Tag Archives: eurusd

EURUSD loser

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This trade was a little hasty I think on hindsight. The level was not the best and there was not enough space for a rounded retest of the level. Price did react to it, but it was short lived before the bulls pushed it higher on some EUR rumour from the rumour-mill.

EURUSD Loser

I risked 6.25% of my account on this trade and lost the 6.25%. The level was not strong enough to support the move I was looking for, so a lesson learnt here again. Be patient and only trade the very best levels. I don’t want to be in and out of the market every 5 minutes because I have a day job, I just want to cherry pick the best 3-5 trades a week and grow the account with that. This trade was a B grade level. Oh well, next trade…

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EURUSD Gap Trade Filled

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Well, the markets must be smiling on me. I went long the EURUSD on Sunday 2nd October just as the markets were opening at around 2140 BST. I bid at 1.3330 and was filled pretty soon after I placed my bid despite the 7-10 point spread. I set my target to +50 pips at 1.3380 and a stop at 1.3230 (100 pips). Looking back I got a very good entry price. The next day around 11:30 my sell limit got filled at 1.3380. Price only moved 1.7 pips higher according to my broker platform so I did very well to get filled there. I basically entered and exited at the lows and highs of the move, so I’m pretty happy.

I know it’s mostly luck so I don’t want to read too much into it, but it was a nice way to start the month! I risked 6% on this trade and got 0.5R so ended up with 3% account growth. Here’s the trade:

EURUSD Gap Filled

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Short the tiny EURUSD Gap

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I went short the EURUSD on Sunday evening UK time, looking for a small 25 pip profit with a 50 pip stop. Went short at 1.3520 and looking for a gap fill. The gap is very small so this might not be a great trade, anyway I’ll set it and forget it and check in the morning. Here’s my chart now at the time of writing:

EURUSD gap trade entry

Dot-dashed blue line is the entry. Dot-dashed green line is the target, and dot-dashed red line is the stop.

UPDATE

This was a nice quick gap fill for +25 pips. I didn’t risk much on this trade because the gap was small. I took 1% risk at 50 pips so made 0.5% profit on the trade.

Gap fill

 

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Long EURUSD

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Went long the EURUSD this morning and looking for the large Greek default fear-filled gap to fill. Entry at 1.3666, target 1.3790.

Gap entry

UPDATE 21 Sep 2011

Well they say that patience and discipline pays off, and I had to have a lot of both of these to win on this trade. The gap did eventually fill but it took nearly three full days and most of the trade I was sat in drawdown. Not a very pleasant trade to be honest, but with patience and discipline it paid off. On the chart I have marked the entries on blue horizontal dashed lines. EN is the first entry and SC1 is a scale-in with XXX being the exit on the whole position. I made 3.1% account growth on this trade, not bad.

Final Exit

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Went long the EURUSD

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I’m just trying out my new broker platform (IG Index) and placed a trade at just 10p per pip (the smallest possible size) and bid for the euro at 1.3508. I got filled and price pretty much bounced off the figure, it’s moved 100 pips in my favour now and have set my target to be the gap fill (1.3648).

Waiting for the gap fill now

My original stop was 50 pips and is now at breakeven, so if it hits my target I will make 2.8R which is a pretty nice trade. None of this was taught by my mentor, it’s just stuff that I found at J16 group and it’s also a good way of getting to know the broker platform.

I’m just waiting for Tom to slap my wrists now for being so impatient.

UPDATE

My target was hit so I’m now out of the trade with a gain of 2.8R or 140 pips. I set my entry and exit orders last night and just let the trade play out with no intervention from me, apart from a stop movement.

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A spanking from the EURUSD

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I went short the EURUSD this morning (yeah I know). The entry looked like a reasonably good one, with only a couple of minor things that indicated to me that I should get out quick if the market went against me on entry.

The market, of course, went against me strongly reacting to some news from politicians speaking. I didn’t however stick to my plan and just exit the trade, I clung on to hope. When the candle closed my trade was well and truly in the red, but had not yet hit my 3.3% stop loss. At this point I decided to exit half the position. I should have removed the ENTIRE position an hour or two earlier. Even at this stage in the trade, I should have just closed the thing.

Of course the market continued against me and proceeded to hit my stop loss and take me out of the trade. Now, I didn’t take the full 3.3% hit (which is what I risked on the trade), I think the final result was -2.9% of the account. I’m disappointed that I didn’t follow my plan and my emotions instead governed me. I need to conquer this, I’m working on it, bear with me! Trading is hard, if you make it hard and don’t follow your rules.

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EURUSD long exited

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I took a long trade on the EURUSD last week the day before the non-farm payroll. The trade was left open over the weekend with a target set at a resistance level. This was hit shortly after the market opened with a gain of +4%.

My best trade so far, I’m learning my harsh market lessons and on my way to becoming profitable on my live account. I got in at 1.4390 and scaled out half just before non-farm payroll to reduce my risk. I then exited the trade at 1.4645 with a profit of 338 pips.

Latest stats (ignoring AUDJPY execution error)

Profit factor: 1.23
Largest drawdown: 1.99%
Avg. Acct. Change (winners): 2.7%
Avg. Acct. Change (losers): -1.18%
Win/loss ratio: 40%
Avg. trade time: 1 Day, 9 Hours

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I am being tested

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I have just closed my second live MAX trade on the EURUSD. I took a short and had the trade open for 0 Days, 23 Hours, 12 Minutes. I took 3.3% account risk on the trade and I ended up with an account loss of 1.9%. So, my account is now 2% down since starting live trading. Not a big issue, but I was hoping for a smoother introduction to the markets.

Despite having two losers in a row, which is to be expected anyway, my confidence is not shaken. I have another trade open at the moment and will let you know how that goes when I close it.

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EURUSD trade closed

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I entered a short trade early last week (11 May 2011) and closed it early this morning 16 May on the EURUSD. It was a distinctly average trade but with errors in execution and therefore a poor trade. I usually enter two orders of exactly the same size when entering a trade, however I didn’t do this and could not therefore take off half the position (due to hedging restrictions in force in the US). I had left a limit order open over the weekend to take profit at a support/resistance level for the entire position (to manage my risk) and that level got hit for an acceptable, albeit dull, profit of 1.1% of the account.

I’m learning that my execution and timing need to improve if I am to succeed in trading with real money. Sometimes I get to my trader workstation a bit late, and I am making errors in placing orders. This confirms to me that trading a demo account for a while before using live money is a wise thing to do, to iron out these little niggles. When my execution and timing is good, I will fund my live account and start trading real money.

Another thing I learnt from the Max scrolling party last night was to use alerts for orders that are open. In the Max trading system some trades can be entered or exited when a candle is forming (i.e. market momentum), one does not have to wait for candle close. To deal with the fact that I am not watching candles form all day long, I have been using pending orders. I am now going to investigate using alerts via SMS/email so that when price reaches a level I can check price action and the indicators and make a more informed decision whether to enter or exit the market rather than using pending orders. This should improve the accuracy and therefore the profitability of my trading.

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MAX H4 Research started in earnest

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I’ve just started my MAX Standard research using the H4 charts from January 2010 on the EURUSD. I am using the strategy tester on MT4 so that I can replay the charts to make my research more accurate. If I simply scroll the charts and mark entries and exits I can peek into the future and subconsciously make decisions based on the future. Using the strategy tester allows me to trade almost like I would for real on a demo or live account. To be honest I was a bit disappointed with the results. I now realise that this is because of two things:

  • I can only enter the trades at bar close, not midway through a bar
  • I was a bit scared

Even though I’m not even using a demo account, I want my testing to go well because I know that if it goes well then I can progress to the next stage and open a demo account and practise on that, and then a small live account and so on – on my way to riches. So, deep down I want my trades to win even though I am only using the strategy tester. My first ten trades were pretty rubbish and if Jerry (my MAX instructor) saw my charts he would probably point out a million things I’m doing wrong. I can’t post the charts here (I have screen shotted every trade) but I did notice that over 10 trades my account would have increased by 20% and the win rate was 90%. I was initially disappointed with this result but then realised it is MUCH better than anything I’ve ever traded before.

I have made a screenshot of some trade statistics for your interest.

Stats (click to enlarge)

I know the stats are not that impressive because I only scaled in on two of the trades. I’m sure experienced MAX traders would have made at least 100% return over those ten trades and possibly (likely) more. There is however, one impressive element of these stats and that is the losing trade lost only 50 pips (0.3% of the account). The loss was tiny and the result is to have an insignificant effect on the account – this is one part of the MAX I really love. If I get into a trade and the signals tell me to get out, I get out and long before the stop loss gets hit. The system is really quite beautiful.

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