Forex Experiment

Day 13

Start Balance               $1,592

Today's Profit Target       $20.40 (Day 23)

Trades

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURGBP	7:14 PM	7:48 PM	0:34	9,050	0.79465	0.79470	1.0	$2.04	L	0.5	$1.01
2	EURGBP	10:03 PM	10:10 PM	0:07	9,050	0.79582	0.79677	1.0	$2.04	L	9.5	$19.38
											10.0	$20.40

End Balance                $1,612

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 24 = 11 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 30

Comments

After yesterdays terrifying ride I nearly didn’t bother today but I thought I may as well have a look see what was happening. I just didn’t have the courage to put anything on EURUSD even though the spread had returned back to 0.9 today. Yesterdays 1.8 must have been due to the holiday in

Tokyo

. As my heart couldn’t take too much excitement I decided to stick with the relatively slower moving EURGBP. The first trade I ran out of patience again and closed out for next to flat after being down 8 pips. I returned a couple of hours later to find an almost perfect long setup, everything was lined up, the EURGBP looked perfect and the EURUSD & GBPUSD appeared to be moving at the right momentum to keep the EURGBP moving up (assuming my theory is correct about this pair). 7 minutes later and I was relieved to close it out to make the 10 pips for the day. Both trades actually suffered 1 pip slippage I wasn’t actually trying to nail it bang on 10 pips for the day.

Chart attached.

Day 12

Start Balance               $1, 518

Today's Profit Target       $19.60 (Day 19)

Trades

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURUSD	7:28 PM	8:00 PM	9:31	15,950	1.42550	1.42730	1.8	$1.96	L	18.0	$35.65
2	EURUSD	7:53 PM	8:00 PM	0:07	15,950	1.42420	1.42450	1.8	$1.96	L	3.0	$5.32
3	EURUSD	8:18 PM	5:34 AM	9:16	15,950	1.42340	1.42500	1.8	$1.96	L	16.0	$32.07
											37.0	$73.04

End Balance                $1,592

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 23 = 11 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 31

Comments

Today I feel like a complete fraud and it would appear that I have learned very little from the first time round. I’m putting today’s experience down as my last chance to get my act together or forget this whole approach to forex trading.

Essentially what happened was near enough déjà vu to the collapse last time around. First the differences, this time around I was very aware of the sell offs going on in the equity  markets (hard to miss what was going on with Lehmans & Merrills really) and I expected a lot of volatility (last time I was mostly blissfully ignorant to the JPY carry unwind trades occurring), what I didn’t expect was the extent of the moves. I entered long EURUSD after a 250 pip drop confident that there would be some relief rally and my entry looked good for that. Like the end of the first project the timing was really unfortunate, in the blink of an eye I was staring at a 50 pip loss. At this point I should have took it on the chin and walked away. But it’s just so hard to do though when it happens so fast, clearly success is going to be down to pure luck until I can gain that discipline. So what did I do? Just like last time I tried to get smart and pick a counter trend bounce to enter another long, this time it kind of worked but I panicked and closed it for a very small gain. That was just as well though as another wave down hit me. Learning nothing and virtually close to throwing in the towel I put on another long and watched in horror as the EURUSD just careered south at speed.

I’m too embarrassed to admit at how deep in the red I was with these two trades and for all intents and purposes the game was up, AGAIN. I felt that I had little chance of getting out alive but as the results show, I did, and not only that but with the best daily pips result so far. So having effectively conceded defeat again I left both trades on with extremely optimistic take profit stops set overnight. When I checked the next morning I couldn’t believe how far back the EURUSD moved up, more than 200 pips. What a day. My guess is what happened is that as the European stock markets sold off in horrendous fashion the capital flow was from EUR back to the USD sending the EURUSD down. Then when the US stock markets opened the reverse happened sending the EURUSD back up. A wild ride indeed and far too volatile for what I’m trying to do with this project.

So no question that the result is very good but the means to achieve it was diabolical and I’m not at all happy with myself, it’s almost certainly only a matter of time before I blow up again if I can’t learn the lesson. The strategy for this to work is to have very short term trades lasting a few minutes not 9 hours.

With these three trades my hit rate has now surpassed 90% and the bank is up 35% but it could have all easily been so different.

Day 11

Start Balance               $1,463

Today's Profit Target       $18.49 (Day 16)

Trades

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURGBP	4:50 PM	5:07 PM	0:17	$  8,550	0.79589	0.79601	1.0	$1.87	L	1.2	$2.24
2	EURGBP	5:29 PM	5:36 PM	0:07	$  8,550	0.79633	0.79628	1.0	$1.87	S	0.5	$0.94
3	USDJPY	5:49 PM	5:56 PM	0:07	$ 16,150	107.515	107.509	1.6	$1.87	S	0.6	$1.11
4	EURUSD	5:53 PM	5:55 PM	0:02	$ 15,070	1.40624	1.40722	1.2	$1.87	L	9.8	$18.30
5	EURUSD	6:08 PM	6:10 PM	0:02	$ 15,070	1.40818	1.40871	1.2	$1.87	L	5.3	$9.88
6	EURUSD	6:21 PM	6:22 PM	0:01	$ 15,070	1.40953	1.41001	1.2	$1.87	L	4.8	$8.93
7	EURUSD	10:35 PM	10:46 PM	0:11	$ 15,070	1.40909	1.40977	1.2	$1.87	L	6.8	$12.67
											29.0	$54.06

End Balance                $1,518

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 19 = 8 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 35

Comments

Todays plan went up in smoke with yesterdays. Again I intended to trade the whole day being off work, but this time it was the youngest daughter who threw a spanner in the works with a bout of gastro.

The first trade I got to today was around 5PM, I noticed for the first time that the EURGBP (1.0) spread was tighter than the EURUSD (1.2), not sure why this was but it stayed that way all day even through the US session. Strange indeed. Anyway this influenced me to look at the EURGBP instead but it was a bit dumb really. The EURGBP seems to move based on the respective moves of the GBPUSD & EURUSD so to trade it off its own chart is a bit risky. It also seems to move quite slow unless there is a lot of movement going on elsewhere. I closed the first one out for 1.2 after running out of patience. I tried again half an hour later keeping an eye on the other 2 USD charts. I got caught out here as the GBPUSD made a huge spurt ahead of the EURUSD and I was looking at -9 pips on this trade. The GBPUSD slowed and the EURUSD accelerated and so I was quite relieved to close it out for close to flat and I bade farewell to the EURGBP, I think I’ll probably avoid this pair unless there is some currency specific news on the EUR or GBP to trade off.

The third trade on the USDJPY I also lost patience with and closed after 7 minutes :-) for virtually another flat.

It was only when I switched back to the old faithful EURUSD that the pips started coming in. 3 very short duration trades, all less than 2 minutes, in a period of 30 minutes was enough to rack up 22 pips for the day and an elapsed time of 1 hour and 30 minutes. At 10:30 I had another peak during the opening of the US session and decided to pitch for a few more. I instantly regretted this as it was really volatile and I was behind 10 pips very quickly and was tempted to close to preserve the 12 pips for the day. I stuck with it though and 10 minutes later closed it for nearly 7 pips.

29 pips on the day is another great result. No mistakes either which was nice considering I traded 3 different contra currencies and it’s easy to forget to change the default position size. The extra pips also propelled me forward to day 19 putting me ahead by 8 days and actually closer to day 20 than day 19’s target balance. My hit rate is now up 89.74% with 35 winners out of 39 trades.

The trade results, profiles & equity curve links have all been updated today to include all of this weeks trades.

Day 10

Start Balance               $1,440

Today's Profit Target       $18.49 (Day 15)

Trades

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURUSD	8:34 PM	8:52 PM	0:18	$ 14,700	1.39279	1.39370	1.2	$1.82	L	9.1	$16.86
2	EURUSD	8:55 PM	8:57 PM	0:02	$ 14,700	1.39342	1.39373	1.2	$1.82	L	3.1	$5.74
											12.2	$22.59

End Balance                $1,463

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 16 = 6 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 38

Comments

No trades yesterday as I went to see Hellboy 2 after work, the movie was rather disappointing although visually stunning. Last time round I would have forced myself to trade on returning home to get the daily 10 pips to keep on track for the 250K target and that was definitely a huge problem, and just basically dumb. Now I’m relaxed about skipping days and the day doesn’t count for anything.

Today I was looking forward to a full day off work and a lot more active trading but as it turned out I couldn’t as I had to baby sit my eldest daughter who sprained her wrist playing football and couldn’t go to school.

So I had to make to do with another late start. Today’s fall in the EURUSD was another 200 pointer and when I got to the screen it had bottomed and started to recover some losses. If I’d have logged on ten minutes earlier I would have been there right for the candle setup I love the most, see the chart attached for the hammer candle 2 bars before my entry after a small retracement of the surge up. Impatience crept in here due to missing the whole day and that candle so I went long almost immediately, in my defence the pattern still looked good but I got a scare as shortly after I was 9 pips in the red, although only for a very short period. After that momentary worry I closed the trade 2 bars later for 9.1 pips, I missed 10.1 pips by being too slow. The second trade was super quick, less than 2 minutes into the next bar, I closed for another 3.1 pips.

 2 for 2 trades again, 12.2 pips, 25 minutes work. If I can just keep this up. Hit rate is now up to 87.5%

Chart attached.

Day 9

Start Balance               $1,419

Today's Profit Target       $18.26 (Day 14)

Trades

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURUSD	7:57 PM	8:04 PM	0:07	$ 14,850	1.41789	1.41890	1.2	$1.82	L	10.1	$18.40
2	EURUSD	8:28 PM	8:30 PM	0:02	$ 14,850	1.41868	1.41881	1.2	$1.82	L	1.3	$2.36
											11.4	$20.76

End Balance                $1,440

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 15 = 6 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 39

Comments

Today’s range on the EURUSD was much tighter and the candles where far smaller but apart from that today’s activity followed a not dissimilar pattern to yesterday. By the time I turned on the computer at 7:20PM the big move up in the EURUSD was nearly over. I had to wait 20 minutes for what looked like a perfect entry, and so it turned out. I got 10 pips in just over 5 minutes and again thought about packing up after 1 trade. After watching for another 20 minutes another good setup looked on the cards but after an initial pop-up it faded away. I was too slow and missed the chance to close for 5 pips and taking no chances I decided to wrap up with 1.3 pips. 1.42 turned out to be the extent of the move up while I was watching and with more time I might have taken a short as it crossed down through the 14 period EMA on the 5 minute chart and then drifted down. I’ll leave the more active trading for Thursdays and Fridays.

Not sure if there was any holidays in Europe today as the spread on the EURUSD was 1.2 instead of 0.9 at this time of night.

Yet another 2 for 2 day, the fourth one on the run now, and this takes my hit rate to 86.67%

The bank is up just over 22% now which took 18 days to get to on the last project. I’m certain I can’t possibly keep this run going, although it feels like I’m picking the entry points really well I’m worried about getting complacent.

Chart of todays trades attached.

Day 8

Start Balance $1,395

Today's Profit Target $18.02 (Day 13)

Trades

                                                                                                                                                           

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURUSD	10:35 PM	10:40 PM	0:05	$ 14,832	1.42046	1.42132	0.9	$1.80	L	8.6	$15.56
2	EURUSD	10:47 PM	10:59 PM	0:12	$ 14,832	1.42192	1.42233	0.9	$1.80	L	4.1	$7.40
											12.7	$22.96

End Balance $1,419

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 14 = 6 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 40

Comments

I almost didn’t trade today, the markets had a massive sell off from 4PM through to 8PM with the EURUSD down over 200 pips as was the AUDUSD. Thus pretty much reversing all the gains made post the non-farm payroll and unemployment numbers. When I finally had a chance to sit down and watch it all looked too skittish to me and impossible to predict. But after keeping an eye on the EURUSD market on and off for a couple of hours it had clearly calmed down and so I looked for a couple of opportunities as it had entered into a sideways ranging pattern between 1.424 and 1.42

It was a pretty nervy time really with the potential for another sell off always on the cards, but after such a massive move down I decided that that seemed pretty unlikely. The first trade wasn’t so bad, it was never behind and I closed it after 5 minutes. The close was admittedly premature as the prices were just pausing but I was inclined to wrap up there and then with the 8.6 pips. After watching for another 10 minutes though I decided that I liked the pattern and put another long on. This was very nervy indeed, I was down 9.5 pips in that first 5 minute bar and was quite relieved to close it out for 4 pips to bank just under 13 for the day.

So another 2 for 2 day, the third one the run, and it takes my hit rate to a very satisfying 85.71%

The bank is up just over 20% now which took me 17 days to get to on the last project.

 

Day 7

Start Balance $1,369

Today's Profit Target $17.57 (Day 11)

Trades

 

                                                                                                                                                           

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURUSD	11:10 AM	11:14 AM	0:04	$ 14,640	1.42569	1.42641	1.8	$1.79	L	7.2	$12.93
2	EURUSD	11:40 AM	11:43 AM	0:03	$ 14,640	1.42782	1.42855	1.8	$1.79	L	7.3	$13.02
											14.5	$25.95

End Balance $1,395

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 13 = 6 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 41

Comments

Wow! How good is this? Another great day. 2 trades, both less than 5 minutes. 7 pips each, wrapped up for the day in 35 minutes all up. I was tempted to carry on but decided to take the opportunity to do some analysis with the rest of the day. I also noticed today that the EURUSD spread at the time I had these trades was double what I've been usually getting. 1.8 today and it's usually 0.9. This is because of the relatively quieter asian session. It looks like the spreads move tighter at around 1PM

That’s seven straight positive days now and moved to being 6 days ahead of schedule, a bad day must surely be just around the corner.

I finally got the website fully back up to date today and in doing so I spotted some small errors in my spreadsheet, effectively because a slight offset I've been using slightly the wrong position size to meet the daily target. The good news is the position size has been slightly larger than it should have been, effectively I've been using the target for a day ahead. Spreadsheet is fixed now and I'll get it right from now on.

Also it might look weird that Friday's position size was less than Thursdays despite staying on track. The reason for this was the huge down move in the AUDUSD which resulted in a smaller position size required against the USD to get the same amount of AUD

 

Day 6

Start Balance $1,347

Today's Profit Target $17.34 (Day 10)

Trades

 

                                                                                                                                                           

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	AUDUSD	1:44 PM	2:08 PM	0:24	$ 14,720	0.83401	0.83331	2.0	$1.76	S	7.0	$12.33
2	EURUSD	6:37 PM	6:45 PM	0:08	$ 14,720	1.45127	1.45180	0.9	$1.76	L	5.3	$9.32
											12.3	$21.65

End Balance $1,369

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 11 = 5 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 43

Comments

I don’t work on Thursdays anymore so the original intention was to trade all day long. I woke up feeling like I had the beginnings of a head cold so decided I wouldn’t bother and see if I could exert the discipline to not trade when not feeling right. By the early afternoon though I was feeling much better and decided to look for an opportunity. I got a nice 7 pip trade in just under half an hour but it was getting too close to picking up the kids from school to put on another so I left it at that. Later in the early evening I managed a quick 5 pip trade in just under 10 minutes to finish off the day with the daily requirement and a very stress free day.

This time around the project is going so much better, despite the couple of scary days and one really bad trade I’ve now got 6 straight successful days compared with 4 up days and 2 down days at the start of the last project. Best of all is my hit rate with 20 winners out of 24 for an 83.33% hit rate. This compares very favorably to the start last time which had 21 winners out of 33 trades and a hit rate of only 63%. With this style of trading and small pip objectives a high win rate is essential.

Day 5

Start Balance $1,301

Today's Profit Target $16.69 (Day 7)

Trades

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURUSD	8:08 PM	8:13 PM	0:05	$ 14,120	1.44137	1.44174	0.9	$1.70	L	3.7	$6.30
2	EURUSD	8:41 PM	8:48 PM	0:07	$ 14,120	1.44079	1.44110	0.9	$1.70	L	3.1	$5.28
3	EURUSD	9:57 PM	10:50 PM	0:53	$ 14,120	1.44221	1.44479	0.9	$1.70	S	25.8	-$43.68
4	AUDUSD	10:05 PM	10:08 PM	0:03	$ 14,120	0.83007	0.83134	1.8	$1.70	L	12.7	$21.57
5	EURUSD	10:27 PM	10:33 PM	0:06	$ 14,120	1.44525	1.44427	0.9	$1.70	S	9.8	$16.57
6	AUDUSD	10:40 PM	10:49 PM	0:09	$ 14,120	0.83591	0.83496	1.8	$1.70	S	9.5	$16.05
7	EURUSD	10:41 PM	10:50 PM	0:09	$ 14,120	1.44621	1.44479	0.9	$1.70	S	14.2	$24.00
											27.2	$46.10

End Balance $1,347

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 10 = 5 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 44

Comments

Another great result today but also pretty scary. Maybe it’s always going to be like this. I booked a couple of very quick scalps netting 3.7 & 3.1 pips and then was away from the screens for an hour. When I came back I was hoping this was going to be over pretty quickly with just over 3 pips needed but it all went badly wrong. I switched direction to short on the EURUSD as I was trying to trade the range but it just bust out  upwards and kept going. So sitting on one bad loser which had wiped out the previous two winners and then some, I had to get more active and ended up with another 4 trades. Fortunately they were all very well chosen and were never behind. All 4 netted healthy pips and I got to close out the big loser for -25.8 pips and still finished well ahead for the day.

7 trades is really more than I care to do but it was unfortunately necessary today.

Day 4

Start Balance $1,245

Today's Profit Target $16.27 (Day 5)

Trades
 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

	CCY Pair	Entry T	Exit T	Time	Amount	Entry P	Exit P	Spd	$PP		Pips	$$$$
1	EURUSD	6:57 PM	9:40 PM	2:43	$ 13,690	1.45063	1.45092	0.9	$1.64	L	2.9	$4.88
2	EURUSD	7:30 PM	9:40 PM	2:10	$ 13,690	1.44904	1.45072	0.9	$1.64	L	16.8	$27.69
3	EURUSD	10:23 PM	11:34 PM	1:11	$ 13,690	1.44971	1.44989	0.9	$1.64	L	1.8	$3.01
4	EURUSD	10:30 PM	10:35 PM	0:05	$ 13,690	1.44862	1.44903	0.9	$1.64	L	4.1	$6.74
5	EURUSD	10:37 PM	11:34 PM	0:57	$ 13,690	1.44882	1.44969	0.9	$1.64	L	8.7	$14.33
											34.3	$56.65

End Balance $1,301

Project Status 

Next Day Equivalent = Day 7 = 3 Days Ahead

Days to next double = 47

Comments

Today’s result was excellent but I was quite a way behind for a long time. In fact I had to wait nearly 3 hours for the first trade to get back into profit. After closing out the first two I had 19.7 pips and was pretty close to calling it a day. However, I noticed that the EURUSD was oscillating very nicely within a fixed range so having nearly 10 pips to play with I took out a few more and managed to secure another 3 winning trades. If it hadn’t of been so late (11:30PM) I would have let the last two trades ride for longer as the pattern was still strong and the pair hadn’t reached the top of the channel. If I’d have done that I could have possibly hit pay dirt as the pair ended up moving 20 pips above the existing range and all up I would have banked anywhere between 20-40 pips more on each one. It’s hard to say what I would have got as I was getting a bit edgy to finish with it being so late.

Very happy with the result as it’s put me 3 days ahead and cut the time to the first double to be 47 days, but I could have done without the nervous wait.