IC MARKETS REAL 313166 Discussion

Closed third chart - both XAUUSD and XAUEUR use RSI as entry (two charts). Margin is 780%. I don't want to push my luck - market is in strong uptrend. Going to bed now. 😕

OMG, just as well daily charts are headed south. Drawdown is horrendous... I have removed XAUEUR. 😞

Margin used is $1089, and I am $4400 in open loss. I think the broker has saved my bacon (can I give them credit?) - the EA wanted to keep opening sell trades but was unable to.

I have been concerned about XAUEUR before... ah gee, can I trade any pair with this EA?

As I was thinking, perhaps I should just use a simple EA with no martingale, or use the 'max loss' setting on this one?

XAUEUR at 925... I can only hope it goes down. I hate to close it now and lose half my account - especially if the market moves in my favour.

'Running scared' - I have put the XAUUSD on default grid settings of 30 pips (?) between orders. I hate drawdown!

Hmm, I looked at the H1 charts and it looks like XAUEUR was in an uptrend (despite daily looking like a downtrend). I have closed all open positions, and my account is pretty much at $0. WASTED!

Well, I guess starting from $0 can give me a fresh start, but now I can't trade until I have some capital in my account.

Yep, leverage can work for you and against you just as easily.

It seems holding and hoping the market will turn has again cost me a large chunk of my account (this time the entire account). Cut losses short... hard for me to do considering that the market can (usually) reverses.

Forex is rigged (is it?), and it seems the only players to win are the brokers and banks... I had an error deleting a pending order, so I restarted MT4 and suddenly the pending order wasn't a pending order but a real order and it closed - luckily in profit...

Heck, I only have $570 to lose, I might as well add another pair. Both XAUUSD and EURUSD are on 30 grid:

1. 200 open trades (UNCHANGEABLE)
2. Three pairs: XAUUSD, EURUSD, GBPUSD (200/3 = 66 open trades per pair)
3. 0.01 lots per $10,000 (account balance is below $10,000 so all pairs are at 0.01 lots)
4. RSI 'ON' for all pairs
5. Reset grids when: a) open loss = 10% of account balance or b) 200 open trade limit nears
6. Keep 'safe' grid (10, 30, 5, 30), with no max loss.

...still aiming for 2% daily profits, and still contributing a minimum of $2000 per fortnight.

But I can't keep rules - especially if they don't work. 😞

RULES:

1. 200 open trades (UNCHANGEABLE)
2. Three pairs: XAUUSD, EURUSD, GBPUSD (200/3 = 66 open trades per pair)
> 3. 0.01 lots on every pair, per $1000 of account balance
4. RSI 'ON' for all pairs (setting='6')
5. Reset grids when: a) open loss = 10% of account balance or b) 200 open trade limit nears
6. Keep 'safe' grid (10, 30, 5, 30), with no max loss.

...still aiming for 2% daily profits, and still contributing a minimum of $2000 per fortnight.

I'm thinking of increasing XAUUSD since this pair is more volatile and closes baskets quicker than EURUSD and GBPUSD. Also, this would increase profits and my account balance sooner.

I think this is the original setting I had for my account (between 25 November 2013 to 25 December 2013), and I think if I keep enough margin then the EURUSD anomaly would be survivable.

Downloaded tick data for XAUUSD for 2013, but haven't conducted a 99% backtest yet. I need to import data into MT4 using Tick Data Suite (following Birt's instructions https://eareview.net/tick-data-suite).

...adding fourth pair EURTRY.

The question remains: how to achieve 30% EVERY day, with NO LOSING DAYS?

I am considering opening some new accounts, each account with one, two, and three pairs, so that they each have a different level of risk. If the higher risk one blows, the other lower risk accounts will survive.

2% per day is easily achieved, so perhaps I should aim higher...?

It has been said before: it is not how much you make when you are right, it is how little you lose when you are wrong...

'When I worked as an investment broker many years ago I found that the most successful traders I worked with often lost on 90% of their trades. Yet in spite of this terrible win/loss percentage their investments were incredibly lucrative. Might it be that they knew something about success that the rest of us only pay lip service to? The one comment that I recall these superstars reiterating was that its not how much you make when you are right but rather how little you lose when you are wrong. Imagine losing on 90% of your trades and still being wildly successful. That is a fitting example of sticktoitivity!'
-https://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Anderson14.html

Big drawdown on EURTRY... I need to get rid of this pair, but I am waiting on the current 22 sell trades to close (hopefully!).

I may not bother using a fourth pair, since I am well in excess of my daily target of 2%. 😎

RSI Trading Strategy – Does it Work Best During Asia Trading Session?
By David Rodriguez, Quantitative Strategist

https://www.dailyfx.com/forex/technical/article/forex_strategy_corner/2011/01/31/RSI_Trading_Strategy_Does_it_Work_Best_During_Asia_Trading_Session.html

Hmm...

Removed EURTRY, added:
-EURAUD and
-GPS Forex Robot on EURUSD (the only robot I trust, though it trades seldom, and mostly only EURUSD).

I am always tempted to increase profits by increasing risk, but I must be patient. I need to keep a minimum of pairs and keep to the rule of 0.01 lots per $1000 in account. With slow but stable account growth I should hope to see a compounding (logarithmic) effect.

'Fall seven times, stand up eight.' Japanese proverb

Hmm, EURTRY is a good pair (but good means higher risk). Yesterday achieved 13% (which is excellent) but I probably could have achieved more with EURTRY.

I am thinking of going back to EURTRY... 0.01 lots per $5000 or $10,000 though.

Well, there's my answer: EURTRY is not a good pair to trade. I had noticed some slippage and bad fills, so that doesn't help.

Frigging annoyed at starting again, but i will quickly make the money back WHEN (if) I find the right advisor.

Arggh! I hate checking my account and seeing no activity! The market keeps making money, but I ain't seeing any of it! 😡

Yes, I took big risks, but the results speak volumes about the broker too. Looking carefully at the history you can see slippage and you learn about the broker's behaviour. IC Markets is OKAY as a broker, and they are regulated in Australia which is pretty safe (not guaranteed, but safer than Panama or Cyprus).

No broker will allow traders to consistently win ...is this true? I have yet to find a legitimate broker that will prove this statement wrong.

I'll try this one again, but I MUST strictly stick to 0.01 lots per $5000 (maybe?) or $10,000 (better).

Martingale, even though it is x1.1, needs lots of margin.

'As Forex traders we have to come to terms with the elements of trading that are completely out of our control. In order to progress we have to accept, (even begin to embrace), that lack of control very early on in our personal trading evolution. Price is obviously the most prominent trading factor bar none and equally there's one immutable fact, price is a trading factor that we have absolutely no control over. For us to become successful forex traders we have to accept that we have no control over what price will do, we can only take a position in our chosen market based on our interpretation of probability. The risk in the market is not what we want it to be. The risk is what the market imposes upon us.'

-https://blog.fxcc.com/the-mathematics-of-money-management-in-forex-trading

I couldn't have said it better myself... despite my best (or second-best) efforts, I can't help blowing my accounts, and it is all related to my risk management. More margin seems to be required always, so that one begins to think that enough margin is never enough, and returns can only be really low (eg. 5% per month) to be sustainable (IMHO returns that low are a joke in forex).

BluePanther posted:
I'll try this one again, but I MUST strictly stick to 0.01 lots per $5000 (maybe?) or $10,000 (better).

Martingale, even though it is x1.1, needs lots of margin.

Considering the history of Golden Future EA, I am thinking perhaps I should use the reverse-grid martingale EA with 0.01 lots per $100,000 (as opposed to $10,000). 'Too much margin' is better than 'not enough margin'. 😉

Sticking to low margin-requirement EAs for now: 'high-interest savings account' (or 'low-returns forex account') 😉

Hmm, myfxbook is playing up (like they say, lies, damned lies, and statistics):
1. shows positive trades as negative gains, shows negative trades as positive gains...?
2. showed 0.09% positive gain for this month, where before (and now) it was 103.2% negative gain.

For ACCURATE stats, please visit mt4i.com 😡

I do not consider myself an expert, nor do I wish to portray myself as anything such. I use this blog for my personal account of the changes in strategy that I make, but I make it public to share things which I hope others can learn from...

'No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.' - Brian Tracy

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'To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?' - Jim Rohn

...well, I obviously asked the wrong person this one time! (see image attached). No, to be fair he did respond politely to my request for assistance, but at the end of the discussion the way myfxbook displays the 'Subject' and a caption can be misleading... (I thought this was amusing, how my question in the Subject line was answered by a caption - so succinctly!)

BluePanther posted:
Hmm, myfxbook is playing up (like they say, lies, damned lies, and statistics):
1. shows positive trades as negative gains, shows negative trades as positive gains...?
2. showed 0.09% positive gain for this month, where before (and now) it was 103.2% negative gain.

For ACCURATE stats, please visit mt4i.com 😡

BluePanther, I've replied to you privately, and would like to make it clear for everyone else that our statistics are accurate; You're seeing positive percentage gains even though trades are losing money because the balance is negative which skews the calculation - this is actually an issue with the broker as an account cannot reach a negative balance.

Staff posted:

BluePanther posted:
Hmm, myfxbook is playing up (like they say, lies, damned lies, and statistics):
1. shows positive trades as negative gains, shows negative trades as positive gains...?
2. showed 0.09% positive gain for this month, where before (and now) it was 103.2% negative gain.

For ACCURATE stats, please visit mt4i.com 😡

BluePanther, I've replied to you privately, and would like to make it clear for everyone else that our statistics are accurate; You're seeing positive percentage gains even though trades are losing money because the balance is negative which skews the calculation - this is actually an issue with the broker as an account cannot reach a negative balance.

'the balance is negative which skews the calculation' - my point exactly.

'...an issue with the broker as an account cannot reach a negative balance.' My broker account did [reach a negative balance]. The negative balance is not an error with my broker or myfxbook - but the positive / negative gains on my myfxbook statement are!

Thank you for your input Ethan. I just received your reply too - thanks for responding.

I think everyone (especially me) would like to see this issue rectified. Please. I know it is not a gain when my account loses more money. Similarly, it is not a loss when my account makes a profit.