Currency Chat

[Trendfinders]

LOL all a matter of lots...pips is pips...hehe...Nite sherri

[SherriT]

Yep - if those pips can pay the bills anyway. I don't think "two-fiddy" is going to do much anywhere except possibly McDonalds or the ice cream truck

....unless the decimal is AFTER two zeros

Good luck trading tonight all! See you tomorrow!

[Trendfinders]

as they say...25 pips a day keeps that nasty other job away

[SherriT]

You are assuming I have some Seriously, I know what you are saying....any of the three money management systems in the I-box work great for compounding your gains. I want to play hardball and have 1-2 weeks of good gains (like I was doing on the demo accounts) and then step back and do one of the more laidback ones, but I have to be on and sharp to accomplish the first part of that goal....oh, and some luck is required.

[strongtower]

Not hard to do with patience.

[SherriT]

When I get 5-10K in the account, that is exactly what I will do....LOL...hard part is figuring out where to put the stops with that system.

I have several methods I am testing on demo now...all have their virtues. Ataglance's is perfect for money management, I just have to nail the entries, whereas my other method allowed me room to roam, but I could also suffer a NASTY loss if I stayed away too long.

[strongtower]

I just say make 1-3 trades per day for 25 pips and quit. works for me.

[SherriT]

Funny how we always seem to try and overcomplicate things, isn't it....

[villas]

Another point to ponder, goes along the line of the charts in the Ibox and previous comments made about baby steps.

If you were to make 15 trades per day and 5 were bad but 10 were good. If you keep yourself to strict guidelines you give yourself a great chance at success.

Using $2 pips and staying within 5 pip range....

5 bad trades = -$50
10 good trades = +$100
Net for the day = +$50

This might be simpistic but I am sure you get the idea.

[SherriT]

Wonderful news, villas! Thanks for sharing with the board!

[villas]

The days seem to be getting better. The greatest improvement I have seen in my trading style is the ability to take a loss.

Another good point is that having more capitol to play with allows for a little more risk.

Today I used $2 pips and occasionally $4 pips.

Using the 1 min and 5 min charts I am doing well but I am also seeing that if I had enough capitol I could ride some of the trades out longer and make larger gains.

Week 1 $306-$415 = + $109 or 36%
Week 2 $415-$530 = + $115 or 28%
Week 3 $530-$734 = + $204 or 38% (Sun evening and today)

Daily average is now $43

I finally traded the live account today for 1 hour, used $2 pips,
$289-$324 = $35 or 12% (that is $35 per hour!)
This took 12 trades,
2 trades for -$24
10 trades for +$59

I think I might have finally got it!! I need to work on making the good trades better $wise.

I wish I could throw another grand in the live account but if I am careful it may be up there sooner than later.

[SherriT]

It had those 2-3 blips down to 1.2890ish, but that was it, and it bounced right back up then....I'm going to try and sit out

[strongtower]

seems like she doesn't want to go below 1.29 now but she should but who knows

[SherriT]

If I was Capt. Nemo and the great white whale was my account today, I would no longer be fishing....ROFLMAO. Nice call on the continued short though!

[strongtower]

understood

[buyittradeit]

Good point. The counter trend to it $USD has upticked as well. I just like to watch that as my indictor.

[strongtower]

after Trichet speech last week euro is very weak

[buyittradeit]

yhea even after i posted this i thought i would go long and got stopped out...


http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=37130194&txt2find=$usd


cant really explain why i went against my own research...

[strongtower]

yes IMO maybe lower

[buyittradeit]

sssssssooooooooo what do you think 1.27 retrace on th eur/usd?

[Mt. Blanc]

Right. All I agree to is that the dollar will move in that direction. I don't really believe that the dollar will equal the Euro down the road but hey, in this crazy world.... anything is possible.

I don't play currencies but this one may be worth playing with if the euro got a final blip up 135++ on its way to 1.15.

mb

[SherriT]

I have read that argument as well....I probably should have clarified the statement in my previous message. I got caught in a bad trade a few weeks ago because I believed the Euro was also headed for parity, and then someone explained the part about people buying the Euro and the pound when risk tolerance was higher, as in with a Wall Street rally. I think those are more short term bursts whereas the argument for parity is longer term.

Its really a tough call because I can understand why people would buy the Euro/Pound because of the higher interest rates, but then, their economy is in worse shape than ours, so that gives credence to the parity argument.

All in all, short term charts is about all you can do IMHO.

[Mt. Blanc]

There is a belief that the dollar will trend towards Euro parity this year.

That will be an interesting development as the globe adjusts to a stabilizing US economy. The move will be slow but should be evident in time. Our markets will tend to keep rising weekly as others look for that massive decline. The trend is up despite the slight dippers.

mb

[SherriT]

I added a couple of extra charts...do review and give me an opinion would you gang? It's kind of dry, but numbers are numbers....at least until I can format it all in an image outside of I-Hub with colors

[SherriT]

This is a very enlightening chart....I went back to re-reading and this is a very valuable bit of information. Thanks again Ata and D!

I'm probably going to post this in the I-box later on unless either of you have objections....

[SherriT]

That is mostly what I was doing...and yes, one bad trade would get you margined, but not wiped out. I am trying to test the logic of if you have 80% winners and never take losses of more pips per trade than the winners, you SHOULD make money (per daiello's illustration on Ataglance's post)

[villas]

That would be too much for me to handle with a live account. One bad trade could wipe you out. You would almost have to be trading on the tic in my opinion.

I am still learning to be patient and take losses but let the winners run. I am leaving way too much on the table sometimes.

[SherriT]

Well in general, you should see a weaker dollar and a stronger Euro/Pound when people are willing to take risks because their interest rate is higher. A couple of good friends explained that to me - I rarely follow the fundies...

[EquityTrader]

You know...a 'weak dollar' policy might help faster than a strong dollar policy. Would definitel help our exports :)

[SherriT]

You may want to add don't trade on Friday in that capacity....regular days might be possible.

Can't remember where I posted it, but I started the kamikaze account today with 3K and it is now at 4025 on 3 trades. Going in pretty heavy and taking what I can and getting out. We'll see how it works....pretty similar to what Ataglance suggested, except I am not aiming for 50 pips with a 20 pip SL. I am giving myself room enough to wiggle, and most anything positive, I am taking - LOL

[villas]

Interesting day, woke up late and missed the easy stuff.

Thought the downtrend on the E/U and E/J would stay intact so jumped in with shorts on both and went $2 pips.

The net result was before I truly woke up I was down over $100!! So I went to work using $4 pips trading the ups and downs for a couple of pips at a time.

Got back to even a little after 3PM, 1st trade was a little after noon. It was only the last 20 mins or so that I managed to make $25.

It took 27 trades, 10 losers, average trade = 90 cents!! LOL

Todays lesson....Don't trade when groggy trying to recover from a hangover!!

Tue 6th 306 + 2%
Wed 7th 327 + 7% or + 9% overall
Thu 8th 409 + 25% or + 36% overall
Fri 10th 415 + 1.5% or + 38% overall

Mon 13th 460 + 11% or + 53% overall
Tue 14th 338 - 27% or + 13% overall
Wed 15th 405 + 20% or + 35% overall
Thu 16th 506 + 25% or + 65% overall
Fri 17th 530 + 5% or + 73% overall

[villas]

Afternoon all, looks like I slept through payday!! Nice drop on my 2 favorite pair.

[SherriT]

OK - so I am not a complete idiot. Think I may practice that theory a lot with a demo account...get one started, then start over again...over and over until I can avoid burning it at first.

[strongtower]

that is what I first did. used 100% started with 2500 made 1500 in 3-4 days and then lost 2K in 2 lolol. Got the hang of it now

[SherriT]

Yep - I was almost thinking of trying a "kamikaze" demo where I trade 50-70% of my account at a time...if it is a profitable trade, it is big bucks, if not, I stop out early without having to use a stop (and I would think that would be less noticeable to a broker....they might have a program that sniffs stops, but I don't expect they have one that sniffs for when someone might margin out....

[daiello]

Had an order in on EJ. I placed an extra 0 on at the end of the size by accident, came home to see I made that mistake and closed the trade, +4%. A ton compared to my goal of only 1%...

[strongtower]

wait until you trade with 15-25 per pip. It gets really wild then lol

[SherriT]

Pressure is the key word in that post. Gotta get that out of the way. A $10 per pip trade is just the same trade as a $1 per pip one....different money, same trade. That is what I am working on....

[kermit42]

Last time I did a full lot ($10 per pip), it was a mistake. I panicked as soon as I did it, but instead of selling and taking a $30 loss (the smart thing), I held my breath and waited till I was a few pips green and then sold (the gambler's thing). It was stupid taking a risk like that for $40, but once in, I had to give it a go.

I think about going in big now and then when I really feel strongly about a move, but it's too much pressure when one bad spike could wipe me out.

[SherriT]

Do you really believe you would be biting nails? I hope I am not out of line, but if you question your calls enough that the downside would freak you out, you may want to revisit the technicals (or whatever strategy you do use) for a while until it just doesn't bother you...and the wins far outweigh the losses. Confidence DOES make a difference....I lose buttloads when I think I am an idiot....when I am confident in my choices, I do OK.

[villas]

kermit42, No question, $25 per day is a nice cushion, $50 would cover all my expense, $100 would be very nice.

Just imagine, $100 @ $10 per pip is only 10 pips per day!!

But just imagine the downside risk and the nail biting you would do to achieve that!!

[SherriT]

I have never really sat down and calculated what percentage I was using...I just figure it in my head, what kind of margin I would have left to ride, and how far that would take me and I either enter or I scale down my lots.

I KNOW as long as I don't get stupid, I can find 10-25 pips per day, but I need those to be $10-$20 per pip for it to really be worth my while and have some possibility of replacing my income (or paying off my house so eventually it would replace my income). The only way I am going to get that is to play 1-2 standard lots. As I build the account, my % going in is less so I reduce the risk....

Eventually, I would like to build the account, and continue to use the leverage, so I could play up to $50 a pip. 10 pips = $500 and I am retired. It really steamrolls when you can buy more lots...think of it this way, you are making the same trades for the same pips, the only thing different is money. You have to risk it to make it. I figure I threw more than $500 at a penny stock, so why not....

Maybe I am rationalizing, but that is the way I look at it. I'm certainly not going to make $100 or more a day by putting $25 on the line. Gotta get the calls right is the #1 thing.

[SherriT]

That is what I did on this demo...and the good part about going in like that was if I saw a loss mounting, I cut it much sooner than I was doing in the .10 pip area. It's all psychology for me. Would I do it when I go live with that amount, honestly not sure....a lot depends on my confidence and if I see us in a clear, defined range with little chance of a breakout.

Keep in mind, I am at 200:1 leverage, so $10 a pip is only $500 roughly....

[villas]

Still doing demo micro account, leverage is 400:1. My live account is the same for now, need $1K to open regular account with FXCM I think, then it is 200:1 leverage.

On the micro to get $1 per pip you play 10 lots and that takes $25 of capitol so $2 per pip is 20 micro lots for $50. $50 is 10% of $500 capitol.

But then if you think in terms of wanting to make $100 per day average, $1 means 100 pips or ten good trades at 10 pips per trade or 20 trades at 6 pips, my average per trade lately is about 4 pips.

Now if I still have a goal of $100 per day but I could trade at $4 a pip or $100 margin per trade, I would need $5K capitol to maintain 5% use per trade. But at $4 a pip I would only need 25 pips or ten good trades at 2 1/2 pips per trade or 5 trades at 5 pips per trade.

Does this make any sense or am I just dreaming?

I really don't want alot of money, every time I get some I seem to give it away anyway, just want to cover my unusual lifestyle.

[kermit42]

You would play $10 a pip with $3,000 in your account?!? That's gutsy.

[kermit42]

But if you can be patient...you'll get it. Besides, consistent $25 per day is about $6,000 per year. Not enough to go full time, but it's a nice little cushion.