The GOAL is to survive

We all have our high expectations , when we start fresh . But as the time passes by we realize the enormity of the task at the hand.
Well i am no different , at the starting of my career i always focused on profit part of this game. Which resulted in blowing lot of small accounts in novice phase of my trading.
But as i got more experience , i realized that before i start making money i must prove my self that i dont lose money.

Hence i decided to go with the project of achieving my goals in 2 phase ... 1 Proving impeccable defense
2 Proving best attack

Phase 1
Project started last year January 2015
First trading account was from Jan 2015 to May 2015 ....which had 290 trades and was almost break even .
http://www.myfxbook.com/members/rona...rial-1/1605717

Second trading account is attached currently and it has around 900 trades and is also break even.
That means i overcame trading cost for 1100 trades ...making this game from Negative sum to Zero sum.
Next goal for phase 1 is to reach 1500 trade without blowing account.

Phase 2
Patroxx capital
Its myfxbook link for phase 2 , with account name Patroxx Capital. It will have 100% up time , just like phase 1 .
https://www.myfxbook.com/members/ron...step-2/1598210

Broker - Berndale capital
Initial Deposit - 1996.87 USD

I will be posting my equities at the end of every month , as i believe balance can be easily manipulated and its being dishonest . Unfortunately myfxbook only uses balance in different kind of calculation.Examples like Grid or Martingale systems are favorable for balance based calculation.

Equity
April - 2042.19 USD
May - 2102.46 USD
June - 2157.59 USD
July - 1936.03 USD
August - 2228.43 USD

cool you have guts to try
buddy you have registered with any rebate or cashabck sites ?
http://www.myfxbook.com/reviews/rebate-programs/17,1

Even if you managed your account without loss means, we get a nice sum of money from rebate sites , like you're doing 1000+ trades this will be more helpful for you, if loss means, it reduce the loss percentage, if No loss means, we get some cash from it as rebate, if profit means, it increase the profit percentage.

Thanks for the encouraging words. Sure i will check it out.

Today i will post my views on understanding portfolio performances.

Its about 1 Sharpe ratios


Currently Forexfactory and other websites like Myfxbook shows only Sharpe ratios.
And Sharpe ratio is most commonly used in industry as performance measurement . but IMHO there are logical fallacies in Sharpe ratio calculation and can be manipulated to get higher ratio for Losing systems .....such as martingales and other no stop loss systems.
For better understanding ..its wonderfully illustrated in below link .

http://www.myfxbook.com/community/ge...xbook/266265,1

2 MAR ratio

For MAR ratio you can look at below link. Which i think makes more sense and should be given more weight than Sharpe ratio.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mar-ratio.asp

I would appreciate if traders with background on statistics can provide their view about most important metrics in measuring portfolio performance.

It was a positive week..still 1 position open.
its on the course to meet my goal.

If you want to survive in the long run there are few things that you need to take care of.
Attached is the image showing your maximum draw down which is over 89%. A few more pips against you or slippage where spread increased by a few more pips and your account would have been margin called.
If you can work on your draw down , chances of success is more.
All the best to you friend.

While i most certainly agree with you that drawdown of that magnitude is pretty bad.
I would like to correct few points on your observation.

1 Lowest balance i had was around 57.00 dollar during that largest drawdown period. Which would have taken me another 28 lose in a row...as i use 20 pip initial stop loss for my trading. So, your observation about few pips slippage or gap would have margin called my account is wrong.
2 Lets say for argument sake ...that if i had that drawdown period at the starting of my trading... I started with 108.00 USD and my max drawdown was 93.00 USD. which still would have given me another 8 lose in a row before margin call.

After all said and done..
My objective of opening this account was to let my self prove that i did not have negative tilt. That i was not losing anything extra than broker charges per trade. In other words pips for pips expectancy should not be worse than broker charges. Which i put 1 pip per trade.
which i have proved here ... and i am 90% confident that i will reach 1500 trades without blowing account.
Besides...Account i have there is no scope for anykind of money management ...as I have fixed 20 pips stop loss and i have been trading lowest minimum allowed by brokers.Which is 10 cents per pips. So , there is no other means to reduce that drawdown.
If i am trading bigger account , i can maneuver my trading size ( ie apply money management ) and contain drawdowns.

In reference to the below thread ...As i dont want to drag it to off topic.
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...587862&page=15

I am attaching EA below for anyone who are interested in finding out validity of backtesting results. As a contrary to popular belief that EA backtesting has no meaning. I present them scientific proof.

Setting are as mentioned below.

Auto Bias - True
Londo start - 8.00
Newyork start - 13.00
Asian start - 01.00
( this part could be different depending which broker data you are using...so check my explorer and match your time accordingly )
Stop Loss - 200 ( for 5 digit broker ....20 pips ) or 20 for 4 digit broker.
Volumen - 0.01 or doesnt matter ...as we are counting expectancy in pips
Be on - False
Formation exit - False
Sonic exit - True
Close on new bar - True

Leave other options as it is ...

I assume that you know Where to put EA and where to put Indicators.
In MT4 tester ..i used Dukascopy tick data ( which is one of the best available source for free tick data. ) and spread used was 0.2.

Good luck.

Risk Disclaimer - This EA is for educational purpose only . Exercise caution for any other kind of use and i shall not be held responsible.

I have uploaded live trading explorer link for phase 2 on main page.
Defensive ideas has been taken from Phase 1 research and for actually making pips ...i have been working on it since last 15 months.


Good luck me.

Imp. Milestone 1000 trades has been breached.Over 1 year period.
Total loss - 1.8 percent .
Goal is to reach 1500 without blowing account.

For phase 2 ....Patroxx Capital.
Month of May has seen equity rise from 2042.19 USD to 2102.46 USD .
It has been updated on first page.

For phase 2 ....Patroxx Capital.
Month of May has seen equity rise from 2102.46 USD to 2157.59 USD .
It has been updated on first page.

Funny how you reached your goals of be pretty much exactly. Not once but actually twice! Coincidence? Definitely not

Please care to elaborate ....i did not get it ?

If you set your goal as breaking even, your brain will make sure you do just enough to break even. Just like in school when they told you to finish an assignment at a given time, it didn't really matter if that was to long or to short, it took you exactly as much time as given to finish it. Give or take some time depending on what you thought on time was (my defenition was not that strict for example ).

So if you set your goal low, but reachable you will almost always achieve it, for you will do just enough to achieve it, and then stop putting in more effort. This is what most people do because there is almost no chance of not reaching your goal, which feels good because you don't have to leave your comfort zone and you made sure you can't fail, so you won't feel bad.

If you set goals outside of your comfort zone and commit to them you will really grow. But of course this come with more anxiety because it is harder and there is less chance of reaching the goal, so more chance you'll feel bad if you don't reach it.

You don't have to take any of this as advice but at least just note this fact you've given yourself:
you set your goal to BE, you reached almost exactly BE
You set your goal to BE again (not even a little out of your comfort zone), you reached almost exactly BE again
You set your goal to gain a small amount, you're currently making a small amount exactly

History is filled with perfect examples of this phenomena...

For me personally this meant committing myself to much higher goals (which firstly meant even setting the goals in the first place, most people don't even start with that ever in they're trading lives). Ever since then I have put in countless hours, working up untill 20 hours a day sometimes to reach those goals. This was mostly working on the mental side of trading btw (by analyzing and simulating what successful traders do), not just mindlessly analyzing 6.000 different strategies, indicators and other variations. And I can tell you the result are absolutely astonishing. But this doesn't come easy, will take hard work and will be mentally hard (everybody knows trading is hard, but no will admit it, in fact most people only listen to you if you tell them it is easy)

Now I do not for a second say: up your risk to up your reward. But anyone that can run BE consistent can run profitable consistent, learning to accept risk will probably be your problem but that is just pure guesswork so don't take my word for it (you probably heard the advice a million times and might have even read it but read trading in the zone by marc douglas)

This not meant as a critisism just as friendly advice
Kind regards,
Nevie2

p.s. sorry it got a little longer then intended

Thanks, i got what you are trying to say. But i totally disagree with you.
IMHO, only thing you can control is the risk you take ...you can never control how much money you are going to make. So whatever you are saying does not make sense to me at all. When people join this venture ...for whatever reason it could ...( Most converge to get rick quick or greed ) ...they have pie in the sky idea of Making 20% a week or making every day 1000 bucks .....it most certainly ends up in disaster . I had fair share of mine too.

And , hence i realized that it was time to be realistic and set out my journey to prove my self to the profitability in 2 phase. Of which Phase is (was ) to not blow account over law of large number ( in this case 1500 currently ). It has nothing to do with ordinary dream and staying in comfort zone .

Good luck to whatever GOAL you might have set up your self.
Peace.

Got to say one last thing because you kinda blew my mind with that reply if I'm honest . Gonna keep it short:
1. You can't possibly compare the completely random actions (mentally, strategically and everything in between) of a noob and that of a disciplined trader that follows a set strategy
2. If you could really only control the amount of risk you take not one person would be trading forex, in fact, trading could not even exist. You have control over you mental state, strategy you trade (with countless variables), hours you trade, amount of work you put into backtesting, how and if you report to yourself or someone else on your progress and 6 million other factors
3. If you find any one highly successful individual that shares any of these ideas, thought and convictions I would be extremely suprised, I might be completely wrong but these ideas do not seem to be based on proven strategies and ways of becoming succesfull, just kinda sounds like stuff that sounds logical but not anything a succesfull trader would say

Don't for a second listen to me, but at least get your ideas from a proven source that has a long track record of the kind of success you want to achieve, anything else is total BS.

Kind regards,
Nevie2

I have been thinking about finding few partners as my effort of expansion in other markets ...like Equities , Futures etc..( Also to improve current methodology in forex market )

So , i will write down , what i have been doing and what i am looking for prospective partners.

I have been familiar with forex market ( and few other ) since beginning of 2012. And as a natural result of learning process , i have been dwelling in Automated systems since 2014 . Which earlier i used to work with MT4 EA's with mixed results. I have paid lots of money for creating different versions with different ideas for trial and error. One of which is posted above , with attached FF explorer. Which later i realized despite having sound logical rational behind it , it was hardly able to overcome trading expense.( why ? ...i will leave it to you guys for figuring it out. )

Currently , upon realizing few caveats of MT4 testing ... i have been working with Jforex platform , which has added benefit of Tick data back testing with free , good quality data. After lots of pain and trial and error ... i am fairly confident about edge in the market.
Back testing has been done since 2008 till now on multiple pairs ,,,including gold and oil . Though despite not making money every year ( few years with small loses or break even) and its making money overall with very clear identifiable edge.

I have attached 2 screen shots to get an idea about that.


As i believe there is always room for improvement , i have been looking for traders who can provide different perspective with expertise in domain i am lacking.
So , Kind of potential candidate i am looking for are 1 Strong fundamental background
2 Quant minded ...to carry out different statistical studies or programmers ....( though very small amount of programming will be required to be done. )
3 Most important of all ....you are passionate about trading and have scientifically ,evidence based decision making.

So, if you are interested , you can PM me , with few details about your beliefs of market. I will reply you appropriately as and when i get a chance.

For phase 2 ....Patroxx Capital.
Month of July has seen equity fall from 2157.59 USD to 1936.03 USD .
It has been updated on first page.

For phase 2 ....Patroxx Capital.
Month of August has seen equity rise from 1936.03 USD to 2228.45 USD .
It has been updated on first page.