Thanks for reading more of my blog! I was going to write lots about how I feel about trading, then realised that nobody really cares how my emotions are, it's all about dollars, cents, pips and trends. So I've written a tiny bit on that and tried to keep it interesting for the most part. So there's blah about feelings to do with trading first and then I actually explain what has happened over the past couple of weeks to my fund and what I expect over the next couple of weeks.
When I started trading back in September last year and began to experience what I considered to be almost run away success with my small fund, I had a feeling of invincibility - as if I was talented and could beat the market at whatever game it wanted to play. Since the start of the New Year, that has changed quite substantially and I have been woken up to the fact that being able to hack it for a couple of months simply isn't good enough.
As a result I have had to restart my trading, change my rules, suffer for not sticking to them time and time again, as well as re-evaluate what I thought about the market and how it behaves, essentially how I behave. It has been a rollercoaster six or seven months but now I am giving up trading... NO! I'm joking, giving up when I haven't really been beaten would be an awful move. I really enjoy trading, even though it seems like I am losing money, it isn't the end of the world - every cent I lose is a more valuable lesson than the ones I gain from when I make money. I have unfortunately been set back to a point where I am $20 behind where my most recent attempt started.
Enough profound stuff, I'm talking numbers now. I was out of the market for basically the whole of February and some of March. I jumped back in after my ~$900 drawdown of January/early Feb with a mere $200 on Monday 18th March. That means I have been trading for about three weeks and three days. In that time I've gone from $216, down to $208 due to some stop/loss experimentation that didn't go my way and then over the next two weeks shot to $300. Unfortunately that's where I stopped as some of my positions got slighty ahead of me. ANYWAY you can imagine how it happened that I drew down some pennies last Friday and hit $180. I know, far from impressive. Far from satisfactory too!
I have decided to alter my strategy once again, so that while I can now incorporate stop losses, I do so at a loss level that I don't mind taking on every so often but that won't be every other trade as it was a couple of weeks ago. I made around eighteen trades, only five of which hit their profit limits before hitting their stop limits (that's five profitable trades out of eighteen) - those trades totalled a profit of $4.43 - average of +$0.886 per trade. The loss positions, of which there were twelve, totalled -$15.14!! An average of -$1.26 per position. Obviously that's a pretty awful ratio to have unless you're trying to lose money.
After I saw this, I threw stop/losses out the window and traded how I used to again - the problem being that because I am working at the moment I am unable to devote even a quarter of the time I used to, to watching the markets and adjusting my positions etc. Here's the maths before last Friday. I had ~107 trades. 103 profitable at an average of $1.01 each. Four negative, at an average of a -$1.58 loss per trade. The ratio there is just one bad trade for every twenty-five good trades that I made. Up to a point.
Unfortunately, not using stop losses or being willing to take a hit ever, like an idiot, I had three other positions open that on the Friday, netted around about a $100-120 loss. That wasn't fun.
I am using stop losses again now but am putting them further away so rather than a $1-2 hit, it will be $3-4 but hopefully much more rare. It should also put an end to ridiculous losses and if I can maintain my ratio of 25:1 then that would be even better.
I have definitely noticed the impact that my last margin call had on me - as well as the impact of working full time and not being able to watch the market very much apart from some evenings. I think around December I worked out my win:loss ratio and it was something like 75:1 - a ratio that I wish I could attain again.
Another problem I am having at the moment is reading the market - I assume I am struggling to trade on short time scales because this worked so well when it had 100% of my attention. So paying it less attention I should really work on longer time scales? In my eyes, the US is coming out of recession at a faster rate than the UK - so I would expect the $ to increase in strength and the £ to drop and the exchange rate to drop with it. I have been predominantly shorting GBPUSD over the past few weeks because that's what I see it most likely to do, yet sometimes when it seems most likely it does the opposite and jumps - I am confused by it at the moment and while I know it is stupid to try and "understand the market" I would at least like to remember how I was doing it before!
As for the next couple of weeks, I am expecting the exchange rate to bounce off the 1.524 mark and ultimately head towards 1.55. I have been reading a lot about it retracing what it did at the start of the year and frankly have had no success shorting it so far! Going LONG! I'll see in a couple weeks if I still have any money ;)
Anyway I have written a lot and am very grateful to you if you read to this point! I hope you enjoyed it and if you want me to give my opinion on anything then let me know, or if you just want to chat more then definitely tweet at me! Follow @fxamateurtrader and if you're on LinkdIn then get me on there too http://www.linkedin.com/pub/toby-golledge/5a/76a/24a?trk=shareFB
Thank you all so much -- your support is REALLY appreciated!!!! I'll go easy on the feelings stuff at the start next time!
Thursday 18 April 2013
Friday 29 March 2013
I've Been Gone For A While, But Now I'm Back!
Welcome to the first installation of this blog in a good couple of MONTHS! There has been such a long break as following my margin call a couple months ago I decided it would be better to take a step back from my trading, de-clutter my brain and wait before diving back in and potentially making the same mistakes again immediately. In anycase, I have stayed on Twitter and kept up my trading chatter with great anticipation towards getting back into it. I am glad to say I am finally back!
As some of you may know and as I mentioned above, I tweeted a little while ago about a margin call that I suffered which set me back from 930 USD (more or less) ultimately to 16 USD - a catastrophic failure by all proportions and view points. For the benefit of newbies here I have included below, a breif overview of my trading history (which may in fact also be of interest to those who have followed this blog from the start too as I haven't really summed it up for any of you in one dose so here it is!).
I began trading around two years ago with 160 USD, but because I was new and didn't know what I was doing as such I hit 200 USD balance, got too big for my boots and then lost all of it. I tried again with just 50 USD but such a small account was difficult while I was so inexperienced. Last September I began again with 200 USD. I regularly had "good days" of trading where I made 20-30 USD, but made only 9 losses on positions out of several hundred that were opened. My best trading day clocked up around (I believe) around 180-200 pips and over 250 USD profit.
By Christmas trading close I had finished with a balance of 1978 USD, not quite hitting my target of 2000 USD but I didn't worry about it too much. In the start of the new year I took up a new strategy, looking to maximise positions by setting larger profit limits and trying to time them better than before, beginning again with ~500 USD. Within a month I had built it to around ~978 USD but my strategy had flaws and I didn't follow the rules I had set out for myself. I had a margin call which many of my twitter followers supported me through and helped me figure out where I went wrong. For that I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your assistance before my call, at the time of it and ever since!
After a month and a half out of the market I have recently (so approx Monday 11th) jumped back in with a starting balance of 216 USD. In the first week I went down to 208 USD, but over the last two weeks I have reached a balance of 253 USD. I'm bringing it back how I did last year.
I very much enjoy trading and would very much like to increase the size of the funds I trade. My errors have made it quite a learning curve but I am conifdent in my trading and my ability. I have discussed investors etc in the past but absolutely realise it is better to build myself up to a good trading position and let others follow as I gain momentum.
At the moment I do not have a fully blown plan for what I expect from GBPUSD over the next few weeks though over the coming week, following Easter weekend, I expect to see it crash down from 1.52 towards 1.51 and further if this does happen. Alternatively if next week doesn't see a drop, it could be headed for 1.525 (to be honest I am not expecting it to head much further north than that). What I must itterate here is that I have learned over the past couple months not to identify myself needlessly as "bearish" or "bullish" on a more permanent basis. I am looking to take up the stance of several of my Twitter followers who, if the trend is bearish, they are bearish, and if the trend is bullish, they are bullish. There is no harm being "aimless" when that is what the market is. My new aim is simply to make 10 pips on my real account with every trade. If I can accomplish that with minimal losses then fantastic.
Things that I am very interested in new-wise at the moment is of course Cyprus, though that is further to the back of my mind, the ongoing US cuts from the Sequester (the first of which was yesterday, right before the Easter holidays) and the state of the Pound Sterling... Which let's be honest, doesn't look great at the moment in my opinion.
Fortunately I am also working full time now. I say "fortunately" as in, I am lucky to have found a job that pays in this economy! Unfortunately this takes a huge chunk out of the time I get to put towards trading. But again the upsides are that I can regularly increase the size of my fund, boosting me a little bit each month; it also means that I will not be immersed in the news to a point where trading-wise, it is unhealthy and I lose sight of what is going on which will actually have an effect on the market!
I tweeted earlier about the possibility of posting the details of a demo account on Twitter so that any one who is interested can log in and see exactly what I am doing any time they like and more importantly track my progress (or decline) at their leisure. Please let me know if you think this is a good idea - I am cautious as I don't know what kind of liabilities that leaves me open to or what I can do, other than tweet the trades I actually make, to prevent others from placing random trades and messing up the account. I would hope if I went ahead with the idea, that other traders especially would have a kind of mutual respect when it comes to a demo account to simply leave it be other than to see what I am doing. I trust you, don't worry, just want to see if anyone is interested first!
Okay, that's finally the end of my first update in quite a while! Now that I am trading again I will endeavour to update regularly and keep you all updated on my opinions and ideas etc. Please follow me on Twitter @fxamateurtrader - I always enjoy chatting about this stuff and will try to field any questions people have. Alternatively e-mail me at fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
Look forward to hearing your feedback, advice and opinions!! Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too long and that you enjoyed it.
Saturday 16 February 2013
What Doesn't Kill Your Will To Trade, Makes It Stronger.
Welcome to another addition to my blog - I hope that many of you who trade are doing well and particularly those who also trade GBPUSD. In this segment I am going to talk about my last installment and also this enormous downturn that GBPUSD has seen over the past month or so. I'd also like to mention a couple of other things such as how I plan to continue my trading and finally, how annoying some people on Twitter are, constantly trying to sell me things. Enjoy!
First things first, as I just said and as many readers will know, the dollar has been benefitting from a nice raly the last few months (i.e. has been getting stronger) and the pound sterling has dwindled. This has seen the exchange rate between the two drop from a several month high of 1.633 down to a current (Friday close of) 1.553. Those of you who follow my twitter and read the last installment on here will know that I have been bullish on the pound sterling and thought that it was actually going to turn around at 1.58... Then at 1.57... Then at 1.56... I have unfortunately seen a margin call due to this anti-trend mentality and the idea that I am good enough to foresee the turn around in the market. Since this happened last week I have spoken to several people about and they have been very helpful - one in particular has reminded me of something I had completely lost sight of; the market does what it wants, is only temporarily affected by news and it is often best to trade with the trend (reminded me of something I read a long time ago that said "the trend is your friend"). I would like to thank him again here for re-opening my eyes! In my trading so far I had become too concerned with the news that was circling my head and convinced that forex was much more like stocks - always looking to the news for direction etc.
Anyway the point is that I understand where I went wrong, know what I need to do to sort the situation out and have a plan for a comeback. I am going to put more of my time that I used to use on monitoring news and numbers towards chart analysis and seeing what has happened in the past and how the might affect trading now and later. Of course I am not going to be deterred - like many of you, I really enjoy trading and a set back like the one I have suffered, while significant, will not spell the end of my trading experience. It is just another step on the way to doing this in a more serious, full time manner (hopefully).
Hopefully none of you have made the same mistake I have and instead you have enjoyed the ride down from 1.63 profitting all of the way! I know some of you will be thinking "This is what stop losses are for, why didn't you use them?!" - my answer is that I do wish I had used them in this instance but in the past when I have been trading based on the trend and not news (for example when I had my rampant success at the start of my trading) whenever I used stop losses, I lost money at a rate faster than any other time. I shall continue without them but if I can imrpove my market entries more and more, then I will eventually consider them. On this occassion, my downfall was a combination of my inexperience, my focus on news and determination that I could predict the trend change, a downturn larger than any I have experience before while trading against the trend and finally, plain stupidity. Don't worry, I am working on them all!
That's a couple of points out the way, I'd also like to say that since I experienced the margin call, I have opened up to those of you who are predicting that the market may yet drop to below 1.53. I feel now though that is is genuinely nearing a stop for this decline and will soon rebound - I am going to need to look at charts and things for quite a while now though before I have some idea again of where my head should be at. We'll see. I said at the start that I would rant about some people on twitter constantly trying to sell forex robots, trading systems and other stuff often nothing to do with trading - basically that rant is here: it's really annoying. Yeah I didn't want to stray too far from forex chatter.
Finally, I am approaching a thousand followers on Twitter, really enjoying the feedback that I get on things I tweet - everyone who has re-tweeted me, replied to me, tweeted at me offering advice and talking to me off of Twitter (one or two on LinkedIn and one by e-mail), thanks VERY much for your guidance and support, you are all very useful to have in my trading arsenal. Hope you all enjoyed this bit of my blog and if you are here for the first time, I urge you to go back to my first posts and read more about where I was a month or so ago. Thanks ever so much for taking the time to read this and I hope you will be back for more in the future! Remember you can follow me and contact me @fxamateurtrader or e-mail fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk - feel free to get in contact, I will be happy to chat about anything trading related! Thank you!
First things first, as I just said and as many readers will know, the dollar has been benefitting from a nice raly the last few months (i.e. has been getting stronger) and the pound sterling has dwindled. This has seen the exchange rate between the two drop from a several month high of 1.633 down to a current (Friday close of) 1.553. Those of you who follow my twitter and read the last installment on here will know that I have been bullish on the pound sterling and thought that it was actually going to turn around at 1.58... Then at 1.57... Then at 1.56... I have unfortunately seen a margin call due to this anti-trend mentality and the idea that I am good enough to foresee the turn around in the market. Since this happened last week I have spoken to several people about and they have been very helpful - one in particular has reminded me of something I had completely lost sight of; the market does what it wants, is only temporarily affected by news and it is often best to trade with the trend (reminded me of something I read a long time ago that said "the trend is your friend"). I would like to thank him again here for re-opening my eyes! In my trading so far I had become too concerned with the news that was circling my head and convinced that forex was much more like stocks - always looking to the news for direction etc.
Anyway the point is that I understand where I went wrong, know what I need to do to sort the situation out and have a plan for a comeback. I am going to put more of my time that I used to use on monitoring news and numbers towards chart analysis and seeing what has happened in the past and how the might affect trading now and later. Of course I am not going to be deterred - like many of you, I really enjoy trading and a set back like the one I have suffered, while significant, will not spell the end of my trading experience. It is just another step on the way to doing this in a more serious, full time manner (hopefully).
Hopefully none of you have made the same mistake I have and instead you have enjoyed the ride down from 1.63 profitting all of the way! I know some of you will be thinking "This is what stop losses are for, why didn't you use them?!" - my answer is that I do wish I had used them in this instance but in the past when I have been trading based on the trend and not news (for example when I had my rampant success at the start of my trading) whenever I used stop losses, I lost money at a rate faster than any other time. I shall continue without them but if I can imrpove my market entries more and more, then I will eventually consider them. On this occassion, my downfall was a combination of my inexperience, my focus on news and determination that I could predict the trend change, a downturn larger than any I have experience before while trading against the trend and finally, plain stupidity. Don't worry, I am working on them all!
That's a couple of points out the way, I'd also like to say that since I experienced the margin call, I have opened up to those of you who are predicting that the market may yet drop to below 1.53. I feel now though that is is genuinely nearing a stop for this decline and will soon rebound - I am going to need to look at charts and things for quite a while now though before I have some idea again of where my head should be at. We'll see. I said at the start that I would rant about some people on twitter constantly trying to sell forex robots, trading systems and other stuff often nothing to do with trading - basically that rant is here: it's really annoying. Yeah I didn't want to stray too far from forex chatter.
Finally, I am approaching a thousand followers on Twitter, really enjoying the feedback that I get on things I tweet - everyone who has re-tweeted me, replied to me, tweeted at me offering advice and talking to me off of Twitter (one or two on LinkedIn and one by e-mail), thanks VERY much for your guidance and support, you are all very useful to have in my trading arsenal. Hope you all enjoyed this bit of my blog and if you are here for the first time, I urge you to go back to my first posts and read more about where I was a month or so ago. Thanks ever so much for taking the time to read this and I hope you will be back for more in the future! Remember you can follow me and contact me @fxamateurtrader or e-mail fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk - feel free to get in contact, I will be happy to chat about anything trading related! Thank you!
Sunday 3 February 2013
A Sterling Bull In A Bearish Market
Finally an update to my blog after a few weeks of silence! I have kept tweeting and giving my predictions and opinions while I have not been adding to this though; as some who follow me and read my tweets will have gathered I remain very much bullish on $GBPUSD (I hold the opinion that the exchange rate will go up), but I have not made any additions to this blog. I predominantly like to write about my actual trading, the progress I am making, big or important trades (to me) or what I am excited and worried about happening in the future. Unfortunately for reasons I shall explain, there has been a very reduced amount of trading for me and I seem to be in a state of waiting with a dash of anticipation and anxiety thrown in.
As many of you who do follow the markets will know, and soon those of you who do not follow the markets habitually will know also, the dollar has had quite a nice rally in the past few weeks, swinging from a several month high of 1.63 just before Christmas, to a 6 month low (or there abouts) of 1.567. During this swing, while I was short and wanted the exchange rate to fall, I was happy and trading was good. Unfortunately I only forsaw a drop to 1.585 at most and so from about 1.59 downwards, I have been expecting it to go back up / been bullish. This has yet to happen...
I have been bullish for a couple of reasons, the first of which is that I am British and therefore innately want Sterling to do well in order for my own life in this country to be better though when I have said this to others they have always said "But why do you care which is doing better, sterling or the dollar, you can make money either way?". I struggle to come up with an answer because that is the truth, I SHOULD be able to make money which ever currency is doing better because that is the whole point of trading. Unfortunately when I opened long positions, the market just fell straight through the bottom of them and continued down towards where it hit the buffers a few days ago, 1.567. So that's one reason I want the exchange rate to go up, however silly and existential to the market it may sound.
The second reason I am so, is because I don't see that the US economy is in any condition to regain strength against the pound to make the exchange rate drop any further. Yes jobs are being added, the nonfarm payrolls are being revised up and up and consumer confidence may be increasing but it seems as though people are being too short sighted in my opinion as to what is due to happen when the defict ceiling is reached (despite being delayed it will be "hit" sooner or later) and the US will have to make a move. It is highly unlikely it will default but to pay back debts in the middle of a recession (no it is not over yet) will definitely not be an appealing course of action as I am sure many can imagine. I simply see the economic picture as one where the UK has a much higher potential to pull itself back onto the rails of economic recovery before the US and see the pound sterling soar.
These are the main two reasons that I have been bullish and not anticipated a fall quite this large in the exchange rate; I have had one Twitter member discussing with me the possibility of the rate hitting 1.55 due to a mix of indicators and chart history etc, while this may be entirely possible I simply do not see it happening despite it only being a short way off. Personally, 1.65 seems more possible to me as even the low of 1.567 seemed a one day wonder as it struggled to push down the last cent of it and immediately bounced two cents back from it. The short blip back down towards 1.57 on Friday was unfortunate as I tweeted the day before that the climb was going to continue. Alas, fate must have seen this and thought that it would be fun to make me look like a bad predictor in front of my followers.
[ Before I continue, I have tried no end to understand a phenomena that struck the businessinsider.com website a couple of weeks ago but have failed at every turn. That is the story of the "Trillion Dollar Coin" and how coining one is meant to bring the US out of all it's problems, akin to the tale of the $100,000 note. I understand the basic idea and how it might work but I would like to understand the details so if anyone knows a good website for it or even just the basic principle of how it is meant to work and could let me know, that would be much appreciated. Despite the idea now having been apparently canned.]
So to bring this most recent addition to a close I would like to first off, say that over the coming weeks and possibly through February I am inclined to offer the prediction that the pound sterling is going to strengthen and the dollar, which I feel is very much over valued at the moment, will drop (even slightly) and we shall see the exchange rate slowly climb back above the week high of 1.586 and continue to see 1.60 and eventually tipping 1.61. I will of course re-evaluate my position upon seeing evidence that this is extrememly unlikely or in the case that we do indeed see a sub-1.55 level, but hopefully neither will happen...
Secondly, I have tweeted and followed my way to 855 followers on twitter (today) and a few hundred views of this blog and would like to make it abundantly clear that your support in reading this, reading my tweets, even just following me, is really appreciated and spurs me to put more effort into my trading and writing all the time. I value all the re-tweets and replies that I get and try to reply to them as fast as I can while still trying to do a bit of homework on each so I have a clear idea of what the discussion is about. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I hope you have enjoyed it and found it interesting!
Feel free to DM me or tweet at me and follow me @fxamatertrader or e-mail me for any longer points or discussions at fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk. I have recently also added to my twitter that I am available to connect on LinkedIn as I wish to expand my real network into the trading industry. You can connect with me as "other" or "friend" using my above hotmail - visit my profile at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/toby-golledge/5a/76a/24a?trk=shareFB
I look forward to hearing any opinions, predictions or topics that you wish to discuss with me - thanks for reading.
As many of you who do follow the markets will know, and soon those of you who do not follow the markets habitually will know also, the dollar has had quite a nice rally in the past few weeks, swinging from a several month high of 1.63 just before Christmas, to a 6 month low (or there abouts) of 1.567. During this swing, while I was short and wanted the exchange rate to fall, I was happy and trading was good. Unfortunately I only forsaw a drop to 1.585 at most and so from about 1.59 downwards, I have been expecting it to go back up / been bullish. This has yet to happen...
I have been bullish for a couple of reasons, the first of which is that I am British and therefore innately want Sterling to do well in order for my own life in this country to be better though when I have said this to others they have always said "But why do you care which is doing better, sterling or the dollar, you can make money either way?". I struggle to come up with an answer because that is the truth, I SHOULD be able to make money which ever currency is doing better because that is the whole point of trading. Unfortunately when I opened long positions, the market just fell straight through the bottom of them and continued down towards where it hit the buffers a few days ago, 1.567. So that's one reason I want the exchange rate to go up, however silly and existential to the market it may sound.
The second reason I am so, is because I don't see that the US economy is in any condition to regain strength against the pound to make the exchange rate drop any further. Yes jobs are being added, the nonfarm payrolls are being revised up and up and consumer confidence may be increasing but it seems as though people are being too short sighted in my opinion as to what is due to happen when the defict ceiling is reached (despite being delayed it will be "hit" sooner or later) and the US will have to make a move. It is highly unlikely it will default but to pay back debts in the middle of a recession (no it is not over yet) will definitely not be an appealing course of action as I am sure many can imagine. I simply see the economic picture as one where the UK has a much higher potential to pull itself back onto the rails of economic recovery before the US and see the pound sterling soar.
These are the main two reasons that I have been bullish and not anticipated a fall quite this large in the exchange rate; I have had one Twitter member discussing with me the possibility of the rate hitting 1.55 due to a mix of indicators and chart history etc, while this may be entirely possible I simply do not see it happening despite it only being a short way off. Personally, 1.65 seems more possible to me as even the low of 1.567 seemed a one day wonder as it struggled to push down the last cent of it and immediately bounced two cents back from it. The short blip back down towards 1.57 on Friday was unfortunate as I tweeted the day before that the climb was going to continue. Alas, fate must have seen this and thought that it would be fun to make me look like a bad predictor in front of my followers.
[ Before I continue, I have tried no end to understand a phenomena that struck the businessinsider.com website a couple of weeks ago but have failed at every turn. That is the story of the "Trillion Dollar Coin" and how coining one is meant to bring the US out of all it's problems, akin to the tale of the $100,000 note. I understand the basic idea and how it might work but I would like to understand the details so if anyone knows a good website for it or even just the basic principle of how it is meant to work and could let me know, that would be much appreciated. Despite the idea now having been apparently canned.]
So to bring this most recent addition to a close I would like to first off, say that over the coming weeks and possibly through February I am inclined to offer the prediction that the pound sterling is going to strengthen and the dollar, which I feel is very much over valued at the moment, will drop (even slightly) and we shall see the exchange rate slowly climb back above the week high of 1.586 and continue to see 1.60 and eventually tipping 1.61. I will of course re-evaluate my position upon seeing evidence that this is extrememly unlikely or in the case that we do indeed see a sub-1.55 level, but hopefully neither will happen...
Secondly, I have tweeted and followed my way to 855 followers on twitter (today) and a few hundred views of this blog and would like to make it abundantly clear that your support in reading this, reading my tweets, even just following me, is really appreciated and spurs me to put more effort into my trading and writing all the time. I value all the re-tweets and replies that I get and try to reply to them as fast as I can while still trying to do a bit of homework on each so I have a clear idea of what the discussion is about. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I hope you have enjoyed it and found it interesting!
Feel free to DM me or tweet at me and follow me @fxamatertrader or e-mail me for any longer points or discussions at fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk. I have recently also added to my twitter that I am available to connect on LinkedIn as I wish to expand my real network into the trading industry. You can connect with me as "other" or "friend" using my above hotmail - visit my profile at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/toby-golledge/5a/76a/24a?trk=shareFB
I look forward to hearing any opinions, predictions or topics that you wish to discuss with me - thanks for reading.
Tuesday 15 January 2013
Followers, Fluctuations and Finances.
I would like to say that I am astonished at the support I get from other Twitter users in my trading quite notably from @SteveMarshall13 a trader much like myself who is on a learning curve towards being a pro trader, along with a couple of others @SP_FX13, @TheForexTradeRoom1 and @TheFXWhisper. All of whom have supported me by discussing things like trends, indicators and what we hope to gain from our trading along with a few retweets which I am very grateful for (and will try to do more often for you lot too! I tend to like things in my head and forget to let anyone know). Having raced through the 600 followers mark and made good headway to 650 over the weekend I am really excited about the support that you all give me and the confidence that instills in me for my trading.
Fluctuations - I just wanted to talk about market movement and make the title alliterate. Anyway I like the motions of the market at the moment, over the last week or two as well. While they have not been uber predictable, GBPUSD seems to be trading within certain limits that are not being shaken as there is no big economic news out. No deficit ceiling for a couple months, the fiscal cliff is past us and trading isn't being disrupted every two days by Christmas (despite it being a welcome break). Saying this, I am hoping that my words aren't going to come back and bite me by having the market hit 1.59 or 1.63 in the next week - I highly highly doubt it will; I have my sights set on just below 1.60 by the end of this week. The limits that I see as being support and resistance are 1.60115 (there abouts) and 1.617 (ish). While it is staying in these ranges I am not worried about opening positions and am able to do so with some confidence that if I open a long at 1.603, it isn't going to just keep going down but instead I can be relatively sure the market will go up within a day or so of opening the position. I hope everyone else is having a similar experience and finding the predictability of the market relatively easy.
Finally, I just wanted to update you as to my progress this year. As you may have read from past instalments in this blog, I began trading after Christmas with a balance of 512 USD. I am very pleased to say that I have been making good progress with my new trading strategy, taking longer in my trades and putting in more thought. I have re-reached (as in reached for the second time) 800 USD. Very pleased with this and as I tweeted the other day I banked 355 pips profit - I was very happy about that!
This is an unofficial last point as it doesn't alliterate with the title: predictions. I want to see the market pushing the 1.60 boundary at the end of this week and will be retisent to open any long positions that are of any substantial value. I am counting much more on shorts than longs for profit. Of course my opinions and predictions seem to change every day with constant news of economies and data being released etc... A nightmare if you are trying to take my predictions into account along with your own but I can tweet my MOST confident trade opinions if that would be better for everyone.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Tweet @fxamateurtrader and I will reply as soon as I can and welcome any support etc or guidlines that you wish to offer me. Alternatively DM me or e-mail me at fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
Good luck with all your trading!!
Fluctuations - I just wanted to talk about market movement and make the title alliterate. Anyway I like the motions of the market at the moment, over the last week or two as well. While they have not been uber predictable, GBPUSD seems to be trading within certain limits that are not being shaken as there is no big economic news out. No deficit ceiling for a couple months, the fiscal cliff is past us and trading isn't being disrupted every two days by Christmas (despite it being a welcome break). Saying this, I am hoping that my words aren't going to come back and bite me by having the market hit 1.59 or 1.63 in the next week - I highly highly doubt it will; I have my sights set on just below 1.60 by the end of this week. The limits that I see as being support and resistance are 1.60115 (there abouts) and 1.617 (ish). While it is staying in these ranges I am not worried about opening positions and am able to do so with some confidence that if I open a long at 1.603, it isn't going to just keep going down but instead I can be relatively sure the market will go up within a day or so of opening the position. I hope everyone else is having a similar experience and finding the predictability of the market relatively easy.
Finally, I just wanted to update you as to my progress this year. As you may have read from past instalments in this blog, I began trading after Christmas with a balance of 512 USD. I am very pleased to say that I have been making good progress with my new trading strategy, taking longer in my trades and putting in more thought. I have re-reached (as in reached for the second time) 800 USD. Very pleased with this and as I tweeted the other day I banked 355 pips profit - I was very happy about that!
This is an unofficial last point as it doesn't alliterate with the title: predictions. I want to see the market pushing the 1.60 boundary at the end of this week and will be retisent to open any long positions that are of any substantial value. I am counting much more on shorts than longs for profit. Of course my opinions and predictions seem to change every day with constant news of economies and data being released etc... A nightmare if you are trying to take my predictions into account along with your own but I can tweet my MOST confident trade opinions if that would be better for everyone.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Tweet @fxamateurtrader and I will reply as soon as I can and welcome any support etc or guidlines that you wish to offer me. Alternatively DM me or e-mail me at fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
Good luck with all your trading!!
Thursday 10 January 2013
Quick cover of TopTradr, Friday expectations and my strategy
I wrote about the TopTradr competition a while back and just realised that I never explained what the outcome was. In the end we finished around 84th place or so because we did not trade in the last two weeks of the competition - I was paying all my time and attention to my proper trading account as we came into December and things were recovering from the aftermath of the US Election. At one point near the start we reached 6th place which was very impressive but after a while of hanging around 10th we eventually fell way down! It was unfortunate that I was not able to put more time into it and that we fell so far back at the end but at the time my real money was far more important! It was very fun competing and I am looking forward to the next competition of a similar strain.
I like the current patterns coming out in the graphs for GBPUSD as it seems to be moving a relatively predictable cent up, then a cent down within the next two days. I am looking to see a repeat of the start of this week tomorrow (Friday) and to see the price come from 1.615 ish down back towards 1.60. I like making predictions but I do hope that if anyone reads them thinking they sound promising they realise that they really are amateur predictions and are highly likely to be wrong! They may come true over the course of a week or so but I am sure that many do not want to wait that long. When someone predicts something you want it to happen immediately really don't you.
Other than this there isn't much to say at the moment about my trading though I am meaning to look at the records from the first time I past 500 USD to see how my new strategy compares dollar-to-days worth. Was it better to make hundreds of small trades that each profited quickly or is it better to make a few choice trades that make substantial amounts more (in comparison). I will crunch the numbers and get back to you!
I know it wasn't a very exciting section but I hope you enjoyed reading and keep you eyes peeled for the next installment. Thanks very much and feel free to contact me Twitter @fxamateurtrader or fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
I like the current patterns coming out in the graphs for GBPUSD as it seems to be moving a relatively predictable cent up, then a cent down within the next two days. I am looking to see a repeat of the start of this week tomorrow (Friday) and to see the price come from 1.615 ish down back towards 1.60. I like making predictions but I do hope that if anyone reads them thinking they sound promising they realise that they really are amateur predictions and are highly likely to be wrong! They may come true over the course of a week or so but I am sure that many do not want to wait that long. When someone predicts something you want it to happen immediately really don't you.
Other than this there isn't much to say at the moment about my trading though I am meaning to look at the records from the first time I past 500 USD to see how my new strategy compares dollar-to-days worth. Was it better to make hundreds of small trades that each profited quickly or is it better to make a few choice trades that make substantial amounts more (in comparison). I will crunch the numbers and get back to you!
I know it wasn't a very exciting section but I hope you enjoyed reading and keep you eyes peeled for the next installment. Thanks very much and feel free to contact me Twitter @fxamateurtrader or fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
Tuesday 8 January 2013
In with the new and out with the old.
Thanks to all my readers for your continued support, I would just like to talk a bit about my new trading strategy. As some of you very supportive readers will know from reading past sections of this blog, in this New Year I have decided to change my trading strategy to a slow and steady method rather than quick and hastey.
Since I started trading last September I have been trading many small positions and taking profits as they arise - closing positions without worrying about letting them hit any "profit targets" or anything. Through this time, my profit targets were "any positive numbers" and it would only be due to the positions profiting while I am not looking or there being a strong trend in my favour that would result in a position making more than a couple of dollars. For example, a common occurence in my trading was to close a position (that may cost 4.50 USD) to take JUST 12 cents profit, or 50 cents profit. Several others asked me why I didn't just let the positions ride and make more but I told them that the reason for it was that I would rather be garuanteed 50 cents profit there and then, allowing my to open other positions, rather than wait and potentially not make any profit and struggling to break even.
If you were to look at my trading records you would see literally hundreds of positions taking small profits (with one or two more adventurous positions taking 10, 20 or on one occassion 70 USD). As time went on and my balance increased of course I was able to book bigger profits but this was purely because the positions themselves were bigger - so it was still that case that a position that cost 50 USD to open would only actually make 4 or 5 USD. This was a strategy that I was happy with as a beginner and it was very profitable for me as I had the time to dedicate to it - watching the markets most of the day and ensuring I was there to catch all the biggest opportunities. It takes a long time and a lot of trades to quadruple your money when you're making 1 or 2% on each trade.
Incidentally, I wanted to switch it up as I came into the New Year - I have adopted a method that some friends and many traders use whereby you open the position at what you consider to be the most opportune time and set a profit target and just wait for it to close before making your next move. So far instead of returning 1 or 2% on each trade it has been typically at least 50% which of course is a marked improvment! I am placing my trades as best I can and will hopefully continue to benefit from trading with the trend rather than against it or trying to anticipate it's turn around etc.
This week seems to be quite nicely up then down then up again, relatively predictable and easy to trade on - how likely this is to continue I don't know but I think it will go steeply up towards the end of the week. Please do let me know your own opinions though! I am saying that I expect the GBPUSD to go up because I have long positions open and am waiting for them to come in. Some are going to come in around 1.609 others are aimed at around 1.615. Either way I expect to see both. Next week could be much of the same though at the moment of writing I have not checked Bank Dates or what big pieces of information is due out from the US and UK. Good luck to all of you in your trading and remember to let me know your opinions on Twitter @fxamateurtrader or e-mail me at fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
Just so you know, my new trading strategy is bringing profits in far faster than my old strategy but I would not have been comfortable trading like this when I first started - I was far more eager to just grab any profits I could!! Double check your own strategy to see if there are any ways you could improve and see what changing it does for you! Thanks for reading!
Since I started trading last September I have been trading many small positions and taking profits as they arise - closing positions without worrying about letting them hit any "profit targets" or anything. Through this time, my profit targets were "any positive numbers" and it would only be due to the positions profiting while I am not looking or there being a strong trend in my favour that would result in a position making more than a couple of dollars. For example, a common occurence in my trading was to close a position (that may cost 4.50 USD) to take JUST 12 cents profit, or 50 cents profit. Several others asked me why I didn't just let the positions ride and make more but I told them that the reason for it was that I would rather be garuanteed 50 cents profit there and then, allowing my to open other positions, rather than wait and potentially not make any profit and struggling to break even.
If you were to look at my trading records you would see literally hundreds of positions taking small profits (with one or two more adventurous positions taking 10, 20 or on one occassion 70 USD). As time went on and my balance increased of course I was able to book bigger profits but this was purely because the positions themselves were bigger - so it was still that case that a position that cost 50 USD to open would only actually make 4 or 5 USD. This was a strategy that I was happy with as a beginner and it was very profitable for me as I had the time to dedicate to it - watching the markets most of the day and ensuring I was there to catch all the biggest opportunities. It takes a long time and a lot of trades to quadruple your money when you're making 1 or 2% on each trade.
Incidentally, I wanted to switch it up as I came into the New Year - I have adopted a method that some friends and many traders use whereby you open the position at what you consider to be the most opportune time and set a profit target and just wait for it to close before making your next move. So far instead of returning 1 or 2% on each trade it has been typically at least 50% which of course is a marked improvment! I am placing my trades as best I can and will hopefully continue to benefit from trading with the trend rather than against it or trying to anticipate it's turn around etc.
This week seems to be quite nicely up then down then up again, relatively predictable and easy to trade on - how likely this is to continue I don't know but I think it will go steeply up towards the end of the week. Please do let me know your own opinions though! I am saying that I expect the GBPUSD to go up because I have long positions open and am waiting for them to come in. Some are going to come in around 1.609 others are aimed at around 1.615. Either way I expect to see both. Next week could be much of the same though at the moment of writing I have not checked Bank Dates or what big pieces of information is due out from the US and UK. Good luck to all of you in your trading and remember to let me know your opinions on Twitter @fxamateurtrader or e-mail me at fxamateurtraderuk@hotmail.co.uk
Just so you know, my new trading strategy is bringing profits in far faster than my old strategy but I would not have been comfortable trading like this when I first started - I was far more eager to just grab any profits I could!! Double check your own strategy to see if there are any ways you could improve and see what changing it does for you! Thanks for reading!
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