It was the bottom

For the time being anyway. I managed to score a 300 pip profit on it so that felt nice. I have a chart somewhere on the laptop but I am getting really freaking lazy in terms of this blog right now. I don't feel very motivated with it. I think some of that has to do with my lack of good Internet at  the moment and my hunger. I've been eating a lot of spaghetti lately. I buy those cheap little noodle meals and instead of throwing in the veggies and liquid that come with it I have just been buying prego sauce and mixing that it. I love it and its cheap :)

After that huge winner I had another string of losses but took a 46 pip winner as the chart shows.








On an unrelated note, I went to the gym while I was in town the other day and while holding a spot in the parking lot during the busy time, some guy tried backing into the spot. I didn't move and waved him on. Then the hilarious part happened. I heard him turn up the rap music in his escalade to blaring levels before he opened the door to try and intimidate me. Honestly, I don't even know that it was on to begin with because I couldn't hear anything until it was blaringly loud. He got out and puffed up asking me what I said hahah! he drove off anyways. The thing is, he was a pretty big guy, and it was intimidating and he probably could have crushed me easily... but what actually helped me was the giant signal he gave off about his insecurity by having to turn his music up before confronting me... how lame are you dude that you have to do that? I am sore as hell from the gym by the way.

I spent most of my day today watching this Alien documentary called Sirius disclosure. One from the early 2000's and another from 2013. I also watched a BBC documentary about a teenage girl who won the lottery.. it was pretty much shit.

Two highly notable movies I have seen this past week were The interview, with seth rogan and James Franco and Take a waltz with me with Seth rogan again. Both really wonderful in my opinion.

Nothing much new to report going on except the fact that each time I come into town it is becoming harder and harder for me to leave. I have to tell myself this is flying by and I will be alright. I'll soon be home all the time and have lots and lots of time to work on many of the things I love.

Bottom?

I saw some support on the monthly chart from way way WAAAY back and had a gut feeling the Eur/Usd might just be turning for a bit so I placed the robot. It took 2 losses then was up enough for me to take half the position off (something I figured out how to do) and recoup the two losers and still have a standard position size. I started with 20k position size by the way.

I am home and am going to try to enjoy my time off. Not sure how just yet but I'll figure something out. here are some charts :)

I feel like this might go up for a at least a few days, but at the same time on the 5min chart you can see it has hit some resistance which would have been an obvious place to take profits. At its max the trade was 176 pips in profit.

The ECB Market Volatility

It is moves like this that I wish could happen every day in the market. I would never doubt my ability to make money, and hence, why I am keen on wanting to trade only days like these.

From the general time of the news, until about 11am the market traded a 229 PIP range. I love trading action like this. It is basically like penny stock volatility, but with much more liquidity.

More liquidity simply means that it is easier to get in and out of a position because there are many traders there who want to take the other side of your trade. Tim doesn't want the whole world watching a penny stock because there are only so many shares available to trade in the first place, and even less shares available to borrow for shorting the stock. In all honesty I really don't think he is doing his method a good service by sharing it with the whole world, thankfully for now be has only a tiny slice of the trading communities attention that trade like he does.

Anyways, my general point with a day like today that ranges 229 pips (284 as I type this) is that I ask myself the question "Would it really be so hard to capture 20-40 pips out of that movement? I don't think so.

That is what I will find out come July. Hopefully good news. BTW, the bank didn't change it's interest rate. Not much else to say. I didn't trade it, nor did I have the robot trading it as I am sure it would have gotten a ton of losers while I could not be there to monitor trades. Later!

Small Update

Hey, if feels like a long time since I last posted. I have been feeling like shit about trading for a lot of reasons, but I have continued to study Tim's DVD and take it in bit by bit. I've just been feeling beat down over seeing losses in this account, even though they are fake and I don't intend to actually trade this way. It still is effecting me negatively and it sucks.

Some positive news is that I finally found a program to setup a remote desktop connection between my computer out on the road and my laptop at home! To my surprise you can actually use Google chrome browser with an app called remote connection, so that is cool. Best part about it is, I don't have to waste loads of time trying to set things up and forward ports or static IPs or anything like that. It's VERY simple so if you need to do it, just download chrome and the remote connection app and you can literally be setup in like 60 seconds. You can't transfer files, but I don't need to do that. I just need to control my laptop.

So with that said, I logged on the other night to see how it works and I took this screen shot.

I just so happened to have gotten creamed with several losses in a row, with a few chances to take 3x profits.









At that point I raised the trade size from 10k per trade to 20k basically hoping to come back later and find myself in a profit. I noticed this morning there was a significant loss and have just now logged on to check it out. Apparently there was some news and in a matter of a few minutes there were 7 losses in a row. with opportunity to gain it back as well, but that is hindsight trading of course.

Tomorrow the minimum bid rate for the ECB (Central bank) comes out so it will be interesting to see how the market responds to that. I'll be waking up and on the road right around the time it is happening so I won't be able to manage it really. I might place the robot and just see the results I don't know.



Anyways, on the Tim front and the trading thoughts in my mind... Part of me is just really scared of staying  home to trade and making a fool out of myself with all of this, and there is another part of me that wants to be determined to make it work no matter how long that takes. I mean, isn't that the point of never giving up? I have really been wondering just how likely it is for a person with a small account to actually grow it to the point of living off of it. And I mean, if they have no one to take care of them and cover bills in the mean time. That was my plan last year but things came up. I wanted to have a years worth of rent saved up and a small account to start with and see how it went. You know I listen to the traders podcast with Rob Booker, and I enjoy it quite a bit but not nearly as much as I used to. Ever since listening to Tim and watching his YouTube videos and seeing his transparency... I find a natural voice in my mind asking why Rob is not so transparent... He says he posts charts of his trades on his twitter and I haven't been a part of that so I don't know, but I just find that I am not getting what feels like any real meat out of that podcast anymore. Hell, it's really just a 20 minute conversation anymore about things I find rather insignificant. It feels more like cheer leading than anything of true value. While I recognize that a positive attitude is a great thing, so is a plan backed up by past results, and Rob doesn't offer that even in his trading course I bought... Tim has around 3,900 documented trades and a statistical 76% win rate with an average winner of around $2,300. That is the kind of thing that inspires what really matters: Educated confidence.

And as I write that I can almost hear Rob commenting to his audience, and specifically to me, that it's up to me to do the work and find the results I can be confident in. That has been a backbone of the journey I am documenting with this blog, but the reality is I am not going to just set a robot and forget it. I have yet to share my most likely strategy for forex trading on this blog yet, but suffice it to say it is not one that can be employed or even studied while I am on the road. It must be done live and in person and carefully studied so I can have real results to calculate.

I myself feeling like a quitter and a loser for being less active on this blog, even though from the start I never made any promises about it. It doesn't help that since that initial decline in performance it has just kept on going and has basically taken me back to break even. It is not confidence inspiring.

Let me try and give you a good parallel. I think it is kinda like turning on the news and seeing story after story of horrible things done by horrible people. Even though what you are witnessing may not be done in your country or directly impact you in a real way, it still has an impact on your psyche. Terrorism may not be present in your neighborhood, your town, or even your state... But it could anger and scare the shit out of you (like it does me) and cause results in your real life that otherwise would not have been happening.

I guess part of me is wondering if there is really anything positive about seeing all these losses over what is basically just random robotic trading losses. Part of it really is the gathering of data for the purpose of seeing if in the long term prices will move far enough in one direction to be profitable overall... But it has been a real battle to keep reminding myself that those losses are a result of a way I do not truly intend to trade, that those losses should not and do not reflect who I am personally as some kind of loser.

A large problem for me in all of this is the frustration I feel at seeing those losses while also seeing times that I could have taken profits if I had been paying attention, but the losses make it emotionally hard and too frustrating at times to even open the chart and look. I won't honestly be able to be at home and trade the way I want to until july. My desire, besides trading Tim's strategy, is to trade forex around huge news announcements like tomorrows Minimum bid rate (interest rate) because it makes the most sense to me to limit my trading to only the most volatile moves. I truly am starting to feel that trading any time otherwise is damn near close to a waste of time for me and my personality.

So if I stop updating the blog with certain things, or at all, it is probably because I have no energy for it or have determined to be ultimately not a positive use of time. I can't say either way what will happen but I wanted to say that regardless.

On one last note, I have started playing Skyrim on my PC and although I can't say it is quite my thing as it doesn't have guns, I am finding it a pleasurable use of my time, especially because I have modded the hell out of it with followers, and texture packs. So, maybe I'll post about that who knows haha.

Take care until next time,
-Francisco

Lazy and busy

Been really rushed lately, and it's made me too lazy at the end of the night to do anything. The robot is going and took some losses but I closed out a winner too. Still down though.

I don't even feel the energy to explain why I'm getting to feel that posting is kinda pointless right now. This is all really boring to me. I can't test anything that I wasn't too actually trade until I'm home everyday to be live. The earlier trading in this blog was all just to see if the robot handled trading accurately, but that is even pointless in a demo account.

I don't have much to say, but I am watching Tim's DVD and learning a few things. I don't have a clear direction in my head for when I get home because there is a lot of conflicting information and thoughts in my head.

Posting will likely decrease, but I don't want to pay if I've got nothing of value to contribute right now.

Until next time, cheers

Home Sweet Home

Not a whole lot to report.
I ran some other backtests on some actual martingale robots that don't trade the way I trade with the box. One of them was quite profitable for 7 months straight and then just dove off a cliff rather frequently afterwards.

 I had a safety meeting this morning and just got home. I am tired and hungry and feeling very unfocused right now. But I do want to take some time to say that I have purchased Tim Sykes' "How to make millions" DVD and have been seriously considering putting more energy into that when I am off the road instead of Forex trading.

The main reason is because there is so much more potential in what Tim is doing than what I think is possible with Forex. As I said I'm about to pass out but let me try to explain why:

What matters most in a market is directional volatility, that means how fast and how far prices move in one direction. In the currency markets 1% change is pretty normal, and from what I can see most stocks of very large companies move in a the few percent range per day as well. However in the penny stock arena there seem to be stocks that move between 25% and 50% just about every day. This happens because a lot of these tiny companies are hyped up with news letters and emails sent out to people who don't know any better and it gets them to buy the stock. Some stocks go up because of good earnings as well, but in the end it's really just a supply and demand issue that causes these prices to rise and fall so drastically.

The world currency markets are so large, with like 5 TRILLION dollars exchanged everyday, that it's percentage range of volatility would take extreme demand to cause its price to rise significantly. Because currency prices are tied to economics of countries, these countries do not want their currencies fluctuating that much because people want a stable currency. They want consistent purchasing power.

Stocks are completely different and tied usually to the economics of a business model or an idea. The inside investors who own the most stock always want that stock price moving higher and higher because that makes them richer and richer. Every time a currency gains strength, the other currencies lose value in comparison, so there is a constant struggle for equilibrium taking place by central banks. Stock owners inside the company hire promoters to hype the company or product hoping to increase demand and raise the share price. Why? So at some point their shares can be sold for an enormous gain.

These tiny tiny companies that tim focuses on almost always increase in value exponentially, and then crash exponentially for this reason. The percentage gains and losses had by these stocks is incredible and it is starting to make the most sense to me to trade. He has made millions and has proven it, and now has 4 millionaire students (two that wish to remain private) to back up his teaching. But aside from those millionaire students, there are many students earning 5 and 6 figure incomes.

The timing of all this seems to line up and I am starting to feel like this is  clear sign for me to take it very seriously. I can't trade these stocks because I am working while these moves are taking place, but I can start to watch what tim talks about and post information about what happens.

If I find a program that will allow me to reliably access my computer remotely and adjust the robot I will continue to do that, but I think I am going to try and focus on Tim's course that I bought. It is over 30 hours of material so that should keep me busy for awhile. Ok, I'm done. Till next time.

-Francisco

Some testing results

First, here are some sweet pics of the sunset in colorado I took today. Also, accidents from yesterday in Illinois and Nebraska

Fuckin sweet I know ;P

Ok, this was a real pain in the ass to do, but I went back through each trade that was made and implemented the martingale risk profile. Here is one minor detail I came to find out. Over the two month test period from January to February of 2013 the largest string of losses was 13 in a row. There is just no way to double your position size that many times so I had to make a rule. I could only have 5 losses and then I would start my position sizing over again. At my last size I would be trading $16/pip even though with a 10k account I could technically trade for about $40/pip after a string of losses that would need that size. Here is how my position sizing went.

-$10
-$20
-$40
-$80
-$160
-$10
etc...

I did get lucky and have a few strings finally win on the last trade before the reset for a win of +$240. If that had not happened and one more loss had occured, the results would be quite different I think. I will have to save my charts and make copies of them using different data points. That will be quite intensive because that guy who I emailed about updating the robot has basically ignored me. I don't have a clue what's going on with him.

Definitely make sure you download this chart so you can zoom in and see it. this is a comparison of the 289 trades during Jan and Feb of 2013. I wasn't super accurate with my placement of the box, but my goal was to place it at the start of each new daily bar and leave it the entire length of the day.

The top chart is with original static position sizes using $1/pip and the bottom one uses the martingale position sizing as mentioned above.

The area with the largest drawdowns are obviously the string of losses. Click HERE to download an html file of all the original trades from my Metatrader platform. There is also more interesting data in the file at the top. If it doesn't work let me know, but you should just be able to open in right up in your browser.

So... Although this strategy did end up at a 9% profit after 2 months, 289 trades is too small a sample size and too narrow a range of time for me to feel comfortable enough to put any stock in this just yet. I'd love to have at least a thousand trades, or run the numbers on a different position sizing method for the same trades. If I had a robot that could do it all for me it would be so much easier but damn... I am even willing to pay the guy and he just won't respond.

I'll keep you in the loop of any other data I happen to figure out. Until then I suppose I'll be hard at work.

-Francisco

Sunday update

Hey, some things came across my mind today and I wanted to share them.

First of all, I noticed that the EUR/USD totally tanked on new years eve and at first I didn't think much of it, but then today I realized it was probably people getting out of their positions for the year. Just my guess. It would have to do with an accounting election for traders called "Mark to market". It's for anyone who qualifies really, but what constitutes a trader in the eyes of the IRS is pretty vague.

I should be more clear on what the hell I am about to say but I am not. Anyhow, there is a tax situation where it would be best to exit your position I think.

So, my other news is that it is sunday and the markets opened up and fell dramatically, only to be bought back up again. They crashed through the psychologically significant 1.2000 level. Round numbers are just important like that. Anyhow, that also coincides with major support on the weekly charts from years back. check it out.

I am curious if the trend will be reversing and if it is wise to go long at this price, even if it's just a small position. Who knows, anything can happen and I haven't looked into any fundamentals lately at all.

Lastly, I realized that I can backtest the Robot in my software. I've known that before, I mean, that's basically the highlight of the metatrader platform, but when it comes to backtesting the box I never used a predetermined take profit so it would just lose and lose and lose. Now, if I put in the 1.5 times risk profit target I can get some data. It will not be totally accurate data because the market conditions aren't live and therefore the spread won't change due to news releases and such, but I can at least try and gather something and then run the numbers implementing the martingale risk profile. I intend to spend the rest of the night going through that. Wish me luck

-Francisco

What the Frack!!

Hey, damn I don't know what's up lately but I have a splitting headache, it's been with me nearly all day. I've been properly hydrated and all that but shit just sucks...

The only thing I can think it might be from is less than 8 hours sleep but who knows. I kinda was on the verge of a headache when I went to be last night.

Anyways, I saw like 4-5 accidents on the road today in PA and OH...

The last thing I wan't to say is that I have heard a lot about hydraulic fracking on the Joe Rogan Podcast and I finally decided to start watching the documentary "Gasland". It's scary, sad and fucking pathetic what people will put other people through for money. The assholes in charge of this mess, those are the kind of people that need to be destroyed.