FX Trade Setups, Entries, Management and Exit

[Purple Brain]

Proof please.

I'm running on EET.

 

[Purple Brain]

After posting my accounts statement above I have been besieged by people asking me to manage their funds. Let me make it quite clear, I have no interest in or desire to manage anyone's funds other than my own.

Obviously there are a few people for whom I do do a favour and make the sorts of returns I post about on this thread for them to. I would like to assist everyone, but there are only so many hours in a day.

So please, no more PMs or emails. I do have one more place left, but I'm withdrawing that in 23 hours and 59 minutes anyway so your chances are slim of getting on the gravy train.

Unless you act now.

 

[Liquid validity]

MetaTrader prices well out of whack with OANDA.

What data feed are you using then?
I thought MT4 can connect directly to Oanda:
http://fxtrade.oanda.co.uk/trade-forex/metatrader/faq
http://fxtrade.oanda.co.uk/trade-forex/metatrader/

I take it LMAX didn't suit you for whatever reason?
No big deal if your stops are reasonably wide with trade frequency
of 0-4 per day I spose, providing your method isn't costs sensitive.
Whatever works for you at the end of the day

 

[Purple Brain]

What data feed are you using then?
I thought MT4 can connect directly to Oanda:

It can and does, but I use OANDA for trade execution and the Alpari feed for the MT side. Not normally anything between them and I prefer the dual feed.

I take it LMAX didn't suit you for whatever reason?
No big deal if your stops are reasonably wide with trade frequency
of 0-4 per day I spose, providing your method isn't costs sensitive.
Whatever works for you at the end of the day

No, I prefer the tighter spreads on LMAX and will switch 14Q1. But the spreads are the only thing I prefer. That's reason enough of course.

My trading is extremely cost sensitive and did cause me to consider just this week taking longer timeframe trades. Going for larger absolute pips per trade - with commensurate larger stops of course. The result would be about the same in percentage P&L, but the spread would represent a much smaller slice of the pie.

 

[Purple Brain]

Krapp's Last Tape

Re-examination of re-examinations does not lead to greater clarity - quite the reverse.

Reading and reviewing my notes does not necessarily lead to greater insight into the mechanics of trading. If I'm off on a wrong track, no amount of detailed analysis of that track will make it the right one.

Reading the charts and analyses in the same way one more time won't make it any clearer if it wasn't already.

You need to take a radically different perspective. The right perspective is the one that I suspect immediately makes sense to you.

 

[Purple Brain]

usd/chf short at 8913 stop 8923.

 

[Purple Brain]

eur/cad long at 4631 stop 4616.

 

[Shakone]

Re-examination of re-examinations does not lead to greater clarity - quite the reverse.

Reading and reviewing my notes does not necessarily lead to greater insight into the mechanics of trading. If I'm off on a wrong track, no amount of detailed analysis of that track will make it the right one.

Reading the charts and analyses in the same way one more time won't make it any clearer if it wasn't already.

You need to take a radically different perspective. The right perspective is the one that I suspect immediately makes sense to you.

Interesting thought.

Do you think you are off on a wrong track, and if so, why?

 

[Purple Brain]

Interesting thought.

Do you think you are off on a wrong track, and if so, why?

Because when I ran the 1st 100 trades through my recently much revised and totally stripped down trading plan without any change to that plan up to the end of October, I did better than I had ever previously done. But evidenced by last week's performance that was a random fluke.

I'm chipping away at the same old stuff and it's not making any real or consistent difference. I don't believe 'it's the markets' or anything like that. A robust trading plan should keep you out of the wash as much as get you into the move.

Spent the entire weekend going over all my stuff: Notes, charts, spreadsheets, screenshots - everything. Which is when I had my realisation that it was Krapp's Last Tape.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not giving up. Just recognised what I'm doing wasn't working on a sufficiently consistent basis to justify further expenditure of effort or capital in the current direction I've taken.

Two trades taken above taken on current plan with the intent of allowing them to do what they'll do while remaining objective on what I should be doing at any given instant. Genuinely looking for inspiration not from other traders right now - but from the price action and the market itself.

 

[Purple Brain]

usd/chf moved stop UP and AWAY from price to 8926. Increasing stop size from 10 to 13 and making my current size 30% larger than it should be. Totally contra every 'rule'.

 

[Purple Brain]

usd/chf - if it closes below today's open at 8916 I'll bring the stop back down to it's initial level at 8913.

 

[Purple Brain]

eur/cad - if it closes above 4635, I'll move stop up to 4634.

 

[Purple Brain]

eur/cad stop up to 4634.

 

[Purple Brain]

eur/cad stopped at 4634 for +3/14 MAE 8 MFE 11. +0.21 risk.

 

[Purple Brain]

usd/chf stop UP and AWAY to 8937. From initial stop of 10 pips now to 17 pips. I'm 70% heavier than normal.

 

[Purple Brain]

usd/chf - current stop is above today's high. Might as well make a shot at doing something half-sensible with a technical basis to make up for the half-assed trade management. Not sure this is any different to how I traded when I started out.

 

[Purple Brain]

usd/chf - I can't monitor the position any longer so I've put in a limit buy at 8890 to close position. That's 5 pips above the daily S1.

 

[dezzy]

Hey Purple Brain, I noticed your thread and your consistency in updating it, and just wanted to tell you I admire your persistence and commitment to the thread you've created. Keep it up!

 

[Purple Brain]

usd/chf - I can't monitor the position any longer so I've put in a limit buy at 8890 to close position. That's 5 pips above the daily S1.

When I posted this the price was at 8918. The stop was 19 pips above at 8937 and the planned exit target was 28 pips below at 8890.

It struck me then as I looked at it that from a purely visual perspective, the stop was more likely to get hit first as it was closer to the current price. Then I considered the reason I was short this pair in the first place is because of a perceived downward bias. So how would I factor that into the probabilities?

Price movement is far from random - which would look like an ECG readout if it were - so I got to wondering how is it that so many 'obvious' with-the-trend trades fail. They are rarely caught out by reversals - more often by too tightly maintained stops and/or bad timing on entry - which comes down to the same thing really.

If you knew a price was going to go down to 'Y' and the maximum it was likely to come back up to was 'X', you'd like to get in at 'X', but anywhere in-between would be fine - providing your stop was just above 'X'. You might filter out some entries depending upon your personal preferences for minimum R:R, but in essence, anywhere between 'X' and 'Y' for entry would be fine if you were reasonably certain of it reaching 'Y'.

Of course, you don't ever really know what the 'X' and the 'Y' are for certain - but you generally have a better than average idea.

 

[Purple Brain]

usd/chf - as it stands at the moment appears to be finding support, rather than resistance, on today's opening level of 8916. That could be a signal for me to cut my losses and bail out of a short position. I'm only currently 4 pips off my entry and I'm overloaded by 70%.

The reason I'm hanging in is that there is no obvious momentum to the upside - indeed, the stochastics and williams PR are all in their lower ranges. There's no apparent strength. I think it's unlikely the price will have the minerals to test today's high so will leave my current stop above that level in place.