My Trading Journal

[Mr fox]

Well it's almost a year since my last post about my trading journey, and I must admit that things are going very well. I have found a method of trading(actually more taught to me, and practiced till it became a learned behaviour than self discovered), that suits my style, and funds my lifestyle without having to work a 9-5 being bhed at by a boss, which does have its own pit-falls as you can become very lazy in your work ethic where doing the absolute minimum say 2% for an hours work, and being bored till lunch time is better than pushing yourself to do the most you can each day(poss. 10%+)

It has come with alot of hard work which sometimes has been so exciting to do, as things "just click" to laborious hours spent looking at charts, to thre point where when you close your eyes you can still see remnants of charts.lol.

I have always been a firm believer in either forge your own path in life where you learn from your mistakes, or copy someone successful, thus you bypass making the mistakes others have made, and it is the latter that I have adopted.

However I do not know how long this bubble will last before it bursts, so I have been reluctant to say I am anything more than an amateur on a good run. I have been offered vast sums of money from people to invest on their behalf, but I have declined, as well as declining jobs with funds in the city, also I am not FSA registered either, but it would be foolish to say I never will take any of the former options in the future.

However flattering it is to recieve such offers "I am lucky at best, or an ignorant fool at worst", and have no want to advise, teach, or invest other peoples hard earned into what I do.

After such a barrage of insults from last years post, and against my better judgement from tommorow I will post trades as close to live as possible, and the reason I say close to is, that the most important thing to me is making money, so I will only post once a trade has been placed. I will put up as many as I possibly see.

I will not put up pictures of my trades/charts/my acc. info, and after the last post nor will I put up how much per pip I'm going in, but it safe to say I will never risk more than 1% on a trade.
I will be trading FTSE/US OIL/S&P, and a few FX pairs.

I will not give away the edge that I use, but will state that I will be incorporating the following indicators in my trading in a specific way which are Kaufman Adaptive Moving Average, DMI, Haiken-Ashi chart, CCI, TMACD, ATR, Elliot wave theory, Fibonacci.

Well it could go well, or it could go bad, but either way I hope it's an entertainig watch for all.
If anyone has any questions I'd be more than willing to answer them.

Regards
Mr. Fox.

Edited by Mr fox on Wednesday 17th April 18:19

[Sarnie]

• gets comfy*

[205alive]

Very glad to see you sharing your experiences here again! Bookmarked and looking forward to your updates.

[marky1]

Out of interest how are you trading S&P and Light Sweet Crude, do you have DMA to CME?

[Hoofy]

Ditto. Consider using the report button if people get feisty.

[Mr fox]

205alive said:

Very glad to see you sharing your experiences here again! Bookmarked and looking forward to your updates.

Thanks 205alive.



Regards
Mr. Fox.

[Mr fox]

marky1 said:

Out of interest how are you trading S&P and Light Sweet Crude, do you have DMA to CME?

The broker states it is DMA, but sometimes I do take what they say with a pinch of salt. The only issue I have with these 2 is the spread is 5pips, and the things I like of US Oil is the high volatility, S&P has a good solid run when trending.

Regards
Mr. Fox.

[marky1]

It's not DMA if the spread is 5 ticks (not pips) - the spread should be the market bid/offer.
Can you give me an example of the bid offer you see on both markets and I can help you figure it out? What front end are you using by the way and which broker?

[Mr fox]

Hoofy said:

Ditto. Consider using the report button if people get feisty.

That's not really my style, but assure you that since its been a year. I'm sure some people may just have grown up a little, as have I, and if I feel a bit unsure about a trade I hope you don't mind if I ask you for your view on it. I would like to keep this thread open to interaction, and fellow PH'ers participation.


Just out of interest mate, how's things going with your trading at the moment.

Regards
Mr Fox.

[Mr fox]

marky1 said:

It's not DMA if the spread is 5 ticks (not pips) - the spread should be the market bid/offer.
Can you give me an example of the bid offer you see on both markets and I can help you figure it out? What front end are you using by the way and which broker?

Fantastic. I would appreciate that. The difference on US Oil is 5 ticks. At the moment bid is 86.69, and ask is 86.74.

S&P is 5 ticks also bid is 1,550.1, and ask is 1,550.6

Broker is FXCM

Regards
Mr. Fox.

Edited by Mr fox on Wednesday 17th April 20:47

[marky1]

Mr fox said:

marky1 said:

It's not DMA if the spread is 5 ticks (not pips) - the spread should be the market bid/offer.
Can you give me an example of the bid offer you see on both markets and I can help you figure it out? What front end are you using by the way and which broker?

Fantastic. I would appreciate that. The difference on US Oil is 5 ticks. At the moment bid is 86.69, and ask is 86.74.

S&P is 5 ticks also bid is 1,550.1, and ask is 1,550.6

Regards
Mr. Fox.

Bit strange really. Oil is generally 1 tick wide, i.e 86.69 - 86.70
If you are trading for 6 ticks of profit you need it to move about 12 ticks for you to make your 6 ticks because your bid offer is so wide. Are you trading futures???

S&P's what are you trading, futures? If so everyone trades the mini as that's where the liquidity is, the bid offer is always 0.25 as it moves in quarter points. eg. 1568.75 - 1569.00. Again, giving away a lot with such a wide spread.

Could you explain a bit more about your set up so we can all understand what exactly you are trading. As an example I trade these products on CME with DMA (direct market access) through my clearer. So I have the real market in front of me and trade direct to the exchange. You are clearly not set up like this so I am a little confused as to what you are doing. Who are you trading through?

When you back test strategies even a tick of slippage changes returns drastically. You have huge slippage essentially on entry and exit.

[Mr fox]

marky1 said:

Mr fox said:

marky1 said:

It's not DMA if the spread is 5 ticks (not pips) - the spread should be the market bid/offer.
Can you give me an example of the bid offer you see on both markets and I can help you figure it out? What front end are you using by the way and which broker?

Fantastic. I would appreciate that. The difference on US Oil is 5 ticks. At the moment bid is 86.69, and ask is 86.74.

S&P is 5 ticks also bid is 1,550.1, and ask is 1,550.6

Regards
Mr. Fox.

Bit strange really. Oil is generally 1 tick wide, i.e 86.69 - 86.70
If you are trading for 6 ticks of profit you need it to move 16 ticks for you to make your 6 ticks because your bid offer is so wide. Are you trading futures???

S&P's what are you trading, futures? If so everyone trades the mini as that's where the liquidity is, the bid offer is always 0.25 as it moves in quarter points. eg. 1568.75 - 1569.00. Again, giving away a lot with such a wide spread.

Could you explain a bit more about your set up so we can all understand what exactly you are trading. As an example I trade these products on CME with DMA (direct market access) through my clearer. So I have the real market in front of me and trade direct to the exchange. You are clearly not set up like this so I am a little confused as to what you are doing. Who are you trading through?

When you back test strategies even a tick of slippage changes returns drastically. You have huge slippage essentially on entry and exit.

Hmm. I'm glad you've mentioned this to me, as now I know that 5ticks is not the norm. Although I did ask them once if this was DMA. I was told yes this is, and they mentioned being on a seperate server etc, but i didnt pay too much attention to what was being said. Looks like I'll give them a call tomorow, and have a chat.

like I say please excuse my nievity, as I don't understand the terms you use. All I know is that I use the FXCM platform for trading FX/FTSE/S&P/US OIL.

Regards
Mr. Fox.

[Hoofy]

Mr fox said:

That's not really my style, but assure you that since its been a year. I'm sure some people may just have grown up a little, as have I, and if I feel a bit unsure about a trade I hope you don't mind if I ask you for your view on it. I would like to keep this thread open to interaction, and fellow PH'ers participation.


Just out of interest mate, how's things going with your trading at the moment.

Regards
Mr Fox.

Jeez. Don't ask for my opinion on such things!

I trade purely TA but don't use any indicators - I just see what the market is doing. I tend to do much longer term stuff, though.

[marky1]

Mr fox said:

Hmm. I'm glad you've mentioned this to me, as now I know that 5ticks is not the norm. Although I did ask them once if this was DMA. I was told yes this is, and they mentioned being on a seperate server etc, but i didnt pay too much attention to what was being said. Looks like I'll give them a call tomorow, and have a chat.

like I say please excuse my nievity, as I don't understand the terms you use. All I know is that I use the FXCM platform for trading FX/FTSE/S&P/US OIL.

Regards
Mr. Fox.

Sorry to grill you, but can you not see on your charts that you are using to do MACD, Bollingers etc what the price is? Just a bit surprising for someone that has been trading for three years.

[Hoofy]

I suspect despite everything, it's really spreadbetting.

[marky1]

Hoofy said:

I suspect despite everything, it's really spreadbetting.

I suspect you are right but I would have thought that someone that has been offered jobs by hedge funds and banks would 1) know what they are trading and 2) at least know the price increments of what they are trading. As I said sorry to be grilling you but I just don't get it. How are you sitting looking at charts, surely you can see the chart you are looking at does not correspond to the price you are seeing on your screen? How have you back tested with a charting package that has the real price but traded with such a wide spread and still made a profit? Surely real results must not be anywhere near back tested results as you are testing apples and trading oranges?

[Hoofy]

Just watch and see how he gets on. IME, make too much noises and foxes scarper.

Hippos OTOH are slow and loiter a lot.

[z4chris99]

brilliant. I've been waiting for this to come back

[marky1]

Hoofy said:

Just watch and see how he gets on. IME, make too much noises and foxes scarper.

Hippos OTOH are slow and loiter a lot.

Don't want to him to scarper, honestly just want to understand what he is doing. If we can clear that up then it makes the thread realistic for us all to follow, if we can't then frankly it's a waste of time as it's meaningless.

[Mr fox]

Hoofy said:

Just watch and see how he gets on. IME, make too much noises and foxes scarper.

Hippos OTOH are slow and loiter a lot.

LMFAO

Regards
Mr Fox.