. Or you can post about it here if you want. I've vastly simplified my carry account though, so I probably won't add anything to it at this point.

cheers!!

I'm back.

Film at eleven.

So here's the latest update.

Near the end of last year, I finally closed out the short dollar carry trade positions that I had been holding for the past four years. This resulted in a nice big loss for the account, but luckily I managed to get out before the latest big dollar rally. So that's the not so great news.

The better news is that during this time I also developed a new trading plan after going back to the drawing board a couple of times and doing quite a bit of statistical research. I've only done 10 actual trades with the new method (not a very good dataset yet), but the early results are very encouraging. Here's an excerpt from the latest post on my blog.


I have three open trades at the moment:

1. Long USD/CHF with a locked in profit of at least 1R
2. Long GBP/CAD
3. Short AUD/NZD

The initial results seem somewhat too good to be true, so we'll see how it develops over the rest of the year. That should provide a more realistic result. I'll be putting details on the entry criteria, trading method, and research over on my blog during that time, but I'll make sure to keep checking in here as well, since I haven't done a good job of keeping in touch.

Stay tuned!

In other news, I'm trying to set up a trading tracker on here with my live OANDA account. It's been "aggregating account data" for about 1/2 hour now, lol. Not sure if that's normal. I'll check back tomorrow and see if it's working.

Ahh, the trade tracker is working now. Nice!

I Just set up a limit order to short EUR/USD at 135.28 with a stop at 136.48. It should trigger sometime over the next few hours since it's right near Oanda's bid.

That EUR/JPY short triggered. It's about 0.5R in profit at the moment. This is an intermediate-term method, so I only enter trades once a week and check them once a day. So that'll be about it until next Sunday unless one of my open trades hits its trailing stop.

Nothing says, "Your edge is keen!"
like four positions in the green...

Just finished my weekend analysis. Indicated directions of eight currencies continue to conform to my existing four positions:

Long USD/CHF
Long GBP/CAD
Short EUR/JPY
Short AUD/NZD

However, fundamental picture of USD and EUR have shifted radically over the past several weeks. At any rate, I'm not placing any new trades this weekend; just sticking with the existing ones.

Stay tuned, and keep pipping up!

Price hit the trailing stop on my long GBP/CAD position yesterday. Exited that one at a slight profit of 0.11R.

Price hit the trailing stop on my short AUD/NZD position sometime over the past couple of days. Exited that one with a loss of 0.21R.

Tomorrow is analysis day, so I'll be checking for new signals, but will only enter new positions composed of AUD, NZD, GBP, and/or CAD (or possibly carry positions in USD/INR, USD/ZAR or USD/TRY). The reason is that I'm still long USD/CHF and short EUR/JPY, and I avoid opening more than one position in the same currency (the exception being the USD involved in the carry positions if and when I open those).

Analysis is done for the week, but I found no new positions to open. Just sticking with my remaining long USD/CHF and short EUR/JPY for now.

One thing I've been neglecting in the way of existing trade management is pyramiding onto existing positions as they move deeper into profit. I'm not planning on doing that with the long USD/CHF position because it started out as an overly large position anyway (due to my early version of Kelly-based position sizing, etc.).

So anyway, yesterday I increased the short EUR/JPY position by about 50%. It was kind of a sloppy add, since I had forgotten the details from my trading plan on how to do this. Gotta remember to keep looking at the plan when I do my daily maintenance. The plan is available from this post on my blog, and I'll be explaining some of the details over there.

Nice week with the account up 19% for the week by mid-Friday. With an 80%+ gain for the year, I'm hoping I've moved beyond the break-even trader stage finally.

Added another 1/2 R to the short EUR/JPY trade as it broke to new lows today.

Just finished my weekly analysis.

I've entered a new order to sell GBP/CAD at 1.8800 with a stop at 1.9168, allocating 3.36% of my current account value. I'm looking for a fill on this order either late Sunday or sometime Monday if the pair breaks below its low for last week.

I'm still long USD/CHF and short EUR/JPY.

Keep pipping up!

The short GBP/CAD order filled. Took a few days.

Finally stopped out of my two biggest winners so far; long USD/CHF at a profit of 2.84R and short EUR/JPY at a profit of 4.86R. The EUR/JPY trade had additional pyramid entries which helped to juice up that win amount. More of those please!

Still short GBP/CAD which has moved slightly into the green.

Just finished my weekly analysis and trade placement. New entry orders are:

Long EUR/JPY
Long AUD/CHF
Long NZD/USD
Short USD/INR

Based on my dynamic position sizing, the risk for each of these averages about 12% of my account value, for a total new risk of about 50% of equity. This is based partly on the Kelly criterion risk value, which blasted upwards of course after I took high profits on those last two closed out trades. I'll have more on position sizing in my blog at some point.

There's a high carry, short USD position component to this as well. Let's see how it goes...

Deep breath... ok here we go!!! All four orders listed in the last post have filled, so it's RISK ON with the account, at least for the next week or so. At that point I usually begin pushing the stops toward the B/E point if price allows. Currently the positions are bouncing above and below B/E. I'll probably post a bit more frequently while these large positions are on.