Saturday, November 1, 2008

A Fresh Start...

As many of you might've noticed, the updates to this blog have stopped over the past month. I had to do a lot of soul searching, method revision, and planning to get where I am right now. The trades i'm taking now, and the method i'm trading are 110% different from anything posted on this blog previously, therefore, the past is well, the past and is no longer relevant to the achievement of my goals. So I decided to delete all of the previous daily recaps and wipe the slate clean.

I got back to basics by trading a methodology that I have been learning (and trading) under the direction of my mentor for years (since I started trading). However, I never really made it work. I complicated the situation by trying to trade everything or nothing, by trying to reverse engineer out the losses, and expand the wins. When in reality if I just would accept that losses happen and its part of the game then I would be extremely successful applying this methodology. I do have one tweak that I use to pull out the key swings I want to play, and frankly, I believe it to be a pseudo genius application that works amazingly well with my mentors' method. Together, they are EXTREMELY powerful and PROFITABLE.

So while I was out of town this past week I got back in town and was able to perform a forward "backtest" of this past weeks' price action and see where the entries and exits would've been. Following pure entry rules, no interpretation or bias, the system pulled out nearly 700 pips over the past 4 days and a 75% win rate. Now that's something I can put my faith into. So I traded from 9:00AM to 11:00AM on Friday and was able to take 1 trade for +56 pips in the USDCAD using the exact rules.

Starting Monday I will be trading both of my FX accounts with the intention of using the performance that I demonstrate over the next month as a piece of hard evidence that I can provide to clients before they allow me to trade their capital. Yes, that's right folks, I've been approached by three individuals over the past two weeks that all are offering capital for me to trade. But before I take their money and start to grow it along with my own, I want to know that I can demonstrate one month of consistent results and error free trading for myself. This should provide baseline potential return figures as well as an idea of max drawdowns and win rates that can help assure these clients that i'm a capable money manager. It will also allow me time to look into the legal ramifications of trading other people's money and any taxation issues i'm going to run into.

Here's the thing... I really feel confident in what i'm doing for the first time in, well, forever. I think I have a rock solid methodology and rule base to pull money out of any market and time frame. What I lack in consistency and sticking to the rules will fix itself as I start to gain confidence in letting the trades ride, and the edge I have prove itself, not to mention the added accountability other peoples money brings into the equation. For the first time in a long time i'm looking forward to Monday's open and the opportunities that lay ahead. Monday quite literally is going to be the start of systematically checking off every single one of the goals outlined in this blog and I can't wait to get started.

And let it be heard here and now... i'm not changing ANYTHING in my setups from here on out. I've done the dance with every other system and method out there and somehow was fortunate enough to have stumbled onto the most robust and profitable method of them all right out of the gate. Its time I recognized that and stopped trying to find the holy grail and buckle down into the ATM machine i've had all along. I'm so confident in this method that i'm literally just pulling up random stocks, markets, and time frames to see how powerful and robust it really is. I'm actually enjoying what I do with that giddy feeling I found years ago when I was attending my first trading presentation.

Long story short. Success begins Monday - and i'm bringing my A game.

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