Hi all I have been a long time on/off member (I cant remember my last login name so this is a new user name.) I was previously posting on here and showing the trades from my autotrading system for EURUSD. Looking back its more comical than educational as to how one person can possibly be so stupid. I had developed a strategy and had a friend create a very unstable program, plugged it into IB with 5K and subsequently got upset at every little mis-execution that I started auto trading the signals until predictably I just went all in long the EURO at literally its all time peak -about 1.62 (hows that for luck and held stubbornly until the acct was gone). The reason was that I got exhausted trying to short it. (All typical noob mistaked and having nothing to do with my original strategy). Anyway flash forward to now. I am almost finishing med school but the lure of trading has been on my back basically forever. Therefore, despite my career choice I have set to prove to myself that all my time and effort was not in vain and I was indeed onto something. I am not looking for making billions, starting hedge funds or retiring tomorrow. I want to have a profitable yr trading automatically to put an end to a 7 yr obsession that has consumed my being(yes it should have been medicine, but thats a distant second). I have never wanted anything more than to create a realiable and tradeable automated strategy and I feel I wont be complete until I have satisfactorily proven it to myself. I dont care about a dollar amount at al pretty much. I have gone through much in my trading career as both a professional and as a hobby. I have felt the greatest highs of ultimate success and such incredible lows that I dont know how I even made it through. I have stepped back from the big money and insanse leverage (no 5K was not big, 500K was tho but thats a different story in a different market).
Yes the market is humbling, I have been lucky enough to succeed at most things that I have tried at in life except trading. Obviously it is due to lack of discipline prob 99% as well as immaturity. Anyway to my trading. I am currently using FXCM as my broker for the simple reason that I can trade micro lots (I dont have big capital but again its for the exercise not the zeros in the acct.) After my programmer/friend left I was stuck until I made a breakthrough in strategy a few summers ago as I was studying for some important exams. Of course I have no idea how to code. Therefore, my perseverance winning through I have taught myself just enough to code what I want and found the software which computer illiterates like me can code their ideas without completely flipping out. I am simply proud that I have accomplished this much on my own and I feel I have learned 101 life/market lessons(#1 watch that leverage since it will lay waste of the best of strategies). I have also matured over the course of 5-6 yrs from a shallow, naive, greedy child to something more resembling an adult. Again at this point this is an exercise to prove something to myself, and no one else. All are welcome to watch, laugh, get entertained and give advice. I will be trading a whopping 200 dollars which is all I can spare after interviews but it should be enough to see what I need to see. As for the program my aim was to start trading on Jan 1st but interviews delayed my start until MLK day two weeks ago. Since then I have traded every single (minus a couple of glitches which I just fixed) I had 2 profitable trades and like 8 whipsaw (its a trend following system) For a net loss of 1 dollar. Just think of it as even and just starting I will post more info along with screen shots and my rantings as my schedule permits.
I would suggest you keep trading only as a hobby and instead redouble your focus on the "sticking your fingers in other people's cavities" thingy...you'll thank me in a few years from now
I agree Hurricane, this is absolutely hobby level. I know myself too well and its irresistable for me to pile on maximum leverage sooner or later. I have my ETF portfolio for the long term and this acct for screwing around with.
For MoO6 I absolutely agree. From my experiences trading is FAARRR more difficult than medical school, working as a lower tiered worker in the corporate world and running a real estate business. But you see that is why I am so driven to prove something. I CAN absolutely trade succesfully and in a profitable methodical way but the best way I can explain it is that much like a gambler, it is not satisfying without swinging for the fences and sooner or later thats what I inevitably do. Luckily with the size of this acct I doubt any juicy profits would tempt me LOL. Anyway I am sure people are curious how I will trade. Basically I am using a type of MA to generate most of the signals and I am using a couple of other indicators to filter my trades. I will trade 30 min bars with 50 pip stops only for catastrophic protection. I will reverse positions so that I am constantly in the market. I am exclusively trading EUR/USD I plan on exiting trades on fridays close and re-enter on sunday open if I can get to my comp. Otherwise the program will keep the position open. There should not be any manual trades at all except for opening and closing gaps on sunday's open. I will manually trade those under strict rules if I am at my comp at the open. I am allowing myself these manual trades since they are not integral to the program's profitability and frankly I am not sure how to code that in without destroying the rest of my fragile code. They will be 2x lot size with 1.2*GAP size stop Current acct value: 198.91 (No trades this week so far since I had to edit my code but it should be ready for subsequent trades) I am having trouble posting a chart with the signals on it I will get it later on.
Entered short overnight at 1.3535 but I am worried since this signal is about 5 bars too late, will investigate when i come back home, I will leave it trading since its currently +2 open PnL.
Seems to me like you are probably on the right track given your humility level. Do you realize that there is an ECB interest rate meeting tomorrow? What does this do to your system?
Well u can see such a scenario in the chart I posted above, basically I would get stopped out, not a real big deal. I will have problems with low volatility trending ranges however and I will not trade during major holidays to avoid this.