trendies FTMO Adventure V: Revenge of the RSI

[trendie]

Another chapter in the ongoing saga.
Same rules as before, except:
1: Determine a Max Loss, even if it's less than the FTMO determined Daily Max Loss.
(why? Because I failed to cut the loss last time, and blew several days good work in one afternoon)
2: Play to full 20 days; don't kill the account; treat it like a proper money account, and play for the long-haul.
3: Play the market, not some external criteria; that is, if I am only comfortable taking shorts, then only trade shorts!

(Note: There will not be a Chapter VI: Rocky VI: ADR-ienne!!!!!!)

 

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Been away for about two weeks!
Have put most things on hold, so I can give this a proper go.
Next Monday, I anticipate daily trading, and to not have too many days off.
I think that once I take the first trade, I cannot afford to have missing days in case I need more than the minimum 10 to pass.
In order for this to happen, I need to essentially trade 3 sessions per day!
08:15 - 10:00.
11:30 - 13:30.
14:15 - 16:30.

35,000 baseline.
Target 3,500 / 10%
Max Daily Loss = 1,750 / 5%

I should not allow more than approx 550£ loss per session.
That is, I can lose 3 sessions, and still remain within my Daily Loss Limit.
6 consecutive session losses results in an account blow-out.

I am still toying with taking small trades and looking to hit home-runs, or do a llllllllls style of going big on a prime signal, and play for small number of pips.
That is, small lots / large number of pips.
Or, Large lots / small number of pips.

We shall see.
Hope you had a great week.

 

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Here we go...
A good start:
Missed the morning session;
Took the early-afternoon session and afternoon.

1: Short DAX for +43 pips (approx +370£)
2: Short US30 for +6pips (approx +40£)
The above trades came as a pair!
I missed the optimal entries, but managed to get a good run for the DAX, and salvaged the US30.

3: Short US30 for +13pips (approx +90£)
I took a break of a small level, and the market bounced too much up, and decided to take a small profit.

4: Short US30 / half-stake for -1pips (approx -4£)
5: Short US30 / half-stake for +27pips (approx +90£)
Another level break (trade4), but the market decided to swing up, I held my nerve, and re-shorted at a level I believed to be significant, also a round number.
I closed the second trade (trade 5), and was happy to take a near break-even trade for -1 on the first of the pair.

Notes: The market was all over the place, and even though I love my shorts, I never got a pullback signal on the last pair of trades, so I took a half-stake, with intention of riding out something, and/or wait for a "true" signal, and to manage the pair. It turned out OK.
I am happy the Max Daily Loss is really low, even though I was willing to take -500 per session.

 

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I have been fussing over the 1-mins!
Look at the signals on the 5-mins; I can even identify patterns forming, that are tradable.
(been trialling the Williams %R as well, though I dont use it.

 

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Not happy with my complete inability to manually take Longs, but happy I kept my cool, and took appropriate aggregated trades, to manage a losing position, and trade my way out of it.

I seem to have started to channel llllllll by really pushing the limits of the Max Daily Loss.
Updates later. After I have something to eat!

 

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Morning session:
01: A DAX short for +14pips, (approx +114£)
02: A US30 short for +25pips, half-stake, (approx +89£)
For some reason I felt much more comfortable taking a half-lot trade, and turned out ok.
These trades were slow coming, and felt overly drawn out.
I felt that I was gunning for a monetary value rather than structure, looking for around 100£ per shot.
Anyway...
A US30 short, which went about 15pips or more in my favour so I left a B/E stop-loss, and it got hit.
03: Thats -0.5pips (approx -5£)

The afternoon then got interesting.
There were some news-worthy events, and I wasnt sure how to deal with them. Normally, I would be out, but I had a trade open, another short, and let it ride over the news. The news blew to the upside.
Trade 04: (35,019)This ran away from me, but the move was so far away after news closed, I decided to aggregate the hell out of it!
05: US30 short (35,091), 70-ish pips away, and close to what I saw was a double-top at the 35030 level.
06: US30 short (35,126),
I thought I saw congestion here, with prices exhausting, so shorted again.
07: US30 short (35,155)
Similarly, I saw price congesting at this level, so shorted again
08: US30 short (35,196) topping, and a round number.
When price above 35,200, I was worried.
The drawdown hovered around the 1,500 mark.
Although, I had accumulated 200£ in the morning, so had more than enough.
Last resort would have been to close one position if 1,600 had been hit, take a realised loss, and play the remaining trades.

I kept a note of the break-even price at each aggregation.
I closed all the positions for +200£ or thereabouts.
The first position got closed out for -94£.

Note: I think I was trading my account rather than the markets.
Either way, I wasnt as fussed as the positions were small. I am comfortable with this.

Closed the day for over +900£.
Relative to the drawdown, this is ok for me.

 

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No trades today.

Morning and early afternoon was bitty, and didnt feel there was a strong move anywhere.
So, luckily, didnt get chopped to bits on sideways market.
Unluckily, missed the 300+pip downslide.
I saw the hit to the 35,100 RN (round number), and anticipated the move down.
But didnt anticipate the scale of the downmove.

This is one of those days where there is a sense of FOMO.
But, if you scale your trades to just want to get 20-30 pips per day, then its just another day.
There should be no sense of FOMO.
It is likely an outlier day. Maybe a couple of more in the near future, but you cant bank on them.

This is where large lots / small pips wins most of the time, since you cant trade small lots / large pips all the time.

 

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One thing I was pondering over yesterday evening.

By the way, I feel I was lucky yesterday, and I let the market save me, rather than my skills.
I feel ambivalent about the 900+£ day yesterday.

Anyway, I was thinking, the Max Daily Loss may be an issue when traded over more than 1 day.
MDL=Max Daily Loss
Start;
01: the MDL is, say 1,750£, and resets each new trading day.
02: if you bank profits, then your MDL increases to account for banked profits,

Consider a situation where
01: you start the day with MDL of 1,750
02: you bank some profits, say 500
03: your MDL shows as 2,250 (1,750 + 500)
04: you take more trades, but get into drawdown of 2,000
04a: since you banked profits, you are leveraging earlier profits to have a higher drawdown

Now, you leave the trades open, and the market flatlines overnight, neither going up nor down.

Would, at the stroke of midnight, and the start of a fresh, new trading day, the MDL reset to 1,750 and your account be treated as having broken the MDL rule?

Hmmmm.

Hope you had a great week, I had 2 trading days and close the week at around +1,500£.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Would, at the stroke of midnight, and the start of a fresh, new trading day, the MDL reset to 1,750 and your account be treated as having broken the MDL rule?

I'm nearly sure that a 2k DD on open positions and 1.75k MDL is taken as a rule violation.
The challenge is full of traps.

You have great results, taking more than 40% of the profit target in two trading days.
No need for hectic - enjoy your weekend.

 

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I'm nearly sure that a 2k DD on open positions and 1.75k MDL is taken as a rule violation.
The challenge is full of traps.

You have great results, taking more than 40% of the profit target in two trading days.
No need for hectic - enjoy your weekend.

Yep.
So, in a way, it encourages short-term trading.
Unless you go for the Swing Account,
Here though, it will affect the profit/drawdown ratios, in that in order to trade smaller to ride out longer term trades, you potential profits are limited as well.

I think I need to go heavy to get past the Challenge and Verification, but then throttle back, where the profit targets are removed.

First, I need to get past this Challenge!
EDIT: And learn to take Long trades!

 

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Finally, I took a Long trade!

Just kidding, it's shorts all the way!
For some reason, I fixated on the US30 today.
I am no longer going to over-explain the trades, except in a generic way.

Morning session:
01: took a Short at tail end of the morning session.
Set a stop loss when it went about 15pips in my favour. SL hit for -1pips.

Afternoon session:
Took a short, 1-lot which immediately went against me!
But I took 0.5lot aggregations, wherever I saw congestion, or a Heads-and-Shoulders patterns on the tick-chart, and a final one near the Round Number.
All went in my favour, and I closed out for over 600£ with those aggregated trades.
(the drawdown went as high as mid-900s. So, claiming 600 for that was a good balance)

Then, I went short again, but with 1-lot. For some reason, I was looking to add a 0.5lot short, but instead I managed to close a half-position, resulting in a loss.
Then, I got confused, and closed another 0.5lot, and had an accumulated -200£ loss.

I re-shorted over about 3 0.5lot trades, and closed for another +420£-ish, over-coming the earlier -200£, plus another 220£ or so.

Disappointed I messed up the middle set of trades, but happy I managed my way out of it.
I also ended up trading my account rather than the chart, since straight after I closed for the aggregated +420£ trade, the market tanked further.

Never mind, as I closed today for +850£ ish.

EDIT: I re-wrote the above to say +420, not +320!

 

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No trades today.
Wasn't in the mood, for some reason for the early sessions.
The CPI spike at 13:30 skewed my indicators, and didn't feel right.
(FTMO did not have it as a restricted event. Although it was marked as a "red" event, like Forex Factory, they obviously have some other metric to determine which news they allow as tradable or not.)
I think I was also looking at US30, when I should perhaps have focused on the DAX, which seemed less manic.
No problem, though.
There's always tomorrow.

 

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A good morning, and early afternoon. Bad afternoon, but in an acceptable way.

Took US30 short, plus an aggregate, closed both out for (+121 and -1.45)

Took a Long! (by accident, I thought I was closing the trading panel!) , at 34,600.
Took another aggregate Long at 34529, where I thought price had already bounced up from.
Prices seemed to fluctuate, so I took a Short as well.
Closed out 1 Long and 1 Short for a profit, and the losing Long was less than the gains.
(+129, +170, -69)
This is where I was trading my account. I closed out based on profits banked, and price then flew up above the 34,600 level by another 100 pips.
So, my impatience cost me around another 350£+
Took another short for +97.
At this point I was up about 450.

Foolishly, I decided to trade some more.
Went short 3 times, each with about 20+ gap between trades, as I have learned to wait!
Took a Long to manage my position.
Closed out the Long for +61.
Opened and closed another long for 43.

Price kept going up, so I bailed when my open losses neared the 800/900 mark.
Rather than hold out, I closed all shorts except 2.
I added another long as hedge.
So, I am running 2 shorts and 1 long at the moment. (all trades are 0.5lots)

Loss of 835-ish.
Combined with the gains, I close today with a loss of around -300.

Unhappy I over-traded. Should have taken the +450, and let it go.
Even then, There was a chance to close everything in the afternoon session for a nett loss of -200.
So, instead of a +300 day, I ended up a -300 day.

I have messed up my R:R and Profit Factor!

 

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Couldn't help myself!
Closed out the Long for a banked profit, and immediately opened another one.
Then, opened a 0.25lot long.

Closed the 0.5lot for another banked profit, and immediately opened another long.

So, currently short 2 0.5lots, and long 0.5 and 0.25lots.

Running a hedged loss of around 600. Not happy, but locked.
And 2 days away from weekend!

 

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And another!
I am running at -900! I have made myself a mountain to avoid flying into.

 

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Whats the opposite of "catching a falling knife"?

Is it stepping on a landmine?

I need help with my obsession with shorts.

 

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Well, well, well.
Market fell, sort of.
I was "hoping" for 34,720 as thats where I thought the best level was.
I was within closing for a loss -200£ in total, then CPI hit and market went back up!
So, a mornings work undone by CPI.
Anyway, closed out all positions for a loss today of -783£.
I did manage my way to scalping the odd 50 / 60 pips.
But my Longs were too far up for me to be able to trade the long side.
My hedge came too late, and I was holding around -800 all the time.
Anyway, I attach my trades, and you can see I closed one scalp for around +60 at the 34,740 mark, before CPI hit.

I am happy (sort of), that my losing day is around the same as a winning day.
Ideally should either have bailed the shorts, or hedged earlier on, as I can demonstrate I can snag 6 scalps of 50 / 60 GBP at a time to manage a losing position.

Also: don't be a "dick for a tick", I was looking to close my positions for nett neutral, before I blew it.

REALLY messed up my statistics.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda!

 

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I must have screenshotted before the numbers got crunched!
Note the trade list remains unchanged, but the daily loss has gone up.
I ma guessing the last 3 trades didnt get updated.
Just being pedantic for clarity.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

I ma guessing the last 3 trades didnt get updated.

From my experience you have to wait up to 10 minutes or until the "reload" window opens, if you want to be sure that the statistics are updated.