So here we are. What this blog is all about?
It is not a collection of tutoring and advices from a Forex guru - which I am not.
It is a history of my learning and discovering trading techniques. What is it good for?
Well, frankly - it's good for me :-)
I have noticed, that when I started to write mini-articles about what I do - I also started to be more disciplined.
It's like - if I will again oversize the trade I will be ashamed to write about it.
Secondly, when I trade I bear in mind that I will share it, so I am trying to be more responsible, less emotional stick to my strategy and rules - to be able to be more proud when I will describe it on my blog.
The truth is - emotions in my case, and - probably for many beginners like me, are the biggest enemy of the profitability.
That is why an idea of "Support Group for Anonymous Newbie Traders" came to me. Talking about problems and mistakes makes it easier to eventually get rid of them.
Though my primary goal of doing this blog was to make myself more disciplined in trading, but I hope those interested in Forex will still find something interesting or useful for them.
I have started my adventure with trading currencies at the beginning of 2009'.
I have swallowed some theory, spend days and night writing EA's, checked several brokers, did some spectacular profits and even more spectacular looses, so if you are wise enough to learn from someone-else mistakes - you are welcome !
May the force be with you !
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
After First Months on FX
After one year of trying to learn how to "surf" the wave I have the following observations of my mistakes, which I believe might be common to many beginners (of course there is a possibility I am more then average 'blonde' or dummy :-)
1. "Let's do some trading now" attitude. Try to smell the direction of the wind and sail. NO NO NO. Wait for it. Don't enter if you are not reasonably sure what is the situation (in my case this would mean - don't trade for 8 months :-). Then you can use tight SL - if you are wrong you will not pay too much. After year of reading articles and books on trading I am starting to understand commonly used phrase: "There will be always opportunity to trade in the future". That is of course if the end of the world is not close... but then who cares about money :D
2. Keep it simple. I really admire rule of thumb patiently taught by Greg Michalowski from FXDD (www.fxdd.com). At the beginning SMA100 and 200 didn't seem very significant to me. I don't understand why. Or maybe I do. I was trying to scalp, and MA100 and 200 seemed always to be beyond the horizon. IMHO, if success with scalping is possible at all, it requires 6th sense. For those not gifted scalping is the same sort of sport as dice. Of course trading in the scale of days requires patience: maybe today is not a day to play. But if we wait till the cable checks the 100 bar SMA on 5min chart - we can figure it out (hopefully).
3. Main enemies: lack of discipline, increasing risk in hope to get revenge on the market in the big style, lack of patience, fear and greediness. For the ones seeking for a nice trend on GBPUSD: I would dare to suggest: In addition to watching MA100 and 200, look at Ichimoku (9,26,52 - standard settings) on 15min chart. I think it can give a hint or confirmation where is the trend.
1. "Let's do some trading now" attitude. Try to smell the direction of the wind and sail. NO NO NO. Wait for it. Don't enter if you are not reasonably sure what is the situation (in my case this would mean - don't trade for 8 months :-). Then you can use tight SL - if you are wrong you will not pay too much. After year of reading articles and books on trading I am starting to understand commonly used phrase: "There will be always opportunity to trade in the future". That is of course if the end of the world is not close... but then who cares about money :D
2. Keep it simple. I really admire rule of thumb patiently taught by Greg Michalowski from FXDD (www.fxdd.com). At the beginning SMA100 and 200 didn't seem very significant to me. I don't understand why. Or maybe I do. I was trying to scalp, and MA100 and 200 seemed always to be beyond the horizon. IMHO, if success with scalping is possible at all, it requires 6th sense. For those not gifted scalping is the same sort of sport as dice. Of course trading in the scale of days requires patience: maybe today is not a day to play. But if we wait till the cable checks the 100 bar SMA on 5min chart - we can figure it out (hopefully).
3. Main enemies: lack of discipline, increasing risk in hope to get revenge on the market in the big style, lack of patience, fear and greediness. For the ones seeking for a nice trend on GBPUSD: I would dare to suggest: In addition to watching MA100 and 200, look at Ichimoku (9,26,52 - standard settings) on 15min chart. I think it can give a hint or confirmation where is the trend.
Monday, 28 September 2009
Best Forex Web Sites
Economic calendars, commentaries, news feeds:
- http://feeds2.feedburner.com/fxdd-forex
- http://www.forextradingadvice.org/forex-economic-calendar.html
- http://www.dukascopy.com/swiss/english/marketwatch/calendars/eccalendar/
- http://www.fxdd.com/en/forex-trading-tools/economic-calendar.html
- http://forex.fxdd.com
- http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=179
(if you don't live in New York).
- http://www.ibtimes.com/forex/
- http://www.forextechniques.com/
- http://www.learntotradethemarket.com./
- http://www.tradingacademy.com/forextradingcourses.htm
- http://www.boxforex.com/academy/index.1.html
- http://twitter.com/GlobalFXAcademy
There are nice video-howtos on www.fxdd.com:
And of course
Neural Networks for trading:
to be continued...
3 Waves of The Trend
Maybe this is obvious or not correct - I am still a newbie so please bear with me!
I have been analyzing historical M30 charts on GBPUSD and I have noticed that nice trends tend to come in a triple waves (sometimes it is 4 distinguishable movements).
While reading them I glanced on a freshly printed chart with a session timing for Sydney, Tokyo, Europe and New York.
The similarity of the shapes of timetable and trends was clear.
( the chart is there: http://www.forextechniques.com/tradingtimes.html )
It is actually one of the things Dr. Sivaraman (http://www.ibtimes.com/forex/) is teaching: market dynamics is closely related to the sessions timing (overlapping, gaps etc.), so if one wants to catch the wave sharply, one has to be awake at the right time!
I have been analyzing historical M30 charts on GBPUSD and I have noticed that nice trends tend to come in a triple waves (sometimes it is 4 distinguishable movements).
While reading them I glanced on a freshly printed chart with a session timing for Sydney, Tokyo, Europe and New York.
The similarity of the shapes of timetable and trends was clear.
( the chart is there: http://www.forextechniques.com/tradingtimes.html )
It is actually one of the things Dr. Sivaraman (http://www.ibtimes.com/forex/) is teaching: market dynamics is closely related to the sessions timing (overlapping, gaps etc.), so if one wants to catch the wave sharply, one has to be awake at the right time!
Ichimoku
Yesterday I have re-discovered Ichimoku indicator.
I stumbled on it just at the beginning, but at that time I was mainly looking at 1 and 5 mins. charts and it seemed not good at all.
After reading some article (http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090825/ichimoku-trendsystem-indicator.htm ), I have carelessly attached this indicator to GBPUSD M15 chart which was on top at the moment.
I was amazed!
It looks great as an addition to a SMA (Simple Moving Average) 100 and SMA200 on M5 chart.
What I like about it, is that it's agreeing most of the time with the moving averages. You may think - so what's the point of using it?
The point is - if you have confirmation of the trend from more then one indicator/method the more confident you are.
As master Yoda said: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
More confirmations = less fear .
Less fear = more profit :-)
Some technicals:
There are different flavors of Ichimoku:
In one version Tenkan and Kijun lines are moving averages (shifted horizontally) - like they explain on:
http://www.fxwords.com/u/ichimoku-cloud.html
Other version - like the one given with MT4 (MetaTrader 4) trading application is using:
"1. The Tenkan Sen - Calculated as the sum of the highest high and the lowest low divided by two. The Tenkan is calculated over the previous seven to eight time periods.
2. The Kijun Sen - Calculated as the sum of the highest high and the lowest low divided by two. Although the calculation is similar, the Kijun takes the past 22 time periods into account."
What is the most important about usage:
Default (9/26/52) settings work on GBPUSD M15 nicely, but generally you have to experiment with different settings (and on a demo account if you will ;-) for other pairs and time frames.
Good luck and may the force be with you !
P.S. 180 Pips last night (Sydney and Tokio sessions), using MA100/200 and Ichimoku on M5 and M15 GBPUSD :-)
To be continued....
I stumbled on it just at the beginning, but at that time I was mainly looking at 1 and 5 mins. charts and it seemed not good at all.
After reading some article (http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090825/ichimoku-trendsystem-indicator.htm ), I have carelessly attached this indicator to GBPUSD M15 chart which was on top at the moment.
I was amazed!
It looks great as an addition to a SMA (Simple Moving Average) 100 and SMA200 on M5 chart.
What I like about it, is that it's agreeing most of the time with the moving averages. You may think - so what's the point of using it?
The point is - if you have confirmation of the trend from more then one indicator/method the more confident you are.
As master Yoda said: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
More confirmations = less fear .
Less fear = more profit :-)
Some technicals:
There are different flavors of Ichimoku:
In one version Tenkan and Kijun lines are moving averages (shifted horizontally) - like they explain on:
http://www.fxwords.com/u/ichimoku-cloud.html
Other version - like the one given with MT4 (MetaTrader 4) trading application is using:
"1. The Tenkan Sen - Calculated as the sum of the highest high and the lowest low divided by two. The Tenkan is calculated over the previous seven to eight time periods.
2. The Kijun Sen - Calculated as the sum of the highest high and the lowest low divided by two. Although the calculation is similar, the Kijun takes the past 22 time periods into account."
There is also a mutation available on mql4.com:
What is the most important about usage:
Default (9/26/52) settings work on GBPUSD M15 nicely, but generally you have to experiment with different settings (and on a demo account if you will ;-) for other pairs and time frames.
Good luck and may the force be with you !
P.S. 180 Pips last night (Sydney and Tokio sessions), using MA100/200 and Ichimoku on M5 and M15 GBPUSD :-)
To be continued....
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