Gold, Oil & Indices (Equity & Bond Indices)

mont - looks like you are on your journey to money - good luck - yes luck does play a part sometimes

@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!

Hi Ashraf,

Writng this post from one of coffe shops :) in Holland. Out of my gold short since 1090. I usually go in with
big bucks on ur hotcharts but missed that one due to heavy partyin. Thanks 4 everything and you are
the main reason I can afford this crazy lifestyle.GO ON ASHRAF!

Will see you on the 13th of March THXTHX

mont - keep at it with low leverage, the more you play and practice - the better you will get, and soon you will find your positions seem to be in the money more often than not. The other key is to build your expertise in one or max two instruments only, that restricts over trading.
trying to trade a number of currencies, commodities, index futures and stocks all at the same time is hard for the pros also.

only 30% of days are trend days - the rest play around the range wherein brokers make their living. you need totally different set ups to play the different types of days.

good luck

Thanks Vik. New one on me :-) Well I'm so used to underwater positions, my feet are permanently soggy :-) (Low leverage helps prevent trench foot though :) ).