Just came back to my blog after my long absence!
Never realized it, but time flew by so fast!

It has been a whole frigging year since I last posted. And traded for that matter.
Looks like I gotta buck up for my plans to become a millionaire eh?
I wonder if my past indicators are still relevant today.

Looks like I gotta dust off my laptop to open and read my trades again.

OK, since my last post here, I have been doing demo trades, backtesting and trying to design my own trading strategy.

The one that I am going to post, is so far the most successful one I have to date.
I am sure I am not alone when I say that it is difficult to find a trading strategy that works ALL the time.

And depending on the risk appetite and trading habits of the individual, each trading strategy developed thru experience is unique to that individual.

What I want to do is to share the trading strategy that I am currently using, and hopefully, be able to generate a healthy dose of discussion with regards to developing your own strategy. Again, I must add the disclaimer that I am sharing for information purpose only. What may work for me, may not work for you.

I will try to attempt to put my system in words.

So far, this system has worked well for me. And trading on my account, it is more profitable than most of the other systems I have tried.

The only problem to my system rite now that I am facing, is to put in a reasonable SL to ensure that you can ride the throw backs prior to the completion of the trend that you entered your trade in.

You can use any time period for this method. And it can be used on most of the major 4 currency pairs. I have yet to test it on cross currency pairs though. But it should work as well.

************************************
On the chart, set up the following indicators:
1) Bollinger bands at period 20, sd 2.5 (color the center line Gold)
2) Bollinger bands at period 20, sd 1.0
3) ADX 8, DI+ 13, DI- 13
4) RSI 18 Levels 75, 50, 25

Long Entry Setup MUST include all the following conditions
- When the candle closes above the gold line
- RSI crosses above 50
- ADX slopes upwards to show a trend
- DI+ above DI-
(Best if the bollinger bands are opening!)

Short Entry Setup MUST include all the following conditions
- When the candle closes below the gold line
- RSI crosses below 50
- ADX slopes upwards to show a trend
- DI- above DI+
(Best if the bollinger bands are opening!)

Exit on either of the following (at the close of the candle)
- When the ADX upward slope changes direction
- When the RSI changes direction
- When the candle closes with>60% body below the sd1.0 line.
************************************

Using the above set up, I usually put a SL of 30 pips and a TP of 30 pips as well.

The SL is not the optimum value yet. Cos during my usage of this system in the past month, I get a few pre-mature closing of my trades due to throw backs.

What I did was to achieve more profitable trades, is to adjust my SL and my TP as the trade progresses.
At the beginning, I will set up the SL=30 pips and TP=30 pips.
If the subsequent candle opens above the wick of the previous one, I will move my SL to 1 pip above the last close value, and shift my TP 10 pips up.
(eg, for a long set up, if the previous candle closes at 100 with a wick of 110, and the current candle opens at 112, I will adjust my SL to 101 and shift my TP up 10 pips.)
I will continue to adjust my SL till I reach the point where my SL= my entry price. There after, keep adjusting the TP up 10 pips till the exit condition is met OR till the trade closes at the TP i set.

So far, my max profit from using this system in one single trade is 80 pips on the 5 min chart.

Any feedback with regards to the above strategy is most welcome and appreciated.
And best, if you too can share your trading strategy with me.

Looks like another week of no trades.

Looking at the charts, there have been only side way movements. And when there is a trend happening, I am at work and not able to ride the trends to make some profits!

The period that I can monitor the charts, the USD/JPY pair is moving literally sideways, with too little pips movements to allow my system to find an entry point.

Sigh... :g: Looks like i have to look at other currency pairs or refine my system to see if I can do better at the pair that I am monitoring.

Been spending so much time on forex that I literally forgot all about my PTPs and PTCs programs.
The only few cents I managed to earn the last few weeks are on mylot.
And that ain't enough to reach payout either.
Hmm... looks like money management is not enough. I need better time management as well!

This is a grip post!
I tell you, if there is some one who outta be screwed, it is Murphy and his laws!
Things are always like that. When you want to do something, there will be a ton of other things that will pop up to take up your time and away from the thing you planned to do.

This is exactly what happened to me the past week.
I sit down and want to do some trades. And then something else will come up that has higher priority that requires my attention.
Day after day. Barely could monitor the market for the whole week.

Sigh... not much activity on the trading front. Did some reading and tweaked my trading system a little. I will try to do some trades with the new system and see if they are better than the one I previously had.

Hopefully this week, I will be able to concentrate on some trading!

Well, the start of a new week yesterday.
After my last trades created a margin call on my demo account, I could no longer trade on that account as it has left me with too little to even make a 0.10 lot trade.

So I started the week with a new demo account.

Last night was S-L-O-W on the USD/JPY front!
The movement of the chart was literally sideways!
With peaks of 20 pips between the max and min, minus the spread, there is only about 17-18 pips to play with.
And sitting down in front of the computer for a few hours, the chart was literally creeping up and down the min and max boundary. Most of the time, the max movement is about 5-12 pips.
Considering the movement between the min and max, and the sideways movement, it is near impossible to trade.

Ended up with a wasted night of not putting any trades.

May have to consider looking at other currency pair. I wonder if my current indicators will work with other currency pairs or not. Will have to experiment to know for sure.

Wish me luck for tonight!

Well, this is the progress I made over the last few days.

I have been reading a lot of Forex material in between trades.
And one thing that all the material is saying is to create your own system.
And once you create it, trust it and believe in it and follow it!
Well, this is my result for Tuesday.
Tuesday, 2009-06-02

Trade Type	Lot size	Enter @	Closed @	Pips Gained
buy	0.10	96.56	96.52	-4.14
sell	0.10	96.42	96.41	1.04
buy	0.10	96.40	96.55	15.54
sell	0.10	96.45	96.30	15.58
sell	0.30	95.56	95.92	-112.59
buy	0.10	95.80	95.95	15.63
buy	0.10	95.93	95.93	0.00
			Total pips gain	-68.94

I was doing pretty well for the beginning part. And I was glad.
So while waiting for the next set up, I was exploring the various limits that my mini account could allow me.
Then I spotted a entry set up. Thinking, there could be no harm to try and see if I can play more lots. So I bought me the maximum number of lots my fund size allowed me.
Yep, 0.03 lots is all my account can do right now. And that was enough to do a lot of damaged.
The trade went in my direction at first. Then it did a horrible reversal on me!
Wanting to cut my losses, I quickly try to close the trade!
To my horror, I got a "Server Busy... Trade not closed"!
So I tried again, keeping my eye on the trade, looking at the losing pips increasing all the time.
Again, it was a "Server Busy... Trade not closed"!
I prayed, and hope that the next one will close.
SO I tried again. To my horror, the chart suddenly trended, and did a long of 20 pips. Just when the 20 pips hit, my trade closed!
I almost died of a heart attack!
Lost 37 pips! 3 times the number of lots I usually played. Total loss, -112 pips!

I am thanking my lucky stars this is a demo account.

One expensive lesson learnt! Trust my system and DO NOT BE GREEDY!

From now on, only one lot at a time till I can double my initial fund size!


Well, after that last big loss, I was licking my wounds from that bashing.
This is the result of the trades for Wednesday.
Wednesday, 2009-06-03

Trade Type	Lot size	Enter @	Closed @	Pips Gained
sell	0.10	95.53	95.73	-20.89
buy	0.10	95.75	95.90	15.64
			Total pips gain	5.25

Well, the first one trade went in the direction I wanted in the beginning. Then it did a reversal. Thinking it was just a fluatuation of price, I let it run. My stop loss of 20 pips was triggered before my take profit was realized.
Another one bites the dust.
Ah well, so I waited. And did another trade later on which gained me 15 pips.
Minimized my losses. Not too bad. Was too tired to trade further. So I ended the day with two trades only.


Sigh... another day of losing trades. This is how I fared Today.
So far two trades...
Thursday, 2009-06-04

Trade Type	Lot size	Enter @	Closed @	Pips Gained
buy	0.10	96.79	96.59	-20.71
sell	0.10	96.73	96.73	0.00
			Total pips gain	-20.71

First trade did a total reversal on me after I entered it. Thinking it was a fluctuation, I let the trade run. Hit my stop loss before I could do anything.
Sigh... Looks like it is gonna be another losing day for me.
Spotted another entry set up. And I took it! Guess what? Yes... another reversal.
I am in no form to trade any further.
SO I sat by the sidelines today. And on the side lines I will stay till I can spot another entry set up.
But given my performance from the last few days, I am not very confident.

Three days of unsuccessful trading is all it took to wipe out what ever winnings I may have earned in the first day of trading.
Sigh...
I will try to do some back testing this weekend to see where I have gone wrong.
And hopefully, next week, I can come back stronger than I did this week!

As tomorrow is the day where the US Economic Report is going to be released, I am planning not trade tomorrow as the markets will be too erratic.
My skills have not been honed to that extend yet.
But I will monitor the charts anyways. Maybe, maybe I will just put in a trade or two if I am confident enough.
Given my losing streak the past few days, I am not that sure though.

Let's just see what the charts say tomorrow eh?

The week began pretty good.
When I opened my account yesterday, I found a trend. In fact, there were two pretty long trends yesterday based on the 5 min charts.

Trading the USD/JPY.
Strategy: Trading the 30min chart, using the 5 min and 1 min chart to decide whether to re-enter to ride the trend, or to hold back my trades.
TP and SL is as stated in my previous post.
Using the Bollinger bands and the Stochastic as my indicators.

The results for the first day of trade are as follows:

Trade Type	Lot size	Enter @	Closed @	Pips Gained
buy	0.10	95.65	95.80	15.66
buy	0.10	95.82	95.97	15.63
buy	0.10	95.96	96.11	15.61
buy	0.10	96.12	96.27	15.58
buy	0.10	96.32	96.47	15.55
buy	0.10	96.52	96.67	15.52
buy	0.10	96.68	96.56	-12.43
sell	0.10	96.55	96.40	15.56
			Total pips gain	96.68

Had to close one lot manually as the trade I entered did a total reversal on me. Rather than ride it out, I did a manual close to cut my losses. And I was glad I did. Saved me a good 8 pips! Cos the price when even lower after that!
Phew! :heh:

Not bad for a first day of the month. A positive figure to wrap up the day.
I hope I can continue to spot the trends correctly!

Today, the market seems a little quiet.
Been at the comp for almost two hours already. Still cannot find a good set up to enter a trade.
Ah well... more reading then. :)