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Oh, I have no idea. There's no easy way to go back and dig up a specific conversation here on iHub. That's a problem with board-based (as opposed to thread based) forums. I was just talking to the CaT about that.
I usually don't risk more than about 2 or 3% of my equity on a single trade. It varies for different styles though.
Oanda and most other brokers use the term "margin" to denote your actual cash on deposit. Your buying power is your margin times your leverage. So if you have $100,000 on deposit (your "margin") and your leverage is set to 50:1 then you have buying power of $5,000,000.
LOL, that's what I'm doing. Since the cost of living in this shithole is so low, I saved up enough money in my last job to live for almost a year. I have about five months to go before I'm broke again, so I'll be getting another job again way before that. But the time off has helped me to get a lot of learning and research done.
Yeah! Or my shoes catch fire... I hate when that happens, LOL.
I'm off for dinner... Have fun watching the IOWA circus, errrr, I mean caucus tonight!
:)
but you are right..I never use stops ,but then again ..If im trading real money..Im in front of my computer.
No, I ALWAYS use stops. Being in front of the computer does you no good if the hard disk dies, the power goes out or your broker's server crashes.
I always have a stop on the order before I enter it. But the stop is far from the price action. What I don't do is use the stop as an exit plan. It's just there for emergencies.
One of the simpler tips I've picked up lately is not to use stops as exit strategies. It's too easy to get picked off by noise, running the stops, etc. Stops should be for emergency (yikes, my system just crashed and my shoes are on fire!) use only.
So I've now gotten in the habit of putting my stop a long way from the market where it can get me out with an acceptable loss if something crazy happens. But I exit my positions MYSELF, based on what price is doing. I don't wait for a stop order to decide for me. I decide.
You rang? LOL
Actually I think I have a few pounds on ol' JG but I'm working on it. It's funny that you posted the cover of AS. If you get a chance take a look at my avatar on ForexFactory (capitalist88).
Nice rant!
If you get too frustrated though, remember the often overlooked lesson of Atlas Shrugged. There's a much easier way to defeat evil than arguing about it with fools or fighting them directly.
:o)
Yep, it's mainly the KISS techniques I'm learing most about. Indicator free charts, price action only, etc. Also a lot of good money management type stuff, strategies for managing risk, etc. It's different when it's real money, LOL. No demos for me anymore. :)
I've been in a couple of times in the past few weeks. Sometimes my posts get lost in the shuffle though, LOL. Since the holidays started I've been out of the market doing research and trying to come up with a consistent "bread and butter" system. Been doing a lot of reading at that "other place" lol. I'm learning a lot but my eyes are about to fall out...
When am I going to see your name up near the top of that contest list?? :)
EDIT: actually, I see that you were way up there this last time.
HAPPY FRAPPIN' NEW YEAR!!!!! :0)
~~~~~~~~~~2008~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The simplest approaches are usually the best. Market going up? Go long. Going down? Go short. Going nowhere? Go to lunch.
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
step out of line,
the man come
and take you away...
Yes! You're right, I used multiple regression models on hourly bars for a while several months ago and the results were fairly random I think. I did tweak it as you guessed, and I'm using it in conjunction with some other tools too; multiple moving averages and simple bar reversal patterns.
The way I tweaked the MRA model was to look ONLY at bars in the London session. I group the first 5 hours together to see how the session is going overall. Then I look at the sixth hour by itself because the sixth hour is when most of the economic releases come out in the U.S. The specific inputs I use are:
the distance from London open to high of the first 5 bars,
the distance from London open to low of the first 5 bars,
the distance from London open to close of the fifth bar,
open to high of sixth bar
open to low of sixth bar
open to close of sixth bar
So with these six inputs I get a picture of how the London session was going before the news out of New York, and then how the market reacted to the U.S. news and the New York open. By that time, there are three more hours of the London session to go. The model projects a high low and close of the next hour and the remainder of the whole session.
Once I have that projection, I use it as a guide. I watch ultra low TF charts to see when the price deviates from the projection and wait for a big bubble in the fast MAs and a reversal pattern.
I've only been doing it for two days, and got a few pips both days. However, the projections have been pretty close both days, and I missed out on a big move today because I didn't bother waiting for the last two hours of the London session. I looked later, and the price had gone way above my upper projection, turned around, and hit my lower projection right around 1/2 hour before London close.
I almost hurled, LOL! That would have been a nice trade.
LOL, just sticking my head in to see what's happening. Time for the daily workout though...
I'm doing something similar as far as looking for extremes. If you look at any research notes on my site that deal with short term TFs, they always indicate that price tends to gravitate toward the mean in the short term.
So I used multiple regression to model how the last three hours of the London session act after the news in the U.S. comes out. The model gives a projected high, low and close for the rest of the session, and the plan is to wait until price gets near the projected H/L and then look for reversal patterns to enter. Just starting that technique today actually.
Actually the ultimate "cost" of something comes down to how much human labor has to be exchanged for that thing. Money and currencies, etc. are just human accounting technology that we use to keep track of real relationships like "how much work do I have to do to get a gallon of milk?"
If I make $10 per hour and the price of milk is $2.50/gallon, then a gallon of milk costs me 15 minutes. If the price of milk triples but the median income goes up by a factor of six, then the PRICE of milk went up in terms of dollars. But its real COST went down.
Milk costs &7.50 but if I now make $60/hr then it only costs me 7-1/2 minutes per gallon, while it used to take me 15 minutes to earn a gallon.
Labor, raw materials, goods and services are real. Money and currencies are just accounting tools. That's why all the controversy about whether the Fed can inflate the currency or not isn't ultimately important. If the Fed decided to add 14 zeros to the end of everyone's bank account tomorrow, it still wouldn't change the fact that a Ferrari is worth more than an old boot.
So I think that since it's Friday, I'm going to follow Sheryl's lead....
w00t! Now if you can just do that consistently for an hour every day you've got it made! :)
Ouch.
I'm still at the stage where I'm not winning consistently but not losing consistently either. So my position sizes are like a twentieth of a percent of my account value, LOL. Won't increase them until I see a definite positive expectancy.
EDIT: I don't mean my position sizes. I mean my total risk per position. Oops.
LMAO!!
I don't usually come in and post until the weekend anymore, but that was just too funnY!!!!
Whew, what a week! Good to be back in the FOREX iHub "lounge" on a Friday night.
Not only was it a NFF week, but what's up with all the interest rate announcements at the same time? Top it off with the BOE surprise rate cut and you get a week where the markets just seem to want to eat us all up in the chop.
I started the week with a big negative opinion on the USD and GBP/JPY. Opened a short on GBP/JPY with too tight a stop on Monday's London session and lost a little there. Then I started building another short by scaling in and made the money back on that before I noticed around mid-week that the downward momentum seemed to be gone, so I closed that out too. Just in the nick of time, which is pretty unusual for me.
I also had a short on the USD/CHF, but when all the good US news started coming out, I closed that too pretty close to B/E. Same deal with EUR/AUD; I had a long position and dumped it immediately when good news started coming out of Australia. So with all my longer term positions closed out, I spent the rest of the week concentrating on my scalping skills with EUR/JPY.
I basically broke even for the week and Hector, one of the pros that I follow, just decided to throw up his hands and sit out the week altogether. I could have accomplished what I did by sitting on a beach somewhere instead of in front of my screen, LOL. Actually, that's not entirely true because I got a lot of screen time scalping tiny positions and analyzing my trades trying to develop a good system. So it was a good learning week for me and I've got my trading schedule, routine, and general strategies pretty well nailed down. Just working out the details.
I'm seeing a few new faces here this week and I would like to welcome all the new FOREX wizards in training to the room, although I know the krazy CaT and the other regulars have already done that.
From some of the comments I saw, I'd like to caution the new traders to TAKE SMALL POSITIONS AT FIRST. Don't be impatient. This is not like penny stocks where you might have to wait for six weeks before something moves by 2 ticks one way or the other. There is constantly money moving all around us in this market. There is always something happening and always a new opportunity to just reach out and pick up a piece of that cash. So don't force it. Trade small until you can win consistently. If you miss a big move today, there will be a hundred more next month. Relax people. Relax. :)
To start off the weekend, here's an excerpt from Peter Murphy's "Cuts you up." I know he didn't write this about the market of course, but during my many hours watching the movements of EUR/JPY on a 5-second chart this week, it occurred to me how descriptive this is...
You know the way it twists and turns
Changing colour, spinning yarns
You know the way it leaves you dry
It cuts you up, it takes you high
You know the way it's painted gold
Is it honey? Is it gold?
You know the way it throws about.
It takes you in and spits you out
It spits you out when you desire
to conquer it, to feel you're higher
To follow it you must be clean,
with mistakes that you do mean
Move the heart, switch the pace
Look for what seems out of place
Here's the vid:
You could call the personalized homepage "MyHub"
EDIT: I see Meatloaf already suggested something similar.
Ok, really going now! LOL
I think just about anything similar would work. Indicators are really just frameworks and filters to help traders see price action. But it's the price action that always tells the story.
WMA 34 to 144 in increments of 10, but I don't think it really matters. The MAs just help you see the price action more easily. You could use anything.
That's the one! I've seen people talk about that and I've always thought they must be a bit nuts, LOL! Until I realized the logic behind very short term trades (I also have a long term method based on trying to catch the big trends). So I tried it out and I love it.
I'm off to eat pasta.
Later all!
Cool, here's where it comes from. You might already have this site bookmarked, but it's just a collection e-books:
http://theforexsurfer.com/ebooks/
Bleh. Time for dinner...
I'm out for a while.
I've tried three sessions so far:
-26 pips
+10 pips
+03 pips
Starting to get the hang of it.
Remember when we used to be in here late at night and I would do "scalping" trades based on hourly bar statistics? I now know that those weren't real scalps, LOL. I've discovered the 5-second chart....
Lately I've been experimenting with a VERY short term method that uses multiple moving averages. Just google "rainbow FOREX."
Also, here's something I keep on my desktop. I'll put it on the coffee table here...how's that coffe coming? LOL
http://theforexsurfer.com/ebooks/TradingMantra.pdf
I'm here lurking around. This board is more like a "trader's lounge" for me though, LOL.
Because of the way iHub is set up, it's hard to really stay focused on a single subject and examine it in depth here, so I've been using the "other" FOREX site for that kind of more serious stuff (shhhhhhh...don't tell Matt).
I realized that the problem is that the boards on iHub aren't separated out into "threads" where people can get together to discuss one specific thing. Instead, one board has to handle a bunch of different topics/conversations that may be going on, and so things get kind of unfocused with everyone "posting past each other" so to speak.
With the "thread" system, a conversation focuses on a specific thing, like "What will Bernanke say in the next speech" or "How do people use MACD in ranging markets" or whatever. Then the thread might last a couple of dozen posts, or it might last for hundreds if it's a really popular subject, or it might just die out. But I like the "seminar-like" setup of that system where you can really sink your teeth into one subject at a time.
But iHub is always home, so I'm sure I'll pop in to rant, drink coffee and lounge around from time to time! :)
Isn't the whole strat of the carry simply to bag the interest while not having to worry about what direction either side of the trade trends?
The answer is no. Whoever told you that a carry trade is riskless with respect to market direction is on crack.
The risk in a carry trade is PRECISELY that the market will move against you. It's like selling naked calls; you can make periodic small profits time after time, but if the market moves against you by a big amount you lose everything.
You may be thinking of some kind of arbitrage strategy. Arbitrage involves entering a riskless transaction (two legs hedged against each other). But a carry trade is NOT arbitrage.
I just closed out all of my positions; increased my account value by about 14% over the past two days. However, I closed them because the main idea of my plan wasn't really working out right. I'm trying to gradually build a position to catch the long term daily trend without too much risk up front.
Back to the drawing board. But first, I'll copy the CaT and go make myself a damn fine cup of...
COFFEE >>>> C\_/
Last night I was scaling into a bunch of USD crosses, so now I'm short USD and long the world basically. Got up a few hours ago tonight and was up 10% of my account value. w00t!!
I got stopped out of that one; it turned back up. I'm long now again, LOL. Still messing with my "scaling in" system.
OK, I'm short the EUR/USD at 1.4461 with 1/4 max position.
Yawnn.... happy Monday mornin'!
Watching the EUR/USD right now looking for a nibble on the short term charts. This week I'm trying out a new method of scaling into positions from shorter time frames up to longer.
Well I got stopped out of my short USD/SGD position. Then I was screwing around with an experiment on scaling into positions with EUR/USD and managed to make a lucky 9 pips out of it on a big position, so the day was kind of a wash.
I should be in bed right now, but I haven't gotten my Twin Peaks fix for the night. So I'm off for a damn fine cup of coffee...
Dude, read my PM, LOL
LOL, I just sent him that message in PM.