Wheee!

[Pharaoh]

Eeeeek! I've been papertrading for almost 2 months. I thought I was doing well (had 3 great weeks in a row), then things started to crash and burn over the last few days. I'm beginning to think I should just do the opposite of what the indicators show. Also, news trades just haven't been doing much big since the big rate cut.

The good news is that I've only spend $97 on one ebook and am currently backtesting the heck out of the system in it. Everything else has been free stuff (so far). Babypips is definitely high on my recommendations list.

If I can just drag myself back into some modest profitability week-to-week, I'll take the plunge and start doing this with real money.

 

[pfxs]

Eeeeek! I've been papertrading for almost 2 months. I thought I was doing well (had 3 great weeks in a row), then things started to crash and burn over the last few days. I'm beginning to think I should just do the opposite of what the indicators show. Also, news trades just haven't been doing much big since the big rate cut.

The good news is that I've only spend $97 on one ebook and am currently backtesting the heck out of the system in it. Everything else has been free stuff (so far). Babypips is definitely high on my recommendations list.

If I can just drag myself back into some modest profitability week-to-week, I'll take the plunge and start doing this with real money.

My suggestions seeing that youve obviously hit the ole slump we all go through from time to time is to take a break for a few days and let your mind slow down. It happens to all of us, we have a few good trades,, think we are unstoppable and then BAM we get stopped,,, the trick is knowing when your mentally about to reach that point and cool it before you damage your account equity.

Secondly,, what type of strategy are you using,, typically if a strat works during consolidating markets it tanks when those same markets start trending strongly in one direction or the other, and visaversa.

 

[Pharaoh]

Yeah, I'm hoping it's just a slump. If so, I cracked out of it this morning (thanks to EURJPY's nice bounce and also to some well placed hedging of the Nonfarm report).

I'm still learning, but mostly use 2 primary methods. Firstly, I often trade Felix's signals on USD reports, either by bracketing the current price with a buy stop and sell stop order or by selling both the EURUSD and the USDCHF. Both methods have proven successful, but on rare occasion the price can zig-zag and stop me out in one or both directions. My main problem (until this morning) was that none of these gave the market a hard, fast shove since the the big rate cut announcement.

My other method is looking at technicals and trying to ride the trend for awhile. I use Alligator, Parabolic SAR, and Awesome Oscillator. Usually, I go off the hourly chart, but check the 4 hour (to verify longer term trend is in synch), 30 minute, and 15 minute charts (to look out for upcoming trend shifts).

This had been reasonably successful, but profits dropped off last week, and this week I got slammed over and over.

OK, I'm now ready to hear the seasoned traders tell me what an idiot I am, that I'm using all the wrong indicators, and that I'll be spending the rest of eternity in Margin Call Hell.

My suggestions seeing that youve obviously hit the ole slump we all go through from time to time is to take a break for a few days and let your mind slow down. It happens to all of us, we have a few good trades,, think we are unstoppable and then BAM we get stopped,,, the trick is knowing when your mentally about to reach that point and cool it before you damage your account equity.

Secondly,, what type of strategy are you using,, typically if a strat works during consolidating markets it tanks when those same markets start trending strongly in one direction or the other, and visaversa.

 

[Dealgone]

Hmmmmm,

Firstly, I often trade Felix's signals on USD reports, either by bracketing the current price with a buy stop and sell stop order or by selling both the EURUSD and the USDCHF.

You sell EUR/USD and USD/CHF at the same time or you take sell orders that will be executed when the price moves over it?

It is not a good strategy to sell booth and then wait for news.

OK, I'm now ready to hear the seasoned traders tell me what an idiot I am,

You are not an idiot. You just began to learn and it is a long way that should never end.
To be honest I also have a long way learning behind me and I know I will never stop learning.

 

[3BlackCrows]

It's interesting that you say in the past few days trade setups seem to go against you.

I've been analysing my own trades myself and have found an interesting pattern.

I started off the week well but then trades that looked to be perfect setups went past my stops by 2 pips then reversed and went in my intended direction.

What I found over my past performance is that every week leading up to NFP has been the same.

Monday seems to be the cut off day where signals stick whereas the rest of the week is a bit haywire with prices and candles all over the show, then the weeks after things return to normal.

I'm not saying I never get stopped out but it seems as though NFP week is my worst performing week.

Do a bit of a backtest during previous NFP weeks and see if this is true for your own system.

I think for myself, I might start not trading NFP week and have a breather or perhaps just take a trade on Monday and let it ride, tightening stops each day.

Hope this helps - Happy Trading!

 

[Pharaoh]

You sell EUR/USD and USD/CHF at the same time or you take sell orders that will be executed when the price moves over it?

It is not a good strategy to sell booth and then wait for news.

Since they tend to move in opposite directions on US news announcements, I sell both about 3-4 minutes before the news. This would be a total waste of time, but I place a modest stoploss on both orders and then have the choice of either trying to take the profit from the order that goes my way manually or else setting a take profit amount that's adequately above the amount I know I'm going to lose from the other half of the hedge if/when it hits stoploss.

Obviously, selling only the one that goes down would be more profitable, but this lets orders be placed before the spread widens too much.

If the news announcement generates little movement, I try to close each around breakeven or even a couple of pips profit. Alternately, close the one that's against the pre-news trend and leave the other one open if it looks like the trend is going to continue.

The one big danger is that if the market slams up and down just the right amount, it can hit stoplosses in both directions without ever hitting the take profit number. Of course, the same thing can happen with pending stop orders.

One special note - Check the pip value on the USDCHF. You want 1 pip movement to have the same dollar value on each sell order, so you will need to place a slightly larger sell order on USDCHF than on EURUSD.