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Intensive Review Duellatorus review by Eric Alyea

Long and detailed review proocesses. Ask AsstModerator if you want to leave one.
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Daily Zen Trading Log: 2wk March

Daily Zen Trading Log: 2wk March
4-11 to 4-17-10

Week total’s
$135,209.02 @ 16:00 CST 4-16-10
$127,971.20 @ 00:14 CST 4-12-10
$7237.82 pips 1,448

Mon. 4-12-10
A good day to come back
Look at the action on EUR/USD 4-11 & 4-12-10
Had to take care of other business and was away. I worked on back testing since the program I’m using (Forex tester 2) doesn’t need an internet connection for me to train or practice.
I thought that my demo (practice play ground) would have margin called me out. EUR/USD took a nose dive while I was away, 200 or so pips. I was surprised to check the practice account:

When I was away total’s
$127,971.20 @ 00:14 CST 4-12-10
$127,663.64 @ 12:11 CST 3-18-10
$307.56 interest

Started trading just after midnight Sunday and caught it right to close out some old trades that were open and got my margin back up. (If you need to rent a Nun, Zen Master, or USMC Drill Sgt. with a stick to beat you while saying, “don't let it get below 200%, get your margin back up” do it.)
EUR/USD
$129,414.16 @ 21:53 CST 4-12-10 (orders open)
$127,971.20 @ 00:14 CST 4-12-10 (orders open)
$1,442.96 pips 288.6

Tues. 4-13-10
Just plinking, while doing other peoples taxes.
EUR/USD
$130,799.07 @ 22:51 CST 4-13-10 (orders open)
$129,414.16 @ 01:56 CST 4-13-10 (orders open)
$1,394.47 pips 279

Wed 4-14-10
Just plinking, while doing other peoples taxes.
This is the 1st time I closed trades out at a loss, 5 of them. They had been there since 3-18-10 and were in the 3 pip range and I wanted to be closed out and clear. I finally get to have the option to do some “Sell’s”, been stuck in Buy since 3-18-10. Switched to Sell @ 10:52 CST. My candles are set for green=up, red=down. I have been working the bottom of those red candles for to long. It’s nice to be able to work the top of the green with sell’s.
I’ll have more on my being away and stuck in trades when I’m done doing other people’s tax’s.
EUR/USD
$135,207.35 @ 22:36 CST 4-14-10 (ALL closed)
$130,799.07 @ 00:50 CST 4-14-10 (orders open)
$4,408.28 pips 882

Trade log for Wed. 4-14-10 View attachment Eric041410.pdf

Thurs & Fri. 4-15 to 4-16-10
No trading. Back next Wednesday.
 
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Goofing around this week

Daily Zen Trading Log 4wk Apr
4-25 to 4-30-10

Week total’s
$149,960.38 @ 15:55 CST 4-30-10 (all closed)
$135,122.45 @ 15:00 CST 4-25-10 (orders open)
$ 14,837.93
I was goofing around and tried some different things this week experimenting.

Mon. 4-26-10

1.33788, closed @ 1.33183, 08:16 CST. I had this one at 59 pips and didn’t close it with the others. It went to 35 pips, I waited. Then it dropped again and it show me 60 pips and I pulled the trigger. (I won't do that again, I will close one pip short to get it done)
1.33666, closed @ 1.33203, 07:18 CST
1.33659, closed @ 1.33196, 07:18 CST
$141,567.03 @ 09:41 CST 4-26-10
$135,122.45 @ 15:00 CST 4-25-10
$ 6,444.58

Tues. 4-27-10
EUR/USD
$142,051.22 @ 06:43 CST 4-28-10 (orders open)
$141,567.59 @ 07:39 CST 4-27-10 (orders open)
$ 483.63

Wed 4-28-10
EUR/USD
$142,840.37 @ 15:38 CST 4-28-10 (orders open)
$142,051.22 @ 06:43 CST 4-28-10 (orders open)
$ 789.15

Thurs 4-29-10
EUR/USD
$143,259.76 @ 18:00 CST 4-29-10 (orders open)
$142,840.37 @ 15:38 CST 4-28-10 (orders open)
$ 419.39

Fri. 4-30-10
I got in trouble for coming to bed late
EUR/USD (I cheated and used a “Take Profit”)
$147,612.97 @ 02:12 CST 4-30-10 (all closed)
$142,840.37 @ 20:23 CST 4-29-10 (orders open)
$ 4772.60

USD/JPY
$148,521.05 @ 09:08 CST 4-30-10 (all closed)
$147,612.97 @ 02:12 CST 4-30-10 (all closed)
$ 908.08

EUR/USD
$149,960.38 @ 15:55 CST 4-30-10 (all closed)
$148,521.05 @ 09:08 CST 4-30-10 (all closed)
$ 1439.33

$ 4,772.60 EUR/USD
$ 908.08 USD/JPY
$ 1439.33 EUR/USD
$ 7,120.01
 
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Updates?

Eric, I've been following this and was just wondering if you had any updates for us?

Have you tried a live account yet?
 
Behind on paperwork,:mad: not my 1st time. Oops:err:

May 2010
Behind on paperwork,:mad: not my 1st time. Oops:err:

Let this be a lesson to all. I was able to be pretty much be, full time on Forex for the last few months. I had to concentrate on other things. My practice/account took a fall, and I realized.
You practice to get the discipline. Then you discipline your practice to the reality of the level “Monetary Level” you will be practicing at. I did not do that in this case and hope you can learn from my mistakes.

Let’s Review May and then go over fixing mistakes at the end.
I am still on the making “Post’s” that anyone can understand learning curve. I have a new screen grab that I can use to make pic’s of what I’m referring to and spread sheet for the transaction display. Wish me luck.

May 4th
I took a margin call by not paying attention. I was doing other things, other than trading at the time. Some trades from Sunday, May 2nd were still open and I didn’t keep up with my report/news reading and didn’t get to a computer to check on them or close them out. I also learned that, "Spead's WIDEN for the weekend" (I was shocked and pissed but got an answer,... don't hit button's after 15:45:

Ticket Number: HD2472434
Short Description: When you were offline (via LivePerson)
Hello,

Thank you for your interest in FXTrade.
Please be aware that spreads widen for the weekend starting at around 3:45 PM Friday and then are usually back to normal by about 8 PM Sunday, Eastern time. You can view how spreads typically behave for the week with the previous 7 day spread stats at the following page http://fxtrade.oanda.com/forex_trading/why_trade_with_oanda/spreads/recent_oanda_spreads

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require further information.

Kind Regards,

OANDA FXTrade Team
http://fxtrade.oanda.com/

Never do a big unit after lunch (be careful what time zone on Friday) I did test's with 100 units and lost.
You have to know the price changes at your regular gas station’s, especially on weekend's and holiday season.

It was a good wake-up call and I will never forget the lesson. Normally if you make a mistake just wait awhile it will retrace and you can recover. This was a good humbling lesson and proves that even your losses in practice hurts (at least it did me).

4-30-10 $147,612.97 @ 02:12 CST (all closed)

5-4-10 $147,612.97 - $115,354.92 = Negative$36077.05
MARGIN CALL..... OUCH
Here I switched from the Zen Trading Practice game to Zen Money Making game. Don’t get excited. You can’t skip a phase of training, it will screw you up.
I’m a “Shooter” Rifle & Pistol (@ start I begged not to shoot pistol, it was terrible). You learn to do “ONE” shot at a time. Then you learn how to do that “One” shot faster and be as accurate as you can on “Multiple target’s”

5-19-10 $116,388.04 - $115,354.92 = $1,033.12
5-20-10 $113,457.49 - $116,388.04 = Negative $-2930.55
{Editing & insert}
5-24-10 $116,732.93 - $113,313.85 = $3,419.08
5-25-10 $110,955.44 - $116,732.93 = Negative$-5777.49
{Editing & insert}
5-26-10 $120,939.64 - $110,955.44 = $9,984.20
5-28-10 $125,309.68 - $120,939.64 = $4,370.04
5-31-10 $125,311.73

I’ll finish Additions, Inserts and Edit Cleaning in the morning 6-3-10. (Time now 18:57 CST USA)
 
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Margin Call

4-30-10 $147,612.97 @ 02:12 CST (all closed)

5-4-10 $147,612.97 - $115,354.92 = Negative$36077.05

Not all Brokers will Margin Call every open position. I use TDFX, and they margin call your largest open position in order to bring the margin back.

I've only got MC'd once, but I know it hurt.
I didn't lose $36k, but it still hurt.

Also, I was wondering the difference between the "Zen Trading Practice" game and the "Zen Money Making" game. It seems like the Zen Money Making isn't doing as well as of yet.
 
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May 2010
Behind on paperwork,:mad: not my 1st time. Oops:err:

Let this be a lesson to all. I was able to be pretty much be, full time on Forex for the last few months. I had to concentrate on other things. My practice/account took a fall, and I realized.
You practice to get the discipline. Then you discipline your practice to the reality of the level “Monetary Level” you will be practicing at. I did not do that in this case and hope you can learn from my mistakes.

Let’s Review May and then go over fixing mistakes at the end.
I am still on the making “Post’s” that anyone can understand learning curve. I have a new screen grab that I can use to make pic’s of what I’m referring to and spread sheet for the transaction display. Wish me luck.

May 4th
I took a margin call by not paying attention. I was doing other things, other than trading at the time. Some trades from Sunday, May 2nd were still open and I didn’t keep up with my report/news reading and didn’t get to a computer to check on them or close them out. I also learned that, "Spead's WIDEN for the weekend" (I was shocked and pissed but got an answer,... don't hit button's after 15:45:

Ticket Number: HD2472434
Short Description: When you were offline (via LivePerson)
Hello,

Thank you for your interest in FXTrade.
Please be aware that spreads widen for the weekend starting at around 3:45 PM Friday and then are usually back to normal by about 8 PM Sunday, Eastern time. You can view how spreads typically behave for the week with the previous 7 day spread stats at the following page Recent OANDA Spreads - OANDA FXTrade

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require further information.

Kind Regards,

OANDA FXTrade Team
Forex Trading | Currency Trading - OANDA FXTrade

Never do a big unit after lunch (be careful what time zone on Friday) I did test's with 100 units and lost.
You have to know the price changes at your regular gas station’s, especially on weekend's and holiday season.

It was a good wake-up call and I will never forget the lesson. Normally if you make a mistake just wait awhile it will retrace and you can recover. This was a good humbling lesson and proves that even your losses in practice hurts (at least it did me).

4-30-10 $147,612.97 @ 02:12 CST (all closed)

5-4-10 $147,612.97 - $115,354.92 = Negative$36077.05
MARGIN CALL..... OUCH
Here I switched from the Zen Trading Practice game to Zen Money Making game. Don’t get excited. You can’t skip a phase of training, it will screw you up.
I’m a “Shooter” Rifle & Pistol (@ start I begged not to shoot pistol, it was terrible). You learn to do “ONE” shot at a time. Then you learn how to do that “One” shot faster and be as accurate as you can on “Multiple target’s”

5-19-10 $116,388.04 - $115,354.92 = $1,033.12
5-20-10 $113,457.49 - $116,388.04 = Negative $-2930.55
{Editing & insert}
5-24-10 $116,732.93 - $113,313.85 = $3,419.08
5-25-10 $110,955.44 - $116,732.93 = Negative$-5777.49
{Editing & insert}
5-26-10 $120,939.64 - $110,955.44 = $9,984.20
5-28-10 $125,309.68 - $120,939.64 = $4,370.04
5-31-10 $125,311.73

I’ll finish Additions, Inserts and Edit Cleaning in the morning 6-3-10. (Time now 18:57 CST USA)

Just to follow up on Eric's above post, I am actually happy with the way it worked out and this is why Zen trading on a demo or with a $300 micro account for a couple of months is vital. Most of you following this review have read post after post from Eric that showed him making hundreds of pips in a day and that is real, it can be done with Zen trading, but I want to remind you all that Zen trading is pretty much just a training tool in my program. The things that Eric is learning as he Zen trades are priceless for those who want to be full time traders. Like he said, the loss on this account was a wake up call. With any method of trading that is consistently successful it is very easy to become over-confident or even careless as you make good money trade after trade. This even happens to me from time to time and this is why I have a trading partner. It can be very subtle that you don't even realize you have moved into that attitude and that is when you make mistakes or go for more than you should be, the best way I can explain it is basically feeling invincible, like you can't lose and that is exactly when you do something to lose an entire account. For example, this week in trading our fund, my partner did one of his trades multiple times because the pair kept rising and falling. This is one of our normal trades, but on Tuesday he was away from the computer and missed a set up. Keep in mind he already had done the exact setup twice and made almost 10% between those two trades. He is the type that has a hard time letting go of missed opportunities. So he broke one of his rules, which is no trading past Tuesday because on Wednesday morning the same setup occurred and because subconsciously he was still frustrated at having missed the last setup on Tuesday, he took the trade. Of course this time, instead of going to profit quickly it went against us about a hundred and fifty pips really fast. Now our account was never at risk, but it still grates on your nerves.
 
Not all Brokers will Margin Call every open position. I use TDFX, and they margin call your largest open position in order to bring the margin back.

I've only got MC'd once, but I know it hurt.
I didn't lose $36k, but it still hurt.

Also, I was wondering the difference between the "Zen Trading Practice" game and the "Zen Money Making" game. It seems like the Zen Money Making isn't doing as well as of yet.

Yes, Oanda operates differently than most brokers and if it wasn't for their low leverage they would be the best, this is why we use them for Zen, lowest spreads and instant execution. The difference with margin calling on a zen practice account is what you learn from it and that is actually the whole point of the exercise. I am going to let Eric explain what he means by "Zen Trading Practice" and "Zen Money Making" game and follow it up with a post, but those 2 things are exactly what he learned through this situation.

Joshua Hauck
www.duellatorus.com
 
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Zen Trading, The Rules

Zen Trading
The rules, From Memory,
#1
Establish the flow of trade that you would like to do for the day, i.e. “Buy” or “Sell”. Stay with that for the day, or if you happen to be stuck with it by not being able to have all your trades closed at the end of the day. (Having all your trades closed at the end of the day is a good goal)
#2
Practice placing market orders. Once the order that you placed has “ONE” pip profit or more, cash the order out.
#3
On Tuesdays and Thursdays you follow rule #1 and do the opposite.

While practicing the timing of hitting at the tops of green candles sells. The bottoms of reds for buys. I try to space things out buy a minimum or 2-4 pips before placing another order. I get’s you so your never afraid to take a profit and if you wait to long seeing you lost you chance. You get to interpret and do what you want, Hence the Zen


Let’s see where did I leave off:

Daily Zen Trading Log 4wk Apr
4-25 to 4-30-10

Week total’s
$149,960.38 @ 15:55 CST 4-30-10 (all closed)
$135,122.45 @ 15:00 CST 4-25-10 (orders open)
$ 14,837.93
I was goofing around and tried some different things this week experimenting.

Also, I was wondering the difference between the "Zen Trading Practice" game and the "Zen Money Making" game. It seems like the Zen Money Making isn't doing as well as of yet.

Daily Zen Trading Log June wk1
Week totals
$133,182.81 @ 15:00 6-3-10
$125,383.24 @ 15:00 6-1-10
$ 7,799.57

6-2-10 Wed.
EUR/USD
$126,732.18 @ 15:00 6-2-10
$125,383.24 @ 15:00 6-1-10
$ 1,348.94

6-3-10 Thur.
EUR/USD
$133,182.81 @ 15:00 6-3-10
$126,732.18 @ 15:00 6-2-10
$ 6,450.63

Daily Zen Trading Log June wk2
Week totals
$165.380.01 @ 10:10 6-11-10
$133,180.02 @ 15:00 6-4-10
$ 32,199.99

I must have learned something. I had to call it something. I just changed a few of the rules to make more money with less trades. Practice is still practice. Sorry for calling it Zen money making I had to call it something.

I’m working on writing “Mistakes in practice and how to make your practiced real.”
 
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Testing the FXCM platform

I’m testing the FXCM platform. I hit some wrong buttons, but I will get it down.
Hitting the button’s and not being afraid to experiment is the core of Zen practice.
Testing yourself equals learning and you must test your “SELF” to learn.
In this I was testing my “unit / volume” use, compared to the margin drop. (You have to know how your “barrel heat’s up and how that effects your shot’s. [Rifle/bullet terms, this is lost on you, oh well:mad::hissyfit:])

This is a different platform and my 1st time. I still consider myself a Newbie.
Started out on this, with $1000,000. Had to learn new button’s. Just plinking...

Playing and just doing chart’s it turned out, if I would have had 3 more hour's of faith , oh well.
The point "IS". That there is a "Point". You have to have the structure and discipline to wait out your account. Your account is your stop loss. Ride that Pony till it “ye..haa” throw’s you to the ground. Too many time’s has the FEAR gotten in the way of good math, gut intuition, and the chart’s.

( the time zone reference has changed)
$100,000. @09:49 6-16-10
EUR/USD
+ 184.
+ 1120.
+ 1640.
+ 2144.
$ 5088.
FXCM 6 21 10o.jpg

$105,088.00 @ 14:46 6-16-10
$100,000.00 @ 09:49 6-16-10
$ 5,088.00

6-17-10EURUSD
still experimenting with Lot/Volume size and the margin on this platform. My 1st one went bad. Very seldom do I bail out and I timed this from 3 different charts.
- 1320. Got scared on this one, testing something quick and it turned against me, it would have recovered but I took a loss to be sure. These were placed on the 17th and come through on th 21st.
FXCM 6 21 10p.jpg
$118,586.00 @ 18:40 6-21-10
$105,088.00 @ 14:46 6-16-10
$ 13,498.00
I was trying to find how to change the size of my past history and must have hit the USDCHF button by accident , OK Not my pair, a chart is a chart and flow is flow.
And here I have to say that learning “ONE Pair" teaches you how to do “ALL” pairs. I Never did USDCHF before, but picking a winning take profit is an art that an “EA” can not do. It is a zoom-in, zoom-out, mental/eye-ball/brain thing. nufffsaid
FXCM 6 21 10q.jpg

$126,242.05 @ 19:00 6-21-10
$118,586.00 @ 13:45 6-21-10
$ 7,656.05

still learning, will edit as possible, thank for your understanding:p
 
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A Quick question

I know you ride the pony until it kicks you off, so it's rare that you'll get kicked off a $100k account.

It's a great philosophy if you can afford to lose $100k, but many of us can't.
The same principle can be applied to a $1000 micro account of course, and all the results are divided by 100 to get perspective.

I can afford to lose $1000, and if you also apply the principal of taking out half profits every time the account doubles (as Felix teaches to do for EA accounts), then you can even feel safe after the first double.

I like it. That said, I was wondering if you could give an idea of how low your account gets before recovering. You have a $100k account; how often does it dip under $50k. At what point do you stop opening new positions and wait for the current positions to recover?

Thank you for the continued updates,
Duane
 
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