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2010 : Time for a New Year Resolution….

January 8, 2010 at 5:41 am · Filed under >> Basket Trading System, >> forex expert advisor reviews

if this is your first time reading this blog, i would guess that you have just been bitten by the “get rich trading with an Expert Advisor” bug.  no offense though… as i’ve been bitten as well… too many times in fact :O)

Time to Reflect

got my first bite in early 2007 after the conclusion of the Automated Trading Championship 2006.  that’s 3 years ago.  nowadays, whenever i see one of those emails or ads that say “Double your money every single month!“, it makes me wonder if there are still people out there who belief such ludicrous claims.

after realising that most of the commercial stuff out there are crap, i went on a journey of searching… and later attempted to build… to see if there was indeed a way to achieve 100% ROI a month.  saw some promising results from a couple of EAs that came my way, but they either could not perform consistently, or the creator just vanished and stopped responding to my emails… still wondering why… :O)

worked with a few talented traders, and the best we could confidently achieve (still testing) was 5% - 10% per month with reasonable risks, which was very good ROI IMO.  the more i dabbled into the EA business, the more i understood why real winning systems will never be sold.  intellectual property concerns and lucrative earnings from trading activity are just 2 of them.  you’re more likely to see them being marketed in other creative ways.

Trading for a Living

…more accurately, i was disillusioned by the thought of an EA trading “FOR” my living :O)  i realised that it takes a lot more than just buying an EA off the shelf.  even with a truly profitable mechanical manual trading strategy, automating it and keeping it constantly optimised to make consistent profits is probably going to take as much time as trading it manually.  very challenging, but not impossible :O)  manual trading has taken center stage for me lately, after being exposed to a few strategies and approaches to trading that all seem to point in the same direction : (1) money management, (2) trade with the trend, (3) don’t chase the price, and (4) the importance of knowing currency strength*

Continuous Learning

is there an end to learning?  i guess not.  a very successful trader that i know who have been at it for over 25 years swears by it.  he researches extensively, and keeps refining and innovating to stay ahead of the game.  but who are we really up against?

anyway, 2009 has been a year of learning and growing for me.  objective was to be able to trade independently, and to be consistently profitable month after month.  i’m not there yet, but i can feel i’m getting close :O)  ego aside, discipline is one of the key areas i really need to work on.

Basket Trading System

as my first “investment” in my continual trading education in 2010, i’ll be traveling 360km north across the border with 18 other trading friends to attend a seminar by Mr Julius Figueroa (aka Trader101).  revealing his Basket Trading Strategy in ForexFactory back in Sep 2008, it has received many accolades from traders all over.  it’s neither technical nor fundamental…. it’s trading what price is showing, with an emphasis on currency strength and an innovative way to detect when its likely to change.  18th Jan 2010… a date i’m really looking forward to :O)

New Goals for 2010

…and time to review 2009 as well :O)  i’ve not achieved my 2009 goal of becoming a full time trader, but i did trade and did nothing else for a short duration last year which probably doesn’t count :O)  i’m not giving up, although my perspective towards trading full time has changed.  personally, it’s not about how much time one spends trading, but more about how well one can trade while living a well balanced life.

(1) family, (2) career, and (3) making baskets of money at the same time!  these will be my areas of focus this year.  these goals will need to be well defined and precise… so that’s what i’m going to do.  i’ve got till Chinese New Year - that’s 14th Feb… yes… i’m buying time :O)  if you have not set your own 2010 goals yet, i hope you are glad to know that you still have some days left before Chinese New Year arrives :O)

Happy New Year Everyone!

:O)

buy ck a coffee :O)

  • Naah new years resolution actually depends on the person. If the person is really disciplined and determined to achieve his/her goal then the resolution will come true. Otherwise it's just nonsense.
  • I hope you're doing well with your new goals and resolutions for 2010. May we all have prosperity this year.
  • You should also make it a point to follow your New Year's Resolution. Never allow yourself to recycle Resolution's each year, because this is a very bad habit and even though this isn't really degrading but this will have a great impact on how you view things.
  • I find it interesting to know that some people are still actually lured into bogus claims about doubling their money overnight. Nevertheless, your experience should set as an example to others so that they may not experience the same thing as you did.
  • Really good work about this website was done. Keep trying more - thanks!
  • dr zeus
    Hey good luck to you. I messed around with the Basket Trading Strategy for a while, but found it too confusing. It seems like it should work though.

    Tell me about your grid trading - why wasn't that working for you? I've given up on EAs pretty much. I do subscribe to a private group that develops EAs, but in two years everything that's come out has failed eventually, and none of them do better than my manual systems.

    I've got two manual systems for you to think about:

    1. Low leverage grid in the direction of price movement.

    So you have a short grid below the price, and a long grid above the price. Pick a S/R point to start from if you like, it tends to work out better. Hedging brokers are helpful that way you don't have to watch the trades and re-enter them when the price whipsaws and you get both long and shorts. Alternatively (this is what I do) go short on one pair and long on another pair, as long as they are highly correlated.

    I use 20-25 pip spacing, and 1:1 or less leverage per entry. I closed down the grid when I'm using half or more of my available margin and I feel like price is no longer moving my direction. I'll sit at 5% - 10% - 15% drawdown for days though, so you may consider even lower leverage if that concerns you. I've traded this successfully in demo since last summer, and live since the beginning of December. As of this week I have doubled my live account.


    2. Take one trade per day.

    I have a long account, and a short account. In the morning on Monday, I short everything in the short account, and a long everything in the long account. On Tuesday morning I close the losers, and then add another entry for every winner that's made more than a certain dollar amount. On Wednesday - Friday, I repeat Tuesday's actions. If one of my trades has move against me by a certain dollar amount, then I close all of the trades for that pair.

    This is still a work in progress since I'm not sure how large my entries should be, or what dollar amount I need to use to re-enter the trade. I haven't run it long enough or consistently enough to give you an idea of what the returns around, but it appears to be about 3-5% per week using 0.1:1 leverage per entry.

    Conclusion:

    As you can tell, I'm a trend trader. Heck, I'm practically a trend investor since my trades last so long. :-) I use no SL or TP, although it might help my returns if I did. Essentially, I'm too lazy to figure out where to place them at so I just close down the trades when price action looks like an "L" shape (stopped moving, that is).
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