Gordon Gekko's real-time Forex trading calls

+150 pips, now using a dynamic trailing stop to protect profits.
If trailing stop is not hit this long GBP/CHF position will be closed at 23:45 NY time, as specified at the beginning of this thread.

EarnPipsNow,

I've been reading many of your posts (mostly in that why folks lose thread) and I do believe I owe you an apology sir. I jumped the gun without proper forethought and I humbly apologize for that.

Congrats on the GBP/CHF position and many pips to you. I enjoy reading your posts.

Chris <----- Yes, that truly is my real name. Ask anyone here.

Thank you but there was no need to apologize Sir. And yes I do realize now that saying "I am moving the stop to break-even" (when the position was clearly unprofitable at that moment) could have confused a few traders, at first glance. Next time I will be more specific to avoid any possible confusion.

Thank you.

Oh no need Chris, I believe you, I was simply not sure if it was your real name in life or simply a nickname that FF members gave you.

Cordially.

A few random thoughts while I am baby-sitting this long GBP/CHF trade.

I personally believe that the biggest challenge for any trader is not to find a good entry point but the optimal EXIT point. In fact, a few studies have shown that it is possible to make money even with completely random entry points, assuming you have the right exit strategy.

When a trade is winning, knowing when to liquidate the position EXACTLY for MAXIMUM profit has always been the biggest problem for most traders and one of most baffling mysteries in trading.

Over the years, I experimented with dozens of exit techniques (moving averages, parabolic SAR, RSI, MACD divergence, ADX, DMI, support/resistance, pivot points, Bollinger bands, "envelopes", pure price action, you name it) and by far, at least as far as day-trading and my system are concerned, the optimal move is to simply exit the winning position at the end of the day (23:45 NY time or so for American day-traders, or 16:45 if for you the "day" starts at 5 pm and ends the next day at 5PM, NY time).

(By the way, watch out for the 5PM New York close, at that exact moment and in some currency pairs the spread could easily reach 50 pips or more for half a second and burn your stop while you are in the bathroom or busy doing something else !)

The second (nearly) optimal exit strategy is this one: after initiating the position, wait 6 to 8 hours and place a 33% Fibonacci level from your entry point to the high (or low for short positions) of the day on your chart. If later on the price touches that 33% level (in other words you just lost about 33% of your - still unrealized - profits), take your profits immediately and go have a pastrami sandwich and a Heineken or something, Mister Market is probably trying to get his money back or, even worse, about to reverse the trend completely.

These are of course just my own observations, your trading rules could be substantially different.

Long GBP/CHF position has now been closed at 23:45 NY time (+166 pip profit).

For verification purposes, all prices mentioned here come from the FXCM data feed (no affiliation with this particular FX broker however).

Shorting EUR/JPY at 128.50, 54 pip stop.

Short GBP/AUD at 1.9732 (limit order), 61 pip stop.
Hope it's not too late, this beast usually waits for nobody...

Long USD/CHF at 1.0073 (limit order), 39 pip stop.

+50 pips, moving stop to break-even.

Short CHF/JPY at 120.45 (limit order), 55 pip stop.

I forgot to mention that all pending orders are of course automatically closed the same day (at midnight N.Y. time for me), if not triggered.

This is a scary trade (position is not live yet though) because I really don't like what the GBP/AUD is doing right now. On the 15 min chart, the GBP/AUD is surfing inside a neat downtrend channel. When that happens, the breakout is usually on the up-side. That means the price could trigger my short limit order and hit the stop later on, or almost immediately.

Buy hey, a trading signal is a trading signal, so let's see how it goes...

Short CHF/JPY position is now live and slightly profitable.

This short GBP/AUD limit order has now been canceled.

From a day-trading's perspective, it's never a good sign if a pair takes a long time to hit a limit/stop order. Best case scenario, if the price triggers the order later during the day, the profit is usually small because it's too late for the currency to make any serious move in our favor before closing time.

So, in most cases, we will capture 100% of losing trades because winning trades rarely behave in that fashion and obviously the price has to touch our buy/sell order first before hitting our stop.

A trader could learn a lot by simply analyzing the typical behavior of his losing and winning trades.

A few more random thoughts while I am waiting for a couple of Japanese economic reports due in 20 minutes (7:50 PM).

A New York Forex trader once told me that it's very hard for him to day-trade. When asked why he said it's because the biggest moves happen during the London session and it's already 3 or 4 AM in New York, and it's almost impossible for him to stay up that late because he also have a day-job.

While it's true that the London session is very volatile and usually sets the tone for the rest of day, this is not what day-trading is all about.

In reality, a trader can use ANY, repeat ANY 24 hour time period to day-trade and it won't make ANY difference as far as total profit/loss is concerned!

For instance, if it's more convenient for him to day-trade after work, then he could consider that the 7PM to 6:59 PM (the next day) time period IS a day, regardless of his geographic location on the planet.

Money wise, it does not matter when the day-trader starts his "day" session, as long as he is consistent and constantly use the same 24h period to search for winning setups and pull the trigger.

Pending order has been cancelled for the same reasons mentioned before.

"You are the weakest link so good bye", like they say on TV.

Sucha catchy title for your thread...You chose Gordon Gekko the most iconic character/figure used in Wall street...Keep posting your trades...I believe you handle your trading professionally and we can get some benefits here. Notable to mention that Gordon Gekko was a corporate raider though and was never a forex trader...Best of luck!!

Thank you Inceptionist. Beside posting live calls I am also trying to share a few trading ideas acquired (the hard way!) over the years.

Well, as you know, after his release from prison for insider trading, Gordon was barred from trading stocks again, that's why he is currently trading the Forex market.

+35 pips, moving stop to break-even.

As you can see, both short Yen positions (EUR/JPY and CHF/JPY) have been automatically closed at break-even. Also notice that the (cancelled) long USD/CHF order would have hit my stop after triggering the pending order, proving one more time - and as previously explained - that winning positions possess unique characteristics that losing trades simply do not have.

And finally, the GBP/AUD did not even bother to invite me to the party. It came 4 pips near my limit short order and then went 350 pips in the expected direction (as of this writing) but without me. Tsk...tsk...tsk... that's not nice Mister GBP/AUD, not nice at all.

Anyway, let's go see if we can catch some fish today...

At the moment I see a potential trading opportunity on the USD/ZAR, but with a spread fluctuating between 5 and 40 pips almost each second, I don't think so

In fact, I doubt if anyone could make a living day-trading most of these exotic currency pairs.

For medium-term and long-term trading, some of them do offer excellent trading opportunities (if you can stomach their wild gyrations due to liquidity issues), but for day-trading forget about it ("fuhgeddaboudit" like they say on the Sopranos), it's virtually impossible to beat their high and unstable spread just to break-even, let alone earn a profit consistently.