How do I make more money?

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Excelentj

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Hi Frnds...

So my trading journey is (at long last) starting to produce a somewhat consistent profit. I have been working on a system for about six months now and I have something that I can work with that yields good trades. I've been testing this for 1 month with a £10k account and so far have had an account increase of only 4.96%.

In these 2 months there have been 4 trades that have been open for around 5 days each on average. Only 1 of these trades have hit the stop for a loss of £200.

My question is... how do I increase this?
Also can someone look at the below and give me a brutal scathing analysis?
Problems I can spot are:
- First and foremost the Risk/Reward ratio is terrible.... the best trade yielding only 1.364r... which is bad
- 4 trades is perhaps not enough to analyse this system effectively.
- Not adding to winning positions.

Thanks!

J

FTSE100 DAILY
Date L/S SIZE STOP ENTRY EXIT P & L Equity
- - - - - - - - 10,000.00
16/09/2013 L 2.00 6,400.00 6,505.90 6,622.86 N 231.92 10,231.92
03/10/2013 S 2.00 6,674.00 6,574.90 6,437.50 N 272.80 10,504.72
11/10/2013 S 2.00 6,447.20 6,347.20 6,447.20 Y -200.00 10,304.72
23/10/2013 L 2.00 6,470.20 6,570.20 6,674.48 N 206.56 10,511.28
 
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trade more instruments

Gold / Oil / Dow
maybe some FX

pork belly's / orange juice :)

but trade non of the above until you also have a system for each of those
as each can differ slightly in how they trade
 
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Hi ExcelentJ.

As others have already said...4 trades is really not enough to be judging a system on, I like to test over 150 trades before wanting to risk real money but an often quoted number from statistics is 40 trades at least.
Also, you state that you have 'only' won 4.96% in a month as if doing so is a relatively lacklustre effort....it isn't!
If you can make 5% a month on your 10 grand it will only take you 10 years to have £3,489,199 in your account if you compound it. Be realistic and don't believe the bull**** you read about making 20% a month etc!!!
Keep doing what you are doing, with smaller risk if I were you, and see how you are doing in 3 or 4 months when you have a larger number of trades under your belt.
One other point; there is no such thing as a terrible risk reward when taken in isolation....if you have a 75% strike rate you can have plenty less than 1:1 risk reward and it wouldn't take long to be a very wealthy man.
Think of your expectancy per trade, not just your risk reward ratio.
To summarise, there is nothing to scathe about your 4 trades because A) you hit your stops! B) you are keeping risk relatively low per trade and c) you made money!
You might however think more about your expectations going forward. Don't be greedy. Good luck.
 
Excelentj said:
Hi Frnds...

So my trading journey is (at long last) starting to produce a somewhat consistent profit. I have been working on a system for about six months now and I have something that I can work with that yields good trades. I've been testing this for 1 month with a £10k account and so far have had an account increase of only 4.96%.

In these 2 months there have been 4 trades that have been open for around 5 days each on average. Only 1 of these trades have hit the stop for a loss of £200.

My question is... how do I increase this?
Also can someone look at the below and give me a brutal scathing analysis?
Problems I can spot are:
- First and foremost the Risk/Reward ratio is terrible.... the best trade yielding only 1.364r... which is bad
- 4 trades is perhaps not enough to analyse this system effectively.
- Not adding to winning positions.

Thanks!

J

FTSE100 DAILY
Date L/S SIZE STOP ENTRY EXIT P & L Equity
- - - - - - - - 10,000.00
16/09/2013 L 2.00 6,400.00 6,505.90 6,622.86 N 231.92 10,231.92
03/10/2013 S 2.00 6,674.00 6,574.90 6,437.50 N 272.80 10,504.72
11/10/2013 S 2.00 6,447.20 6,347.20 6,447.20 Y -200.00 10,304.72
23/10/2013 L 2.00 6,470.20 6,570.20 6,674.48 N 206.56 10,511.28
Click to expand...
Can you give us the gist of your method. Put up a screen shot maybe.
 
More capital boss........or expose your capital more and risk loosing it all
 
What broker are you using and how much are they charging you? Maybe find a cheaper broker to make more money....
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks so much for your help. Yeah I guess I should be more realistic about profit targets and focus on fine-tuning the system more! I'vereadthemall I owe you a drink in 10 years time :p

Yes I've been considering having more positions in other products but the money management system I've read about (Dr Elder's book) where you he says not to risk more than 2% per trade but then stop for the month if your account is 6% down... meaning that you can only have 3 positions open at once. My concern here is that in the event that all 3 of these positions bomb out and your done and you'll still be 6% down the next month when you start again. This is something that I feel needs to be done when the account is say... at 120% to 150% of your original investment meaning that even if you do have 3-4 bad months you'll still technically be up from the original investment. I also believe that he says this from a psychological standpoint, so 6% down is the indicator that your not match-fit so step out for the month and regain composure... and to try and get over the agony of defeat. Which brings me onto ndnole's point that there are various money management methods... I guess I've been focusing so much the physical aspect of entering and exiting trades that I've only loosely used a basic (still effective) money management system... I'm going to study more this week :).

Darktone- It's similar to a defacto breakout system where you wait for the stock (indice in this case) to hit a key price... only I don't use ranges and stuff to get these prices. Met a trader once (claiming to be pro).. he said the key is to be different.

Vchohan1- I'm spreadbetting on IG... I think there are some costs associated with leaving positions open O/N. Getting sick of these guys though. I have a week off from work so I decided to risk £100 to see what it would be like to be a daytrader (a daytrader with £100 lol)... I haven't used another broker before but IG really seem to take the p*** sometimes when it comes to filling orders. It looked like they were sometimes filling a few points off and therefore undermining my system! Traded the cable today and they filled my stop way too late blowing just under half of my account!! I don't think these trades actually go into the market (being bets) so this is just plain old cheating. Is this normal? I've made an account with intertrader hopefully they're better.

Thanks!
J
 
its normal they all do it
Intertrader won't be much better or could even be worse
they were or are a white label for Capital spreads

some might disagree - but trades really need to go on the real market
and if the spread betting shop does n't send to market,
well you know the rest...

Google "IG Index are cheats" although i have no affiliation with the site :)
 
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I think that the secret of testing a system as pointed out by others on this forum is to have a large dataset to evaluate from. This does not mean that you have to physically trade it, you can get a demo account from almost every reputable broker whereby you can trade for no risk and monitor how successful your strategy is. This will also help you to decide which trading platform is best, try to use your strategy over different platforms for different days and make a decision once you have a good amount of trades for each. You could also try using your strategy using different instruments e.g. CFD's to see which is best and can therefore enhance your profitability.

Best of luck

Valentino
 
Excelentj said:
Hi Frnds...

So my trading journey is (at long last) starting to produce a somewhat consistent profit. I have been working on a system for about six months now and I have something that I can work with that yields good trades. I've been testing this for 1 month with a £10k account and so far have had an account increase of only 4.96%.

In these 2 months there have been 4 trades that have been open for around 5 days each on average. Only 1 of these trades have hit the stop for a loss of £200.

My question is... how do I increase this?
Also can someone look at the below and give me a brutal scathing analysis?
Problems I can spot are:
- First and foremost the Risk/Reward ratio is terrible.... the best trade yielding only 1.364r... which is bad
- 4 trades is perhaps not enough to analyse this system effectively.
- Not adding to winning positions.

Thanks!

J
Click to expand...

the million dollar question is how do these benchmark against what was possible in the market during the period covered ?

and if you cant answer that (like 95% of traders) then go find out and you will then become the trader you want to be

N :smart:
 
WR1 said:
its normal they all do it
Intertrader won't be much better or could even be worse
they were or are a white label for Capital spreads

some might disagree - but trades really need to go on the real market
and if the spread betting shop does n't send to market,
well you know the rest...

Google "IG Index are cheats" although i have no affiliation with the site :)
Click to expand...

Try Oanda.co.uk ?
 
Mightypen said:
Nice question making more money is about making out edges in the market and trying to be more innovative and competitive in the market. For me I believe in diligence and cautiously exploring my options. Even I could give every person an option (licensed broker or not) and could even go offshore when I choose to enjoy the delicious tax free, even transparent competitive services offshore.
Click to expand...

I understand, now, why a stiff drink blows away the cares and woes of the day:whistling
 
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