Archive for the ‘Active Trading’ Category

Posted on March 10, 2010 - by Brendan Lee

Success rate of 75% for the month of February 2010

259 pips profit was generated for the month of February 2010. 12 trades were executed: 9 trades won and 3 trades lost. This results in a Success rate of 75%!

If you are trading 1 full contract (100,000) per trade, your profit for 259 pips will be around US$2590.

Here are the details of my trades:

1. EURUSD: 70 Pips Loss

EURUSD falls after hitting the stop. This shows that our strategy is still good, but we had placed our stop too close for this trade. Read more…

Posted on March 9, 2010 - by Alvin

Lessons Learnt as a Trader (so far)

It’s only been almost 2 years since I began trading and I must say I am still learning how to trade. I have summarized the lessons learnt so far in my trading journey:

Be patient and wait for the best opportunity to place a trade

Trading is really a patient game. It is not as quick as I imagined in the first place. The duration of the trade can be short, but the time waiting to place a trade is very much longer. The thought of profits urges me to be involved in the market and it just makes the wait feels like eternity. Sometimes, the charts do not show any opportunity but my eyes will try to find patterns to justify for a trade. And true enough, these forced trades usually end up in losses.

Statistics have shown that market generally spend most of the time consolidating (non-trending) or moving within a band. To understand more, read “90 days attribute to 95% of profits“. This is why traders have to spend most of their time waiting!

Back on forcing a trade. What I was doing (and still doing) was to demand the market pay me profits. Who am I to do that? I cannot force opportunities. The wise Sun Tzu said, “to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”  (more…)

Posted on February 22, 2010 - by Brendan Lee

329 pips profit was generated for the 1ST 3 Weeks of February 2010

329 pips profit was generated for the 1ST 3 Weeks of February 2010. 11 trades were executed: 9 trades won and 2 trades lost. This results in a Success rate of 81.82%!

If you are trading 1 full contract (100,000) per trade, your profit for 329 pips will be around US$3290.

Here are the details of my trades:

1. EURUSD: 83 Pips Loss

Stop has triggered at 1.3530, loss is 83 pips. Read more…

Posted on February 14, 2010 - by Brendan Lee

87.5% success rate in 1st 2 weeks of February 2010

241 pips profit was generated for the 1ST 2 Weeks of February 2010. 8 trades were executed: 7 trades won and 1 trades lost. This results in a Success rate of 87.50%!

If you are trading 1 full contract (100,000) per trade, your profit for 241 pips will be around US$2410.

Here are the details of my trades:

1. EURUSD: 52 Pips Profit

4 hours ago, we had shorted EURUSD at 1.3776.
Just a while ago, we had closed my position at 1.3724, profit is 52 pips.
If you are trading 1 standard lot, 52 pips is equivalent to USD520. Read more…

Posted on February 4, 2010 - by Alvin

Trading Report Card – Jan 10

My trading goal that I set for this year is to make an average of S$2,000 every month. Please do note that trading income is never consistent, and it can vary greatly month to month. Although I use the word “average”, it may mislead to I aim to attain S$2,000 every month. It makes more sense to use the total value for the entire year where S$2,000 per month will translate to S$24,000 by end of this year. With this month’s profit of S$599.34, I am left with S$23,400.66 to achieve for the rest of the year. I think it is easier to measure this way. Read more…

Posted on February 3, 2010 - by Brendan Lee

324 pips profit was generated for the month of January 2010

Dear friends,

We had generated 324 pips profit for the month of January 2010. 11 trades were executed: 8 trades won and 3 trades lost. This results in a Success rate of 73%!

If you are trading 1 full contract (100,000) per trade, your profit for 324 pips will be around US$3,240.

Here are the details of my trades:

1. EURUSD: 52 Pips Profit

Support seems to be forming at 1.3950, so decide to take profit.
Bought back EURUSD at 1.3958, profit is 52 pips. Read more…

Posted on February 2, 2010 - by Alvin

Applying Sun Tzu’s Art of War to Trading

Sun Tzu’s Art of War is a classic piece of work that is widely read and applied to many fields, due to it’s fundamental nature that is highly adaptable to many areas of our lives. In this post, I extracted parts of the work and applied to trading and in doing so, hope to introduce the important trading concepts to you. I have also group and categorize them for easy understanding.

To put it in the context of trading, I have rationalised the following terms:
- General = You, the trader
- Battle = Trading the market/making a trade
- Men, Soldiers = Your capital, dollars!

ON WINNING IN THE MARKET

“Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.”
(more…)

Posted on January 29, 2010 - by Alvin

Capital is key to Profitable Trading

Today, I finally took action and made a step out of my comfort zone.

I think it started from my trading goals (guess by now some of you know about my trading goals for 2010). And this is why we must set goals. At first, we may not have a clue on how to achieve our goals. But along the way, we tend to see possibilities that we previously failed to recognise and begin to make adjustments. If you asked me, I did not know how to achieve my trading goals but I want to attain them.

Recently, T3B organised the annual gathering for 2010 where Keane shared his insights on the markets in 2010. I had a brief moment of enlightenment when Keane commented on people having not enough capital for trading. It kind of hit the bull’s eye of my current obstacle to my trading goals which I did not see as a real problem. Trading a large capital in turn requires stronger psychology when it comes to handling wins and losses, as well as money management. Initially I thought that by cultivating and having good trading skills, it would help me gain bigger profits and meet my goals. It was until the issue on capital that created the paradigm shift in my perception. The key to bigger profits is to have a sizeable capital and strong psychology. Read more…

Posted on January 26, 2010 - by Alvin

Fading Breakout with Trendlines for FOREX

It was said that amateurs like to trade breakouts (buy when price breaks resistance and sell when price breaks support) and the professionals like to do the oppposite. In fact, false breakouts are more frequent than real ones, hence, it may be profitable to trade with the pros. I read about this method from Grace Chang’s book, “7 Winning Strategies for Trading Forex“. There are many ways to fade breakouts but she recommends using a trendline. Note that this method is for FOREX and may not be proven in stocks or other markets.

Rules:

1) Use a time frame of at least an hour

2) Draw a trendline connecting 2 extreme points. (more…)

Posted on January 16, 2010 - by Drizzt

Trading Log: Yanlord Review

Another new year, another trading mistake. In a bid to get in on a hot property sector rotation, i got in at Yanlord at $2.18. Yanlord have been in  a trading range for a while and the risk is that it will still be in the range for a while. What is working in its favor are earnings releases due soon. Read more…