Whats your performance like???

[mehow]

A few hours ago I just closed out my last positions. I could of let them run but I wanted to capture the moment.

Today for the first time my equity crossed the $100,000 mark. Its a momentous occasion for me. I started with $5000 and its taken me 3 months to get to this point. My next goal is obviously to cross the 1 Million mark. I should reach my target in a few months.

Now, success is all relative. A year ago, it seems like the impossible just to double my equity. Nowadays I laugh about how easy it is.

I would like to compare my performance with other professional FX traders out there. I average around 100 pips / session and trade only 4 hours per day and may take a position overnight is my signal warrants it otherwise I'm intraday.

 

[BBPI_FXTrader]

you started with $5000, five thousand (!?) , and after 3 months you have $100,000 ?
that's an amazing accomplishment ! Congratulations !
May I ask how much you normally risk per trade ? what % of your account ? i'm interested in your money management, how you applied it, etc, if you care to share.

Once again, congrats !

 

[tomorton]

mehow - That is a staggering achievement, I'm not sure if you realise how good. This is real money, right? And I assume it is your sole trading account - you're not running 10 accounts, and this is the only one to be in the black?

How do you trade?

 

[D70]

Nice work considering your last post in July 2009 !


"Hi Guys,

I'm ready to start trading live with my own capital and would like some suggestion on data feeds.

My setup will be

Broker: Interactive Brokers"

 

[timsk]

Hi mehow,
I must add to those offering their congratulations - very well done indeed!
Of course, as you may be aware, there are one or two cynics around here who will spot that you're a vendor offering trading advice. They might conclude that you're merely touting for business and that your equity curve probably isn't quite as impressive as you claim or, if it is, that it's been achieved via underhand tactics or by taking excessive risk etc. I hope they're wrong and that you'll quash such ideas by answering the points raised by those who've responded so far. Oh, and if you'd care to outline how you've done it - that would be great too!

Tim.

 

[spinola]

Nowadays I laugh about how easy it is.

I'm sharin the belly ache with that one too ! :clap:

Keep on rockin and if you rack up to 7 digits then gimme a shout as I'm looking for backing in my next adventure "CashForKidneys.com"

Heres the front end I'm thinking, and it goes a little somethin like this....


Gotta a spare Kidney, want some CASH ? Then why not give CashForKidneys.com a call today, our surgeons can extract and give you the CASH, the same day !

CashForKidneys.com Turn your Kidneys into CASH !

Think of that holiday, kitchen or new car you've always wanted or why not do it just for FUN, yes, FUN !

Call CashForKidneys.com NOW !!!

 

[Sang Froid]

A few hours ago I just closed out my last positions. I could of let them run but I wanted to capture the moment.

Today for the first time my equity crossed the $100,000 mark. Its a momentous occasion for me. I started with $5000 and its taken me 3 months to get to this point. My next goal is obviously to cross the 1 Million mark. I should reach my target in a few months.

Now, success is all relative. A year ago, it seems like the impossible just to double my equity. Nowadays I laugh about how easy it is.

I would like to compare my performance with other professional FX traders out there. I average around 100 pips / session and trade only 4 hours per day and may take a position overnight is my signal warrants it otherwise I'm intraday.

1900% increase in three months! ?

Roughly 31% a day, and you take about 100 pips per session?

On your first day alone at 31% you must have taken that £5000 and turned it into £6550.

Thats a total of £1550 for the day, in 100 pips, that's trading at around £15 per pip.
Assuming (which is a dangerous thing) you had a stop loss (if you used one) at 50 pips that's risking a whopping 15% of your account in one trade! In just four wrong trades your account would be down to £2000.

This of course is all assumptions and hell means nothing as I have no idea of your RR ratio, MM skills or anything, hell you could be making 100 pips a day at 1 pip a time for all I know.

Could you perhaps enlighten us as to your strategy?

That to me is some risky business right there, but if you got the kahunas for it fair play, trading like that you're either a genius, or luckier than that f***ing octopus that people claimed could predict the world cup





so...

 

[DionysusToast]

Well - I err on the side of thinking this is just part of the sales pitch.

 

[BBPI_FXTrader]

like sangfroidFX said, please give us some details regarding your strategy

 

[mehow]

...May I ask how much you normally risk per trade ? what % of your account ? i'm interested in your money management, how you applied it, etc, if you care to share.

Once again, congrats !

Risk is 5% of my equity on smaller time frames. The most important thing I've learnt over the years is money management. Its was the hardest thing for me to learn and the only way I could learn it was from wiping out my account repeatedly until I learnt the lesson one way or another. These days, it means knowing when it's clearly not working or not going to work any more and cutting loses and preserving capital to fight another day. Sounds nice and easy but its upsetting taking a loss and I say that mildly. I had to keep reminding myself of my excellent win record by referring to my journal entries and knowing that tomorrow will be a winner and I will make up my loses.

 

[mehow]

mehow - ... I'm not sure if you realise how good. This is real money, right? And I assume it is your sole trading account - you're not running 10 accounts, and this is the only one to be in the black?

How do you trade?

Thank-you for you kind words. Coming from you, I would assume that I my performance is on par with the best traders out there. Its good to keep in check and not let greed get a hold of you.

Yes this is real money. I started paper on MT4 a few years ago and developed my style until I was confident enough to go live. Started small then when my results matched paper, I increased my starting equity.

Just the one account, use it for scalp and swing trades.

 

[mehow]

Nice work considering your last post in July 2009 !

"

Ha, I remember those days! Yes you're right. I started before that actually. First it was equities on NYSE or NASDAQ and I wasn't very good at it to be perfectly honest. I kept banging my head against the wall for years until I switched to FX and haven't looked back.

 

[mehow]

For some reason people think I want to sell something. I would never disclose my style and wouldn't sell it even if someone offered me 100K because I know I can make 10 times that. The only thing I am willing to do is provide advice for free to those who genuinely want it so that you can develop a style that suits you.
In summary, yes it is possible. I didn't think it was a few years ago but now I have the prove.

 

[spinola]

Good luck, my post was for my own general humour, not doubting it can't be done. I went through similar in past, I called it Factor Zero. The rate of which one adds a zero TO the account.

It was intense but too much energy being drained from me to keep it up. Definitely a young mans game.

Heres a motto that may help some wanting to share or release the emotion of performance with others.

"Do not tell me what can or cannot be done"


all the best !

 

[DionysusToast]

For some reason people think I want to sell something. I would never disclose my style and wouldn't sell it even if someone offered me 100K because I know I can make 10 times that. The only thing I am willing to do is provide advice for free to those who genuinely want it so that you can develop a style that suits you.
In summary, yes it is possible. I didn't think it was a few years ago but now I have the prove.

I think the vendor badge under your sign in name makes people thing you want to sell something :whistling

 

[lbranjord]

I'm predicting that he somehow uses data feeds to 'latency' trade. Which I have no problem with. I love to see anyone beat the system.

Either way, if it's true, he's an inovator and I hope to follow his foosteps. I'm still on daily + 4hr, but I'm sure I could hack 1hour as well. If I could get my game running on 5 minute charts... Oh boy!

I'm inspired to try a little harder than I have been. Thanks for raising the bar

 

[lbranjord]

mehow, spinola: you have inspired me to want more. I took my system to test on the 15 minute charts and what do you know? Good strike rate, good profit, not too different from the daily/4hr charts.

Trading it is a different story, but I'll wade slowly into those waters and begin opening shorter-term positions.

I probably wouldn't have considered this if I didn't read your posts. True or false, I don't care. It made me want to up my game and I'm grateful.

 

[timsk]

I probably wouldn't have considered this if I didn't read your posts. True or false, I don't care. It made me want to up my game and I'm grateful.

Good for you lbranjord!
Your post makes the point that I have argued for a long time that we can get good ideas and insight from all members - regardless of whether they're complete newbies who don't know their @rse from their elbow, or seasoned pros managing a multi million dollar hedge fund. There is an unhealthy trend amongst many members to demand that anyone who so much as even implies they know anything about this business - let alone makes a decent profit - to prove it with 5 years of accounts audited by Price Waterhouse and make live calls for 6 months. Okay, I exaggerate, but you know what I mean! This is both pointless and daft, as it is divisive and implies that profitable traders are 'right' and those that are yet to make a profit are 'wrong'.

I acknowledge that the flip side of this particular coin is that anyone can pitch up on a forum like T2W making the wildest of claims and no one is any the wiser. This too is pointless and serves no purpose other than to wind up subscribers to the thread and to massage the ego of the member making the claims. So, with my opening comments in mind, I think there does need to be a balance. For me, that is provided by the member concerned offering some form of explanation regarding their trading methodology. I understand and accept fully that they might not want to go into detail, but there's a lot of info' that can be provided without running the risk of exposing their edge. E.g. markets traded, timeframe(s), TA or FA based (or a mix), indicators used - if any etc. A willingness to engage with fellow members and provide some insights into their trading practice is necessary in order to establish a degree of credibility in the eyes of the membership and to increase the probability of them gaining something of value in the way that you have in this case.
Tim.

 

[lbranjord]

Good for you lbranjord!
Your post makes the point that I have argued for a long time that we can get good ideas and insight from all members - regardless of whether they're complete newbies who don't know their @rse from their elbow, or seasoned pros managing a multi million dollar hedge fund. There is an unhealthy trend amongst many members to demand that anyone who so much as even implies they know anything about this business - let alone makes a decent profit - to prove it with 5 years of accounts audited by Price Waterhouse and make live calls for 6 months. Okay, I exaggerate, but you know what I mean! This is both pointless and daft, as it is divisive and implies that profitable traders are 'right' and those that are yet to make a profit are 'wrong'.

I acknowledge that the flip side of this particular coin is that anyone can pitch up on a forum like T2W making the wildest of claims and no one is any the wiser. This too is pointless and serves no purpose other than to wind up subscribers to the thread and to massage the ego of the member making the claims. So, with my opening comments in mind, I think there does need to be a balance. For me, that is provided by the member concerned offering some form of explanation regarding their trading methodology. I understand and accept fully that they might not want to go into detail, but there's a lot of info' that can be provided without running the risk of exposing their edge. E.g. markets traded, timeframe(s), TA or FA based (or a mix), indicators used - if any etc. A willingness to engage with fellow members and provide some insights into their trading practice is necessary in order to establish a degree of credibility in the eyes of the membership and to increase the probability of them gaining something of value in the way that you have in this case.
Tim.

Agreed. I do a lot of testing, something I learned from Software development, it can be overkill sometimes but in retrospect, waiting another month to come out with my guns blazing has always been a wise decision. No matter how well you have a system pinned down or how many variables you planned for there is always an x-factor that shows up in live trading. Sometimes it can be a deal-breaker, sometimes it's a bump in the road you can roll past.

Right now my x-factor is slippage. 1 or 2 pips can make a big difference on these smaller time frames and there are trades that hit my target level but do not trip the wire. So far, these are losses I can easily absorb with my winnings but that doesnt mean i want to! The saving grace is that I'm using a tried and true system, so I have confidence to start with and know it's percentages. Oh well, we'll see how it goes!

 

[timsk]

Right now my x-factor is slippage. 1 or 2 pips can make a big difference on these smaller time frames and there are trades that hit my target level but do not trip the wire. So far, these are losses I can easily absorb with my winnings but that doesnt mean i want to! The saving grace is that I'm using a tried and true system, so I have confidence to start with and know it's percentages. Oh well, we'll see how it goes!

Hi lbranjord,
Sounds good.
Re. your slippage - I take it you've tried limit orders and they'vev not worked out for some reason?
Tim.