.

[neil]

'Kinell...........

To be successful with the Forex, you need two things strategy-wise...
1) You need a strategy. They are NOT as hard to come by as people suggest.
2) Then you need good money management. Even with the best strategy, if you trade too large of lots, or you do poor money management (aka impatience, greed, etc) you'll blow your account.

I suggest that you open a demo account at the above link, and add ALL of the top 20 strategies to it, and let the demo run for a month or so. If it does well after a month, you can then weed out any of the strategies that didn't do so well at that point. I suggest following multiple strategies rather than just one, because more strategies = more stability. Any strategy can go bad at any time, no matter how good it's done in the past. But following multiple good strategies means that if several go bad, you're still in the green.

We could save a lot of time here. What strategy or strategies do you use ?

(T2W - Could we have a "weeping" smily")?

 

[twinj]

Hi DowJones, which is your preference? Trading during news announcements or avoiding them? Are most of your trades executed around news announcements or most of your trades are away away.

Hi SlowlyButSurely, I do like your quote. I have written it down. My problem is grabbing profit early and getting annoyed with missing more than 50 percent of the move.

Wishing you the best of trading.

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

Hi DJ,

A quick question regarding your broker. I'm looking to eventually move across to LMAX; funds permitting. How reasonable are they when negotiating commissions? Were you able to haggle them down from their base of $35 per million or did they demand to see flows firstly?

Just interested to know so I can go in with some leverage.

Cheers,

SBS

 

[Forexmospherian]

Morning DJ

Please don't leave this forum - you have far too much to offer - especially to new traders who want to know - can retail traders make money on a continual basis etc etc

Glad you have had a good morning and I wish you all the best for a great June

Regards


F

 

[tdezo]

I love this stuff DJ.
Would you please explain in more details what do you mean by " excellent execution " , " good fill" ? .
I got cTrader recently and it shows 60/65ms latency , one way. What do you think about that?

 

[tdezo]

Thanks - you ask an important question...

Thanks D J , currently I'm living in the US and as you probably know we're quarantined here , we can not open accounts anywhere else. 50-150 ms speed considered world class lightning speed , 1.0 spread on e/u looks like a gift from God , spreads under 2 pips on crosses ,happy hour is here!
All of this to protect us from unscrupulous brokers , not kidding.

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

Hi DJ,

I just have one more question...which platform did you decide to use with lmax for the greatest execution? Did you opt for the web client, multicharts, MT4 or other?

I know that by using MT4 you will be routed via a bridge which could cause latency and so thinking multicharts may be the same.

Cheers.

 

[SpreadDoctor]

MT4 is utter sh*t for order entry IMO (it's ok for a few general charts)

100% agree. MT4 is good for pulling up quick charts but order entry, no, no ,no. welcome to slipsville, but thats more a function of the brokers that allow you to execute on MT4.

 

[SpreadDoctor]

It would seem that my luck has returned this morning. Yesterday, as noted above, I expected a stronger UK construction PMI figure - which didn't occur. Today I expected a stronger UK services PMI - which did. Result: just under +$1k net. Ok, big deal... what can we learn from this? Well allow me to quote someone who really know's his stuff:

"...it’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong..." - Stan Druckenmiller.

nice trading DJ very interested in your analysis of the PMI figure but understand if it is outside the scope of this forum. Did you take a position prior to the data release? what type of analysis do you conduct fundy, PA, quant etc.

good trading.

 

[twinj]

Fantastic. You are truly someone that inspires me and I aspire to become. Not perhaps your trading style but the return on investment. I make sure of getting a profit each day and get somewhere between 100 pounds and 200 pounds which equates to about 40 percent return. But your ROI is astronomical. To top it off, you seem to make an overall profit every time you trade.

Likewise, good luck with the nest two days but you don't seem to need it.

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

The next 2 days are very important. Focus will be key and so I probably won't post much, if at all. If you have a question feel free to get in touch. As always, good luck.

Feel free to get back to me over the weekend, but I have a few questions for you.

What kind of tools do you use to trade? I know that you use LMAX and a squawk service, but what other tools do you find useful? Is there additional charting packages you use etc?

Also when scalping the FX market, seeing as you probably don't use a DOM (there isn't really any depth to see in FX) what kind of things do you look at? What time frames do you use?

I posted up my approach last week, it seems rather different from yours so interested in what works for others.

 

[twinj]

Hi thanks for your comment. It is nice of you to think 40 percent is a daily return. I wish it was. It is an annual rate. So I guess your annual ROI must be astronomical compared to mine?

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

Hi, I'll reply in list format:
- Broker: I keep saying it, but an institutional quality broker is key. (During the Uk Cons PMI release on Tue, I had a well-known retail broker platform open on one of my screens & noted the spread, which was 17 pips on a 20 pip move - it's laughable!) You cannot do what I do with a retail platform. This is why I have such a rant on the broker threads... I also have back-up brokers (in fact backup everything). Kill the power where I work, and I carry on trading.
- News: As you say, squawk - which I find helpful. Good live news feeds e.g. Reuters, Dow Jones (lol) etc. Also sounds boring, but the standard FT, WSJ stuff can also be useful depending on context.
- Research: Institutional quality research (I have a few reports, daily, weekly etc, mostly FX specific delivered to me). I won't recommend any here as it's very dependent on your market, trading style, budget etc. Plus the f*ckers don't pay me any advertising...
- Charting: Amongst others I've used CQG, eSignal, Sierra, PRT, MT4, broker-specific etc... rather than focus on a provider, maybe the thing to mention is I watch lots of charts, and want to have multiple data-feeds. Generally I'm not a huge fan of MT4, but I use it as I've programmed some bespoke stuff in MQL4.
- Stats: Excel - obviously record-keeping & stats are important but you can also do a lot more with excel.
- Bespoke: I use several bespoke tools that have a statistically provable edge. Unfortunately I'm not going to divulge here.
- Misc: I read widely. I do a fair bit of research myself. I speak to quite a few people. (Last night I was chatting to a small hedge fund mgr in the US, this morning to an ex-spot fx dealer in the UK). In some ways this is an information game.

Finally scalping OTC FX. I get asked this a lot. So without giving away any trade secrets , let me just outline a few things:
- It is possible to get some DOM and T&S info in OTC FX. Remember, even if you're a spot fx dealer at a large IB, you still only have a partial view of the market's order-flow.
- Obviously there are DOM/T&S/Volume/MP etc available for currency futures, and currency futures aren't so far removed from major spot fx pairs.
- I typically watch multiple time-frames on time-based charts.
Hope that helps to some degree.

Cheers for the information. Got an LMAX demo to try it out and so far I'm impressed. Only thing that I'm finding difficult to adjust to is the charting, I integrated charting a lot into my trading so not being able to see the SL/TP on charts is a little odd, and the fact I cannot move limits around once on the chart is a shame but I'll get used to it.

I have access to Bloomberg (free luckily) which is great but would like to get ran sqauwk as bloomberg tv/radio is so sh*te!

 

[pete_tong]

Hi, I use their standard web client. MT4 is utter sh*t for order entry IMO (it's ok for a few general charts), and yes the MT4 bridge has caused problems (hence some people give LMAX negative reviews when the problem is actually MT4). Hope that helps.[/QUOTE]

Hi DJ,

Hope all is well.

For my understanding, am I correct then in assuming that you do not link your broker with your charting option......if so, then how do you scalp so effectively (not fishing here, just amazed, esp in news releases times, how you manage to think clearly in terms of what your entry price was, stop price was, targets etc......I have to have a visual chart for this !

 

[pete_tong]

Hi pete,
It's fine to fish lol, but I'm tired so bear with me if I've missed the gist of your question...
I typically have charts from a couple of providers open at any one time & I find price movement itself very similar across decent charts. (LMAX has charts in the web client). However, in terms of having entry, stop, target etc actually on the chart, then I don't have that. At one stage in my journey I had guidance from someone 'old-school' - their view was that you should start with a price ladder/DOM, no charts. That influenced me - I feel there's an art to this side of trading. Let's just say I am very familiar with price, and my orders, when I trade. Does it take screen-time, experience & practice to get proficient? Of course, same as any skill. That's another reason I don't feel my approach can just be outlined in a few posts with a guarantee of $x at the end.
Hope this answers your question, cheers.

Thanks DJ, very clear now.

Have a good day mate

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

As I'm sure you're all aware, recent volatility in capital markets has been dire - making for difficult trading conditions. It's something that's negatively affected my profits this year, and those of many others. Well, as anticipated, we finally got some volatility today. I hope you all made bank.

I've attached a pic of my current focus...

FX majors and XAUUSD were wonderful today! Anyone else here scalp news reactions? I tend to avoid being in a position beforehand, but once I see some directional spike (EURUSD today after the announcement) I tend to fade it. It works well with a high probability of success most of the time but gets choppy and you cannot be greedy.

Can't wait for tomorrow, we should have another day of good vol. until then :cheers:

 

[Forexmospherian]

As expected, Thu & Fri turned out to be big days; was nice to be able to achieve some solid returns. Great also to see some other people doing well (see post above).

Anyway, here's my (slightly rounded up) P&L for the two days: Thu: +$5k Fri: +$2.4k

Well Done DJ

I noticed the other day one of your bad trades had less than a 1 pip loss - so for me that shows how on the ball you are with your scalping

Keep it up and have an excellent June

Regards


F

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

Hello DJ,

I have a question regarding reading the order book. How do you know what to look for when reading it? Can you suggest any reading material that explains it clearly as I don't know how to begin to gauge whether price is looking bullish/bearish just from watching it. Orders get pulled/filled so quickly that it isn't clear to me.

Thanks,

SBS

 

[12WBT]

Hello DJ,

I have a question regarding reading the order book. How do you know what to look for when reading it? Can you suggest any reading material that explains it clearly as I don't know how to begin to gauge whether price is looking bullish/bearish just from watching it. Orders get pulled/filled so quickly that it isn't clear to me.

Thanks,

SBS

Hi SBS

I found videos were easier to learn, rather than books. IMO
Plus sitting and watching the DOM and T&S for long periods.
DT has some good threads on tape reading with videos.
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/search.php?searchid=14562926&pp=25
Plus heaps of free videos online by searching google/bing etc.

All the best
WBT

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

Thanks for the replies lads. I did attempt to learn to read the tape early on but I think it was a little too soon for me to fully understand back then. I will give it another shot as some good traders put a lot of emphasis on it and I reckon it could help my trading by seeing how orders stack near levels of S/R I have mapped out.

Cheers