Steven, That's not at all why I made my post to begin with. I simply thought it would be nice to tell my story - that's it. Forums can be places to learn new things and those new things just might be that someone else has figured out something that many have yet to figure out - without going into details. Why would I do such a thing? Would that not potentially expose too much? Would that not be foolish? Not withstanding, that was never my intent. My intent was to simply share my experience and nothing further. I'm not here to teach or educate, but thanks for asking.
LOL! Yeah, sure thing. At almost 4,000 posts on ET, you should have a pretty good idea of what verbal diarrhea looks like. Think before you type...
That's amazing given that fact that you clowns attacked something you had no clue about, first. How can the totally illogical and totally irrational, determine what is logical and irrational by definition? Think, first - then type. The narcissism, is in declaring that you know something about how another trades, when you can't possibly know anything at all about how they trade. That's narcissism personified.
Trading -vs- Money Management. Entering the currency market, knowing before hand that you will only lose capital 1% of the time at best. But, more importantly, the thread was about never giving up, never quitting and NEVER allowing drone brain naysayers to ruin your potential future as a successful trader. The thread was about setting your OWN definition of success in this business and not allowing others to define that for you. The thread was about perseverance, commitment, dedication and sacrifice. The thread was a simple story of one man's hard work over six (6) years that lead to what he defines as success for himself and not what other pretend to define for him. The thread was never intended to sell you anything or teach you any specific trading system, methodology and/or strategy. Rather, it was intended to encourage the newbie to persist on his/her own, develop their OWN trading tools through their OWN research until they find what works for them according to their own needs analysis. Of course, that was just too much to handle for the small brain set on this forum, apparently.
What is back-to-back offsetting? Are you kidding me! And, you attack me for being irrelevant on this forum? LOL, some of you guys are amazingly flogged in your own ignorance, are you not? I'm not even going to answer that question, because any serious trader (probably not many on ET) is reading you and laughing out their lungs on the floor. What is back-to-back offsetting? Please tell me that was a joke! Do you trade the currency markets? I trade with a bank. That's all I'm going to say. I'm not here for this nonsense. I wrote my story to encourage those having difficulty finding their OWN way through all the hype that is all too often associated with Retail "Forex" Trading. If you don't know what offsetting means, then how could you possibly know what your intermediary is doing with your trades (bid/ask)? And, if you don't at least know that, what are you doing in this business? Or, maybe you like the "retail" model and never questioned the procedural aspects of doing business that way. Whatever - you really need to get up to speed, before you start bashing others here on ET about things you know very little about.
No, I am clear on offsetting... not so much on the "back to back" qualifier. If you would be so kind as to explain it to us "retail-model" folk. Anyone?
I said profit while reducing risk to a point of virtually being made moot. I also said that there is a market configuration where losing capital is possible, and that when such a market condition exists (temporarily) I might exit the trade with a loss AND said loss would be no more than a single session's worth of capital outlay. I'm not Black-Scholes. Black-Scholes is not me. I'm not in the red - I'm in the black. I said that my derivatives background gave me that ability to do creative thinking in the currency markets - period. I never said anything about using Currency Derivative Products in my own trading. Quite frankly, the current liquidity in the American Style Currency Options business, is not large enough for me at this stage. One day, I suspect that will change as more FX intermediaries start to offer ASO. Until then, I need to position more capital than what is safely handled by most platforms that do offer plain vanilla ASO, as ESO's will simply not work for me. Sample period is not as relevant here as you might think. That not withstanding, your assumption, had it been true, would still be incorrect as the total volatility in the pair that I trade extending back through 1995 until today, has NEVER exhibited a period where the system that I deploy would have failed, with only 3 exceptions. I will not list those exceptions here, as that might give away too much. The four trades per month says nothing about the composition of those four trades, does it? I also stated that I wrap multiple positions around the same pair, so what you call four trades per month, could quite possibly be as little as 5 trades per week, or as many as 50 trades per week, concurrently. But, I'll never tell. Who ever said that it was not profitable? Directional trading can be profitable, but "profit" depends on the trader. I personally, do not consider for example a mere 10% gain on a trade to be very profitable at all, IMO - but that's just me. Others, will consider a smaller 2% net per day, to be profitable - and that is their opinion based solely upon their needs. My needs are greater. I need to trade without much worry about losses AND I need more than 20% net gain on the trade at a minimum to make things work out for me personally - but that's just me. There is no one size fits all definition of success in this business. An average of 20% net/net which translates to 100% per five day turn net/net, or 4,800% (flat) net/net per year (projected). How's that stack up? The really great thing about the way I do it, is that it matters not which direction the wind decides to blow. a) If the market moves in my direction for: 1) 5 days, or 2) To the Limit Order Level, then I net something well beyond 20% per day and 100% for the week. b) If the market moves away from my direction and keeps going, then I net something less than 20% for the trade and less than 100% for the week. c) If the market moves sideways for 4-5 consecutive days, I either: 1) Take any positive profit, reload and re-enter with the next/new trade profile, 2) Look down-range at my system's next trade signal to determine whether or not a "Hold" is recommended and then take profits when they become available, or 3) Liquidate all positions at a loss which was determined BEFORE I entered the trade to be no more than one session's worth of capital loss (very rare). In other words, as darn near close to risk free as I can make it. I'm happy with it. It works for me. It meets my needs and I can now focus on managing my cash flows instead of managing my trades. Example: Today is Monday. I'm currently in a position that is losing capital. The total real-time loss right now is 0.068% of the total capital used in the trade. The total expected net/net return on this trade is now 42.85%. That means that the total draw against my Internal Margin (not to be confused with my bank's margin requirement) is only 15.86%. That is well within "Hold" parameters for me and the way I trade. On this particular trade, I cannot EVER lose more than 15.86% draw against my Internal Margin (not my banks margin requirement). And, this is just Monday, with only 30% of this weeks move (volatility) set into the market. That means that my current 0.68% net/net cash loss occurred within ONLY 30% of the market's expected move this week. So, by mathematical definition, it will be extremely hard for this trade to actually lose money come Friday of this week, for two (2) additional reasons that unfortunately I cannot reveal, but it does have a lot to do with the 70% market volatility remaining this week. Within that 70% remaining this week, the market can move Long, or Short from here. If Long, it only has to move 70% of the total 70% to net the standard profit (maximum). If Short, only 50% of the 70% remaining to net the standard profit (minimum). Even if it failed to move that much this week, the historical record demonstrates that at some point next week, it will either move back to a position of overall break-even, or it will move into a position of minimum or maximum profit. So, the only issue here is time-to-profit, not whether or not a profit will be made. All derivative free!
Yeah, its all BS, cause you did not come up with it. Yep, I understand fully. If you can't think of it, it must not exist. Clueless. Utterly, clueless. Fibonacci levels and money management? That's why you most likely failed in college, right? Your inability to read, right? And, you have already studied the exact same things that I've studied in the markets, right? You knew what was in my mind, at the time I was creating my ideas, right? You were there, right? Inside my mind, correct? You know my thoughts, right? You know the data I used and how I used it, what tools for analysis I build, how I built them, deployed them, tweaked them and you know for sure that NONE of it works and that it is 100% unadulterated BS, right? LOL, keep it coming! Some of you here are beyond help. Yet, another prime example of a clueless man on ET. If you don't like this slice of my life story, fine - that's your business. But, pretend to know that which has never been revealed to you - and never will. You can't possibly know what the heck you are talking about here - and that does not make two of us. Funny, how you failed to post an example of how you know, it does not work, or that directional trading works better. Oh, wait a minute - that's not so funny after all. The reason you can't post an example of why it does not work, is because you DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE HECK IT IS to begin with. Clown.
I think you should have simply stopped at: I don't understand. Period. There was no need to continue beyond that, as that statement explains where you are with respect to what I'm doing. The fact that some of you clowns don't understand even the slightest thing about what you slam, yet continue to post as if you do, speaks volumes about your ego(s). Your philosophy on trading can easily be summed up with this: "If I don't understand it, for whatever reason it does not matter, it must be BS." Yep, with that narrow minded attitude, we'd still be sitting in the dark with no light bulb and none of use would be able to trade on-line with no computer. None of us would ever own a cell phone or PDA. Many of us would die from treatable diseases, because there would be no drugs to support and sustain life and thus no treatment prescribed. Many of us would not be able to see, as there would be optometrist grinding glasses for near or far sightedness. Basically, all progress on earth would come to an abrupt end and we'd all be living in an Orwellian Nightmare, stuck in the 50's, all because humanity adopted your mentality of "If I don't get it, it cannot exist." LOL, groovy. Better go play another re-run of Leave It To Beaver. Oooooooh, Wally! Yeah, Beave, watcha want! My goodness - you guys are very funny. You have no idea how amusing this is for me.