Posts by "montmorency"

@Cool: Definitely with stops. Yes, large ones, but with low leverage. My main broker at the moment has mandatory stops anyway, so I don't have the choice of no stops. You could say my physical stops are disaster stops and I have tighter mental ones. [Anyone casually reading this, if you use large stops, be sure you know what you are doing. I _think_ I know what I'm doing :-) ].



@Nzvic: Yes, I am a convinced low-leverage guy. Similar to Xaron, I am somewhat influenced by "Bird Watching in Lion Country" by De Toit, although I don't trade the way he talks about in that book. I seem to have developed my own approach using fundamentals for direction and "sort of" TA/PA for entries, plus instinct/experience. I've learned to be happy playing the ranges in the pairs I've got used to (cable, EUR/USD, and to a lesser extent EUR/JPY, plus gold; not oil). I only trade the range in the direction of fundamentals-based sentiment. I don't try to play them both ways; just keeps it simpler. I don't depend on trends as such; I'm not even sure I believe in trends as such :-) but let's not get philosophical.

I don't agonise over precise entries, because I figure this is not a high-precision business, unless perhaps one has the expensive tools that the investment banks have at their disposal. Having said that I have been consciously trying to get better entries and smaller drawdowns, and I think it is slowly improving. An experienced trader on another forum I look at said that he defined risk:reward not in the conventional way of stop_size:target_size but as maximum_drawdown_in_trade:target_size. Now although I don't agree exactly that this represents your actual risk compared to your reward, I still think it's a valuable measure of your skill as a trader.

I do know that I have a lot to learn still though! A good dose of humility doesn't come amiss, especially after a good win; it could have been luck!

For my sins, I have added at 1111.1 . Also selling Euro rallies and sitting them out.


@Nzvik: What is a marketmaker's day?


@Nick: I believe Ashraf said somewhere that they were considering, or going to try to release the course later as a webinar. However, apologies in advance if I am misrepresenting him.


Made a few useful pips out of cable today, but that's about it so far. Looking like a quiet end to a good week. Still waiting for that SNB intervention as well :)

@Nzvik: I'm not sure if 1107 would necessarily mean the end for this downtrend. I am continually surprised how high it can bounce back, only to go further down. Some of these moves are what Ashraf would probably call noise. Having said that, we have to be aware that one day the secular gold bull market will resume. I don't know how we will know when that is for sure. White smoke at the Vatican? China buying furiously? Big happy smiles on Peter Schiff's face?

One of the emails I get from Money Morning (out of the Money Magazine stable) was reminding us of George Soros. He was widely quoted as saying that gold was the ultimate asset bubble, but he quietly went away and started (or continued) buying the stuff. "When I see a bubble, I go out and buy...".
Of course, for someone with George Soros' resources, gold is still a cheap buy for the long term.

Also, the folks at Money Magazine are gold permabulls. Perhaps in the long run, we are all gold permabulls. But for those of us without Soros' resources, perhaps we have to wait until it gets even cheaper. In the words of Saint Paul (almost): "Lord, make me a gold bull, but not yet ....".

@Cool: Well, I am very much still on a learning curve. My results have improved dramatically since paying closer heed to Ashraf, and also I guess thanks to having a bit more experience, but I admit to taking too much risk sometimes (with the obvious risk of blowing up spectacularly!). Every so often I have to consciously make an effort to hold back, take it easy, not overtrade, not over-margin...it's possible to be dead right about the market and still fail through lack of proper money-management.
I've only been consistently successful for a matter of months, and I have a worry that when conditions in the market change (as they always do), I might stop being successful, so I have to watch it.
You are probably not far wrong with your 3-5 years estimate actually. If you can be consistently successful over a matter of years that says a lot more than being successful for a few months.

Can anyone explain the timing of this morning's sharp fall?
It didn't fall quite as far as expected in the Asian session then around 0900-1000 GMT, it fell down with a bang, to 1089.8 - very profitable for me thank you! - but I'm not clear why it would have fallen just then. Is this pre-Bernanke nerves or what?

It's crawling up through the 1093s-1094s as I type.

Can't see anything in the free news services and I don't have any subscription news.

No corresponding dramatic moves in cable or Euro that I could see.