May I suggest reducing your trade size? Start with 100 units. Starting with $1 per pip, approx $1700 acct size, and still learning how to trade, may only lead to frustration. 1 cent per pip will keep you in the game, it's easy to estimate ahead of time as far as risk. Be patient, the market will be there when the time is right. David
Spent a bit of time just looking for new resources. Made some good progress with books and found my next targets there, and also thought I would share this site. Apparently, Bulkowski is more than a little bit obsessed with what he does -- all the power to him. All in all, a great research site. http://thepatternsite.com/ http://thepatternsite.com/chartpatterns.html David, I still haven't reworked my trading policies but I'm thinking about scaling down to 25 cents/pip and my daily drawdown limit maybe at 80 or 100 pips or so not sure yet there. Trading projects - hope to skim my last books for a while and extract the last remaining patterns and good info out of them. Then, I have several threads I'll go through slowly again (I usually spend an hour or two/week doing this). Also thinking about plugging the breakout points/reversals of major moves on the hourly charts into my screen saver slideshow - no strategy really, but I'll subconsciously pick things up I'm sure. Good trading.
TraderGreg, Forgive me for not having the bulk time to read through (I will do my best to catch up) your in depth thread but want to jump in: 1-how many lots do you trade per trade? 2-do you trade Eur/Jpy only or other cross rates, what % do you trade Eur/Jpy etc.? 3-do you live in USA and what exact time frame do you trade only? 4-how long do you trades last? 5-do you tend to "Sell" or "buy"?most of the time thanks...the BEST trading to you!!! IncreaseNow
I stopped using them for now in order to concentrate on pure charts without indicators really. I like to put them on the chart because I can see their reactions much better to them on lower timeframes, as well as calculating the midpoints and such. Thanks for the link for when I get back to them, although I'm not sure when this will be.
Eh, I've always liked Romo. Good QB, and the kind of guy that doesn't surprise you if he takes a homeless guy to the movies haha
Ok, good time for a summary anyway. I have been trading 10,000 units of every pair pretty much (equates to $1/pip approximately overall with USD). I am in Maryland, and have traded mainly Asian session (approximately 6:30-10:30 eastern is what I target). I do often watch and try to trade London, although this is very hard with my schedule. I may try to do this more as I have more time off school. Overall, I have in my trading rules that I can trade 1:30am-1:00 pm and 6:30-10:30 pm Time frame and open trades - my trades remain open for maybe 2 minutes to an hour and a half. It depends really, and I have since changed my strategy to trade entries off the 15 min rather than the 1 min and 30 sec (as I used early in my trading). EUR/JPY - went through a few stages here. Traded exclusively early, then transferred completely to the EUR/USD, and then recently went to include maybe nine pairs, although three of them include the CHF which I haven't taken many trades on. Selling/buying - really doesn't matter, probably about half and half. I figured with currencies up and down are basically the same, and even when I experimented with stock options I was always looking in both directions. Feel free to ask other questions. Good trading, Greg
A very exciting week for me! I should have very easily eclipsed 40 hours for the week for the first time in three or more months, and it is the first time in that period that I feel so completely overwhelmed with everything I've learned that I have no idea what I did yesterday -- the kind of feeling that got me into this business, and drive thing I'm sure will keep me going. What I accomplished: completed bulk of screensaver project, got through two and a half more books (some of the best work Iâve seen so far â Trade Chart Patterns Like the Pros and The Harmonic Trader), finally rethought my lot sizing and leverage, some very quality online research, and some good trading as well. Although many traders have told me to stick to screen-watching, I am very happy with my decision to cram a big leg of research. I am certain that internalizing discrete patterns in price movement is an indispensible asset, I think this is better for me personally. This is partly due to the fact that I believe it would take me an extremely long time to do and would like to be able to begin trading patterns profitably, and also because I like being very good at everything I do, which means I have to know and understand everything about what Iâm doing â clearly impossible to do with the market, but the kind of never-ending goal that is a lot of fun. It will take me a while again to incorporate all the new things Iâve learned, but I have plenty of time and screensaver-watching ahead of me. As for my new lot sizing and money management policy: my new trading size is 2500 units, roughly $0.25/pip. My new drawdown limits are 100 pips and flat, or 120 pips and open (at which point I immediately close), to cease trading for the day. Numbers very subject to change. Iâm taking two analyses from this: a humiliating day is a loss of $25-$30, which is the essence of stress-free trading it seems. On the contrary, a very good day will net maybe $10-$30. As this by itself clearly indicates I will likely have to get extremely good extremely fast, or more likely get a full time job over next summer, I really canât understate how much it blows. Anyway, Iâm really not going to worry about it right now, and Iâm sure there will be many changes in my trading and lot sizing after this. For now, I am just going to have to think of it as a pill in order to protect my account. I would also like to point out that, although I doubt I have many readers with all this writing and lack of expertise (lol), I have really been committed to reworking my stuff (such as money management and such) and keeping my journal well up-do-date. Even though I have a 25 page journal/reflection document with me sounding like I'm talking to my imaginary friend, I'm very thankful for it.
great Stuff you wrtoe trader Greg...have you ever traded the Eur/Aud?...been hearing a lot of stuff about its movement...BEST trading to you!