I've been dicking around in an Oanda practice account for the last month or so trying to play around with some "catch big trend" strategies (which I still have no success with).
The premise and rules for this one are easy, and are as follows:
Premise:
Direction cannot be predicted (except by ET MACD millionaires who try to sell you their shitty courses via PM), so just make sure you're "on board" when price happens to take off.
Rules:
Trade 6 pairs. Which 6? The ones with the lowest commissions.
EUR/GBP
ZAR/JPY
USD/JPY
EUR/USD
AUD/USD
USD/CHF
Open two sub-accounts or whatever they're called. One is for long positions, one is for short positions.
Begin whenever you want (although make sure it's at a time when commissions are reasonable, so not when they're 10 pips).
Go long all 6 pairs in the long account and short all 6 pairs in the short account. Buy position sizes such that 1 pip = 1 dollar (I like to keep it small, but you can do whatever you want). Each order gets a trailing stop of 50 pips.
Eventually your positions will close. The rules for reopening them are as follows:
Only reopen a position that has closed on both the long and short side. In other words, if EUR/USD is still open on the long side, don't reopen it on the short side. But if both sides have closed, then reopen both of them.
Reopen them whenever you want, just make sure the commissions are low. In other words, if it's like 5-10 pips to open one, don't cuz that's already eating into your profits.
Logic:
The reason for this is that price will eventually take off in one direction (which cannot be predicted), and when it does, the losing side will close out and the winning side will ride to huge profits!!!!
What usually happens:
There are three things:
What happens occasionally:
Price just chops around endlessly and doesn't go anywhere. I've been in the same ZAR/JPY trade for like 2 weeks now and still neither side has closed out.
What happens often:
Price starts to take off, closes out one side and gets you a good +25 pips or so on the other side, and then retreats back in the initial direction, so you get a -25 pip loss on the good side and a -50 pip loss on the bad side.
What happens rarely:
Price takes off and your losing side closes out and your winning side makes bank. Like this:
I'm up like 148 pips or something on that trade.
The results:
After almost 4 weeks of this, with both accounts starting with $10,000 the account balances are as follows:
Long account:
Balance: $9,943.52
Unrealized P&L: $210.20
Realized P&L: -$67.26
One thing to keep in mind, this account currently has 6 positions open because I just reopened them all (except for USD/JPY which has been rockingever since 3/25 when I bought it).
Short account:
Balance: $9,682.33
Unrealized P&L: $8.41
Realized P&L: -$298.58
This account has 3 positions open: EUR/GBP, AUD/USD, and USD/CHF.
Its balance has been steadily declining ever since I started, with occasional.
Equity curves:
(both accounts started at $10,000, but for some reason I don't have that data anymore, so just assume that wherever they started, it went down to that level roughly at the same level as the decline shown on the chart from the starting level down to the current level)
Long account:
Don't get all excited just cuz the equity cuve is going up. Remember it started at $10,000, and also remember that there are 6 positions open right now, most of which will probably close at a loss, and even the winning +150 pip position right now will likely close at only +100 pips (since there's a 50 pip trailing stop).
Short account:
So net starting value was $20,000, current value is like $19,625.
If I keep doing this, I will update the thread every so often with account balances and stuff.
But overall it's a losing strategy (and would be even without commissions).
Any ideas for how to make it better?
I mean real ideas, not indicators or fib voodoo.
The premise and rules for this one are easy, and are as follows:
Premise:
Direction cannot be predicted (except by ET MACD millionaires who try to sell you their shitty courses via PM), so just make sure you're "on board" when price happens to take off.
Rules:
Trade 6 pairs. Which 6? The ones with the lowest commissions.
EUR/GBP
ZAR/JPY
USD/JPY
EUR/USD
AUD/USD
USD/CHF
Open two sub-accounts or whatever they're called. One is for long positions, one is for short positions.
Begin whenever you want (although make sure it's at a time when commissions are reasonable, so not when they're 10 pips).
Go long all 6 pairs in the long account and short all 6 pairs in the short account. Buy position sizes such that 1 pip = 1 dollar (I like to keep it small, but you can do whatever you want). Each order gets a trailing stop of 50 pips.
Eventually your positions will close. The rules for reopening them are as follows:
Only reopen a position that has closed on both the long and short side. In other words, if EUR/USD is still open on the long side, don't reopen it on the short side. But if both sides have closed, then reopen both of them.
Reopen them whenever you want, just make sure the commissions are low. In other words, if it's like 5-10 pips to open one, don't cuz that's already eating into your profits.
Logic:
The reason for this is that price will eventually take off in one direction (which cannot be predicted), and when it does, the losing side will close out and the winning side will ride to huge profits!!!!
What usually happens:
There are three things:
What happens occasionally:
Price just chops around endlessly and doesn't go anywhere. I've been in the same ZAR/JPY trade for like 2 weeks now and still neither side has closed out.
What happens often:
Price starts to take off, closes out one side and gets you a good +25 pips or so on the other side, and then retreats back in the initial direction, so you get a -25 pip loss on the good side and a -50 pip loss on the bad side.
What happens rarely:
Price takes off and your losing side closes out and your winning side makes bank. Like this:
I'm up like 148 pips or something on that trade.
The results:
After almost 4 weeks of this, with both accounts starting with $10,000 the account balances are as follows:
Long account:
Balance: $9,943.52
Unrealized P&L: $210.20
Realized P&L: -$67.26
One thing to keep in mind, this account currently has 6 positions open because I just reopened them all (except for USD/JPY which has been rockingever since 3/25 when I bought it).
Short account:
Balance: $9,682.33
Unrealized P&L: $8.41
Realized P&L: -$298.58
This account has 3 positions open: EUR/GBP, AUD/USD, and USD/CHF.
Its balance has been steadily declining ever since I started, with occasional.
Equity curves:
(both accounts started at $10,000, but for some reason I don't have that data anymore, so just assume that wherever they started, it went down to that level roughly at the same level as the decline shown on the chart from the starting level down to the current level)
Long account:
Don't get all excited just cuz the equity cuve is going up. Remember it started at $10,000, and also remember that there are 6 positions open right now, most of which will probably close at a loss, and even the winning +150 pip position right now will likely close at only +100 pips (since there's a 50 pip trailing stop).
Short account:
So net starting value was $20,000, current value is like $19,625.
If I keep doing this, I will update the thread every so often with account balances and stuff.
But overall it's a losing strategy (and would be even without commissions).
Any ideas for how to make it better?
I mean real ideas, not indicators or fib voodoo.
