Ray's amnesty page

[wiseambitions]

Took a short for 71 pips profit which gave me 5.5% this morning after a few small gains and losses, giving me +3.2% for the day, in the 10 minutes after closing it looks like I got out pretty well really, not on any signal other than the day's top target gain, so now I don't care what it does next.

I had set out with a target of 20% for the month on a low risk fairly care free method of trading but actually achieved the month's target in the first week. I'm staying away the rest of today, I have neutral long term results for trading the NFP session.

The experience of the week was as follows;
48 trades
19 winners (only 40%)
+159 pips
Best trade 81 pips
worst loss 35
best profit 8.0%
worst loss 1.5%

I just need to keep to the plan. DS this week, in my overall opinion 4/5 Emotional Quotient 4/5

[wiseambitions]

This morning calls for a lot of patience.
I saw a buy signal on 24/5 broker a few minutes after FO which I did not take. I would rather wait for market to sort itself out Mondays for a while before entering. Alas it rose about 2.5% (250 points) and I did not get another signal for nearly 3 hours

1015 GMT (1215 chart time) I went short, and still am, on m1, it has offered me 80 pips but I'm holding on for better or for worse


Will attempt to attach ebook about emotion free trading. Moral of the story is "Act in your own best interests". I have shown this one before, however it makes useful reading again and again.

[wiseambitions]

Today's most lucrative trade for me, this pm, Dax m1, 77 pips, 7.7% I think I got out of it fairly well, held from 1545 to 1730 GMT

13 trades today, a few small losers reduced the profits, but 5.4% net return on capital from 20.2 pips in all those tries was very satisfactory for quite a long day for me

[wiseambitions]

I probably stayed in this one a bit too long but even so it gave me over 5%. Nice result, after a few initial small losses

I'm trying to have more patience with trends if I find I am in them on the right side. These are where the profits really come from, in spite of my current win rate being deliberately poor (around 35%) the ROC has been far over target, and I feel quite relaxed about things. I believe this is due to Dax being a market with high ADR and the possibility of catching one or two nice and massive moves every day just by being present at the screen in main trading hours.

Out now for the day to a financial services conference with my company, will meet up with some of my trading buddies, one is extremely successful, (Not a Bill Williams/Immy disciple though), so I hope to learn something useful.

[Tomi]

Looking good Ray. Losses are not important as long those are kept small. Juicy winners are the ones we are after. Keep it going!

[wiseambitions]

Thanks Tomi

Today's conference theme was "Behavioural Economics" which is a part of psychology and science to do with how consumers react to information in financial services

eg Give them choice of £80 in 11 months or £100 in 12 months, many would go for the £80, not having regard to the fact the one month extra wait is worth 25% more.

Give toss of a coin at £10 a try, most people would want a £21 gain before taking the risk to get heads

And people are more worried about losing something than making a saving, so when selling to them use the "you're losing £xxx a month by carrying on being on the wrong insurance contract" rather than "I can save you £10".

I suppose there are parallels with what we are doing in trading, if I can think of anything I will add it later.


Behavioural economics in trading

oh yes, and all sort of regulatory issues about selling trading signals. More so with share indeces because they are more aligned to "investments" than are currencies. People sometimes offer facility for an EA to copy trades to MT4 online, with power of attorney, but that is even more fraught. If someone helps us make a bit we're relatively happy, but once the account is in drawdown, which can happen of course even temporarily, they aren't friends any more. I wonder why people put themselves at that risk. They, the vendors, would be better trading their own accounts than taking a few 100 dollars or pounds a month here and there and enduring all the issues with IT etc to keep everyone on board....... That's my thinking anyway. I remember buying such service from a firm about 5 years ago and they were next up from as useless as a chocolate teapot. Since then, there were a few more adverse experiences, but when we all started studying the work of Bill Williams and developments mentored by Immy here, we've been given a tool box of the best ways to win for ourselves, long may it continue.

As to investments, one of the analysts is a firm called Lipper. What they have been doing for several years is drawing a chart a bit like a patchwork quilt in which they rank the relative performance of several investments eg American shares, Gold, commodities, the Russell, British shares, corporate bonds, money on deposit etc. There is no pattern, the investment which did best 2 years ago might be nearly worst this year. What it means is that no expert can accurately predict what class of investments to advise, sometimes the best protection is to diversify a portfolio to spread risk. But coming into trading, all we want is a market that moves, a market that is liquid (so that we can buy and sell immediately) and a market with a low bid-offer spread. Currently it's not a currency pair, it is Dax, and as long as that continues to be the case we don't need to look elsewhere

[wiseambitions]

I was greedy on this one and stayed in about 20 minutes too long (after which of course it went even better)

All the same 11% return for very small risk

I was also greedy in the morning and encountered a few "rents", even so the whole day ended up +11.5 which is phenomenal bearing in mind the small risk. The only stress was babysitting the trades, but I suppose I was thinking about other things at the same time.

This month's profits an losses add up to 40% in 8 days, max DD has been as high as 6.4% though which is the consequence of one or two losing streaks , from which recovery was quick, we don't give up just because of them. 39% win rate this month, 61% of my trades were losers, yet pips were positive

[wiseambitions]

Perhaps I was too greedy again, missed the top around 1600, anyway that one was worth 1.6% to me, up 4.9% on the day

I think I can catch the openings which trend nicely but having previously suffered from letting go of profitable trades too soon I am holding on to them a bit too long at times. Job to get it just right!

Best trade 69.7 pips today Total net for day 68.4 pips, Best trade 3.3%, DD 3.2% at its worst, net 4.9%

[baldeagle]

I appreciate the info you are posting. It gives us a clear picture of your progress. In looking at your last blue red bar graph I am confused about what you are showing. Can you elaborate?

Thanks again,

Ed

[wiseambitions]

Hi there Ed. I wonder if Oregon is a warmer place than here (England) today? it's nearly 5pm and feels exceedingly cold.

-----
Ok, the last graph. I had set myself a target of 20% for the month, which was 1%/day for approx 20 working days in January,
that's the blue bit. Actually due to a good first week I increased the target to 1.5% so it has stepped up a bit for that reason.
The other variable bits are the amalgamation of profits and losses for each day relative to the initial balance, which I have not actually compounded lately.

I found I do need the motivation of such statistics, they say "if you can measure it you can manage it"