[DARWIN] TTD by Captain Currency

[NVP]

Hey Andy !

Man it’s great to see you back in the games mate.....

Let someone catch up some time
N

 

[Captain Currency]

Tuesday 27th Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Eur.Usd -20 pips / -0.49%

Trade 2
Eur.Usd pips -1 pip / -0.2%

I was looking for a bit of counter-trend movement on this set-up, it never came and the SL at 20 was hit.

Trade 2 the second attempt on Eur.Usd was good, the 3 Ducks entry was spot on, trade never going negative. This trade came to within 1 pip of the TP (I know, how unlucky). Trade management needed to be employed towards the end of the European session. With price movement drying up, this trade drifted back to the entry where we exited for a tiny loss.

This past week, past 5 trades have been more about trade management / keeping losses small rather than profit taking. No doubt we'll get a run of winning trades where we can sit back and watch the TP been hit.

Overall Tuesday was a "so-so" type of day, TTD is currently at -1.73% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Man it’s great to see you back in the games mate.....

I'm enjoying been back in the saddle Neil. So far October has been a bit of a non-runner, a few losses on the trot followed by a few trades falling at break-even, September was a Gold Cup type of month.

Really want to give The Three Ducks Darwin a good run out this time around. I fancy taking on the favourites who are heavily backed, leaving them a few furlongs behind. So far TTD has one backer, you could be the second if you fancy a punt. Will keep posting live results and form here on T2W.

Let someone catch up some time

Sure, see you at the winner enclosure.

 

[Captain Currency]

Wednesday 28th Oct went a bit like this:

It doesn't normally happen but today zero trades where entered even thought I put the standard 6 - 7 hours of work in. Eur.Usd and Usd.Cad had already pushed too far in one direction for me to justify a momentum type of trade plus, I wasn't going to attempt to fade / counter-trend trade such strong moves. Usd.Jpy on the other hand had a potential trade set-up but just missed our entry by a few pips.

Overall Wednesday was a "nada" type of day, TTD remains at -1.73% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Thursday 29th Oct went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Jpy +15 pips / +0.43%

Trade 2
Eur.Usd -20 pips / -0.53%

A solid enough entry on this momentum trade, all one way traffic up to our TP, SL never came under any pressure.

Trade 2 a good entry on this trade also and price got to within 1 pip of our 18 pip TP even though it doesn't show on the chart below, maybe it smooths out volatile quick move?

TTD is currently at -1.82% for October.

 

[Captain Currency]

Friday 30th Oct

Trade 1
Usd.Jpy -20 pips / -0.60%

Trade 2
Usd.Cad +18 pips / +0.42%

A trade with the trend that didn't work out, entry just taken in by a few pips. SL at 20 was in the correct place because if we didn't exit, the loss would have been greater.

Trade 2 a momentum type of trade that worked out well. I got a good read on Usd.Cad and picked my spot with a TP at 18 and a SL at 20. This short-term trade worked out well without any negative pips (except for the spread). TP was also in a good location because the pair went quiet volatile soon after the exit.

TTD ends the month of October at -2.00%.

 

[Captain Currency]

October overview: The Three Ducks (Darwin TTD) 🦆 🦆 🦆

October was a quick month for me after been away from the charts for the first two weeks. With there been just 23 trades in Oct compared to 40 trades in the Sept stats, there isn't much value in diving deep into analysing average wins/ loss in this post. The one thing that needs to be said is that the win rate in Oct was on the low side; 30% compared to 55% in Sept. Average wins still remain slightly higher than average losses which is a positive.

What happened? Not much really, the market was slightly less favourable than Sept, a few fuzzy days here and there. There was also 3 - 4 trades that got to within 1 pip of the TP only to see it reverse, can we call this bad luck?

Another positive this month was our trade management / risk management, I felt losses where kept small, some even as small as just -1 pip. We didn't see losses get out of control, they where all capped at a maximum of -20 pips and the longest losing run was probably just 3 trades. I felt I never got a good foothold on the month (-2%), we where positive at one point but a string of 3 losses put us on the back foot and from there on in it is was 1 win, 1 loss, 1 win, 1 loss, very 50/50ish market.

The market did give us opportunities in Oct to let profits run and going into November I want to try and aim beyond the standard TP 1 (+18 pips) and look to manage some trade opportunities into TP2 (+28 pips) and TP3 (+48 pips), this should / will make a difference to our potential future returns.

Risk per trade has gone up, which is what I wanted to see! Last month the average risk per trade was about 0.40%, now its more like 0.50% - 0.60%. Stop-losses are always used (20 pips) with a maximum of one open position at a time.

I'll keep posting the regular daily updates here, hopefully we can make a bit of magic happen in November!

Andy
Captain Currency

 

[Captain Currency]

Monday 1st Nov went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad -3 pips / -0.07%

Trade 2
Usd.Cad -20 pips / -0.51%

Trade 3
Usd.Jpy -20 pips / -0.60%

A human error on this entry, a miscalculation by me. Trade needed to be closed and reopened at the correct entry price a few pips lower on trade number 2 below.

Trade 2, a pullback type of trade set-up in the direction of the 4 hour up-trend on Usd.Cad, bears had different ideas to me and a large counter trend moves knocked us out of this position for a 20 pip loss.

Trade 3, a 3 Ducks trade set-up on Usd.Jpy, this pair has been moving fairly slowly over the past few sessions but I fancied this particular set-up none the less. TP was at +48 pips and we seen this pair move in our favour post entry. This position was carried over into the Asian session but with a stall and reversal in price our SL at -20 was tagged.

TTD is currently at -1.18% for November.

 

[Captain Currency]

Tuesday 3rd Nov went a bit like this:

A day to use plenty of discretion and be super cautious, I don't want the market slapping me in the face . No positions where opened on Tuesday and I wouldn't be surprised if it will be the same on Wednesday. Currency pairs are just jumping all over the screen with the US Presidential election results / ballot counting.

TTD remains at -1.18% for November.

 

[Captain Currency]

Wednesday 4th Nov went a bit like this:

No new positions where opened on Wednesday, charts are still too volatile for day trading 🤯

TTD remains at -1.18% for November.

 

[Captain Currency]

Thursday 5th Nov went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Jpy -20 pips / -0.58%

Trade 2
Usd.Jpy -20 pips / -0.59%

A momentum type of trade set-up on Yen with the TP at +48, trade never got going and turned it's back post entry hitting our SL.

Trade 2 a similar type of trade set-up to the previous one but again, trade never got going, gave us a false start. Always hate the feeling of back-to-back losses and this is where trading can be mentally tough but we'll stay strong and move on to the next good looking set-up.

TTD is currently at -2.33% for November.

 

[Captain Currency]

Friday 6th Nov went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad -1 pips / -0.01%

Trade 2
Usd.Jpy +18 pips / +0.53%

Trade 3
Usd.Cad -20 pips / -0.50%

Trade 4
Usd.Jpy +17 pips / +0.51%

First trade of the day and the market seems to be more stable than the previous few days. This trade (the SL at -20 pips) was managed as price moved enough in our direction, SL was pushed up but TP at +30 wasn't reached and instead we exited with a small loss.

Trade 2 Usd.Jpy had been drifting between levels for most of the morning and by early afternoon an opportunity to buy the dip presented itself, we jumped on board. The trade worked out pretty well with a good entry and a decent enough exit.

Trade 3 on the Usd.Cad once again, we did see some profits on this mean revision trade but not enough to reach our TP or enough for the trade management to kick in.

Trade 4 after we rode trade #2 to the upside, a downside momentum trade opportunity presented itself later on in the afternoon. Again the entry was good on this one (see chart below). I seemed to be getting a good read on this pair today and the TP was reached shortly afterwards without too much fuss.

Some days the market is very black and white (or green and red) other days it's grey! See attached chart below for Trade 2 / Trade 4

TTD is currently at -1.79% for November.

 

[trendie]

Do you only trade EURUSD, USDCAD and USDJPY? If so, why only those?
Do you trade 5-mins only?
Do you hold any longer-term trades? Or just, seemingly, day-trades.
You seem to trade reversion back to the 60-SMA?
Do you trade any indices? Thats where all the big moves seem to be, at the moment.
(you did say to ask!)

 

[Captain Currency]

Do you only trade EURUSD, USDCAD and USDJPY?

Thanks @trendie,

Since September 2020 when I updated my trading going from 100% trend-trading to 50% trend / 50% counter-trend trading, yes I do only trade these 3 pairs now. Previously over the past 20 years I would have traded a basket of 8 pairs: 6 majors and 2 crosses. I do still look at other pairs out of curiosity but I stick to the new plan and only trade the above 3 pairs you mentioned.

why only those?

Less can be more and those 3 pairs suit how I need to trade these days. I wrote in another post months back that I was struggling to trade the market from a 100% trend-trading point of view. The Fx market had changed imo and needed to be traded broadly rather than deeply / counter-trend as well as trend.

From observing them over the years I found the following;

Eur.Usd can be good for mean revision trades.
Usd.Cad can be good for counter trend trades.
Usd.Jpy can be good for momentum trades.

For the types of set-up I'm looking for, I'd want to see 1 - 2 decent looking opportunities over the European / US session. I trade for 6 - 7 hours per day and the average trade is open for 3 - 4 hours based on the trade duration stats.

Also, I only want one open position on at a time with a fixed 20 pip stop-loss / 0.50 - 0.60%, this controls and keep risk very stable. I'd average about 30 trades a month and as a discretionary trader, that enough to keep me stable too!

To be continued .... will answer rest of questions in an upcoming posts

 

[TLN]

Also, I only want one open position on at a time with a fixed 20 pip stop-loss

Let's take the average cost for 1 trade is around 1 pip (spread + commission). Actually, it might be more than 1 pip.
It means winning or losing trade, you still lose 1:20 ~ 5%.
As your word, within 3 years, you will reach 1000 trades, you lose 1000 pips.
Is it too much to be profitable?
Attached picture is your stats.
In 6 months, you won 53%.
Average win ~ average lose ~ 13 pips.
So in more accurately, the cost takes you 1:13 ~ 8% /trade

 

[Captain Currency]

Let's take the average cost for 1 trade is around 1 pip (spread + commission). Actually, it might be more than 1 pip.
It means winning or losing trade, you still lose 1:20 ~ 5%.

That's a good question for a Monday morning @TrungLN ...

I may be missing your point and yes I agree it will be difficult for any trader to be profitable as we all have to pay spread / commission. From my calculation and with the commission been separate to the spread, the commission is about 3% of the trade / risk / SL value, I'll pay that 3% on both winners and losers, it's not recoupable on a winning trade.

However, my thinking would be that the spread 1 pip on a 20 pip SL is already built in to the overall risk of that trade. 1 pip spread (5%) and 19 pips (95%). On a winning trade the spread is recovered, a TP of 18 pips recoups the initial -1 pip spread at the beginning and an additional +18 pips of profit. On a losing trade I've lost -20 pips, I don't think about it as losing -20 pips and -1 pip spread.

As your word, within 3 years, you will reach 1000 trades, you lose 1000 pips.

I'll have paid commission on 10000 trades for sure, the spread on the winning trades will be recouped, I'm sure I won't lose 1000 out of 1000 trades . The spread on the losing trades would have been built in to my initial risk and be part of the overall 20 pip SL.

Is it too much to be profitable?
Attached picture is your stats.
In 6 months, you won 53%.
Average win ~ average lose ~ 13 pips.

Average win needs to be higher for sure, working on trying to tag TP2 (+28 pips) and TP 3 (+48 pips). Win rate could also do with been a bit higher.

So in more accurately, the cost takes you 1:13 ~ 8% /trade

You're spot on, 5% for the spread and 3% for the commission

Maybe some of the other veterans can chime in, how do you calculate it, how do you think about it?

Thanks @TrungLN , I'm off for a coffee now ...

 

[CavaliereVerde]

The impact of spread and commission trading 20 pips is relevant but there are also darwins trading 7 or 10 pips .

 

[TLN]

I'm off for a coffee now

Thanks for your explantion.
I'm clear your decision.
Hope that the edge of your strategy is stronger than the cost of spread and commission!
^^

 

[TLN]

I used to test a strategy like yours on M5 timeframe.
Initial SL is 20 pips then trailing stop the profit each 10 pips.
But, I'm not good enough to beaten the spread + com. The more I trade, the spread + com bite my balance.
(Also, there are lots of noise signal in M5.)

 

[Captain Currency]

Monday 9th Nov went a bit like this:

Trade 1
Usd.Cad -20 pips / -0.50%

Trade 2
Eur.Usd -20 pips / -0.45%

Trade 3
Usd.Cad -20 pips / -0.48%

Trade 4
Eur.Usd pip +18 / +0.43%

Trade 1 a momentum trade that looked like it had plenty of potential until our SL was ate by a vicious down-move around midday. I like a bit of volatility but not when it works against us ...

Trade 2 in around the same time (after we exited trade 1) the large move took in our order on Eur.Usd, a pullback type of trade. Same story again, too much volatility over a very short period of time just messed-up everything.

Trade 3 I felt we could get a hold and reversal to upside after we came down fast and also how the chart stacked up from earlier on in the morning. Entry was good and this trade came within a few pips our our TP but today was one of those day where we just had to suck it up!

Trade 4 kind of what I was looking for on Usd.Cad (trade 3) I got on the Eur.Usd instead, a "top and drop" momentum type of trade (see chart below). Glad to say the entry was good and our TP at +18 was easily reached. There was more profit to be had from this trade but pre-entry the TP was decided upon.

TTD is currently at -2.77% for November.