Hi, I am running an experiment in starting up a journal of my trade ideas and actual trades taken in G10 currency pairs. I like to peruse it for my own usage, not to hold myself accountable because the only thing I need to be held accountable is my risk management and PnL. I welcome others to participate or ask questions as long as posts are limited to G10 fx pairs and abide from flaming and other useless content. I will simply ignore posts that do not relate to fx trading and are not held in a professional manner. Some more information: * When I post trade entries I do so in real-time not after the fact. I post entry prices and stop levels. I may not always post target levels because I simply do not know how subsequent price action develops and thus I may take off a position minutes later, at other times days later. I also reserve the right to override target levels after posting such, and I also reserve the right to adjust stop-loss levels. If I make adjustments then I will also do so in real-time and post such information clearly when it happens, not after the fact. * I sometimes miss to post trades because my priority is not to entertain anyone here but to make money under strict risk management guidelines. Thus, I may not post trades too frequently at times. I only discuss trades that I posted here, I will never brag about trades I may have taken myself but have not posted. * I will not make any effort whatsoever to provide proof that trades posted here are real trades and not paper ones. I will not reply to those who have a problem with that and feel the need to vent in regards to that. If you do not like it then you do not need to post here, simply move on and enjoy yourself elsewhere. My main job is running algorithmic fx trading strategies (which are not subject of this thread) and I take discretionary positions from time to time which I may post here, primarily for myself and to invite questions, recommendations, ideas. * If you feel you have something useful to contribute that touches on fx trading related matters, algorithmic trading in fx markets, or the like then feel free to do so, an interesting discussion may ensue. But again, the main point here are discretionary trades of varying time frames. * I do not follow one single approach to trading, thus I do not post trades that always follow momentum based approaches or mean reversion strategies. My job is to spot changes in trading regimes and sentiment and to try to adjust to such changes in order to maximize risk-adjusted return. My general approach is to trade on the same side as multi-day trends by positioning myself against short-term dispersion that do not violate the overall trend. Occasionally I bet a small amount of money made on tops and bottoms once I get a sense they are confirmed. But in the end it all comes down to proper risk management through adherence to stops, position sizing, and the balls to ride a position, given momentum supports it. I posted couple real-time trades in the following thread but do not want to hijack the thread and thus opened my own: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=242636&perpage=6&pagenumber=14 I am currently flat after having taken profit on a long eur position.
I will keep track of trade performance through simple pip count. My account size and thus actual position size is irrelevant (to this thread at least) as far as concerns me. If found useful I may denote position size "x" and later on indicate the fraction or multiple of x traded when making a real-time call. For now, however, I make the assumption of x traded thus the representation of simple pip count to track. It is left to the reader to convert to percentage terms each time, I will clearly state prices that can be tape verified, I just want to keep this thread very simple in that regards because a discussion about rational of trades is much more that matters to me than raw performance, as far as this thread concerns. Current Pip performance of live calls: * +70pips http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=242636&perpage=6&pagenumber=12 * +171pips http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=242636&perpage=6&pagenumber=14 * total: +241pips.
not looking too good here, market currently 8 pips away from my stop. I clearly believed the market with its high short interest and bailout news over the weekend would show more resilience. I was hoping for 24-36 hours at least, boy was I wrong. ;-) Should I get stopped out later then I will rest things for today and re-assess tomorrow.
Nothing done today so far. Against my earlier prediction of at least 24-36 hours of follow through after this week's open the market went straight down. The Spanish bank bailout rules and guidelines seem to be way too opaque and the market sold that. Additionally, I think it became apparently clear that Ireland, Greece, and Portugal would not just sit quietly watching Spain receive monetary showers at much more lenient terms than what they themselves are forced to adhere to. Greek elections coming up this weekend as well, and I believe the market will again be very news-driven without much adherence to flow, stops, or exotic barriers. I keep in mind that short interest in eur futures is still sky high and so far it does not look like that anyone covered. My take is it takes an incredible amount of positive headline news to push the market back to 1.26, I rather see more weakness building up. A re-test of 1.2420 levels could be in the cards. But again, as said above, pretty much everything is gonna be news driven this week, technicals have no choice but to take a seat in the second row.