trixifx's Posts - Page 2

Delusions Grandiose !! in Trading Systems May 27, 2011 at 21:53

Nah, use FxSpyder at present (Excel for long-term ideas), but have heard that their data is not perfect either. The benefit of using longer term strategies is that I don't need to have the most accurate data. The less I trade, the less dodgy data is going to come back to haunt me.But let me emphasize this - I have tested loads of systems and found that most of them don't work. Cost me some programming time and no money. Also, I didn't waste time trying to see if these strategies might work. To me, that is one HUGE benefit. Trying to guess future performance based on back-tested res...

Delusions Grandiose !! in Trading Systems May 27, 2011 at 21:34

I find back-testing very useful. You have no idea how many indicators and strategies that look ok I have discarded. Running a strategy overnight on 10 years of data can be extremely helpful. Although, most of my results have shown that most of the systems I think up are crap.The only ones I would trust with real money are my LTTF systems, but they make between 20%-30% per annum with drawdowns in the region of 60%. Thus not very appealing. I am now looking at more shorter term strategies, but find there are no real multi-currency back-testers available. Will probably write my own and try some s...

Delusions Grandiose !! in Trading Systems May 27, 2011 at 21:17

No worries, I'll look into it some more and see what I can come up with. I know weejock was sometimes trying to explain how he uses synthetics, but I was too busy trying to get my trend-following systems to work to pay much attention to his posts. Might go and revisit all of them and see what I can learn.Out of curiosity, what language do you use for the OANDA API. I assume Java since that's the only thing that runs on Linux. I have seem some contradictory posts of yours regarding back-testing, but one this thread you mention that you do. Did you write your own back-testing software? I...

Delusions Grandiose !! in Trading Systems May 27, 2011 at 20:57

Interesting - I never thought to open that many pairs to get exposure to one currency.Would you mind explaining why you would do that rather than just use the EUR/GBP? I have looked a little at these type of trades, but struggle to see how they might make more money than outright trades. Thus, I assume you have something in this type of trading that you like. Mind sharing that?

Delusions Grandiose !! in Trading Systems May 27, 2011 at 20:38

Depends on the strategy. It looks like a lot of your strategies are trend-following in nature. A lot of my background comes from these types of systems and I fully understand how leverage affects you there.However, I don't think Cyclist is trading classical trend-following strategies. There are several strategies out there where you would have a long in one pair and a short in another that you hope will be negatively correlated. To make any decent returns on these type of strategies, you need to use a lot of leverage. If the correlation holds, you will generally be ok, but if it doesn'...

Delusions Grandiose !! in Trading Systems May 27, 2011 at 19:27

Not really. Managing the risk is more important. There some several cases where you need high margin usage for your strategies to work, i.e. any long/short fund would be seriously underperforming "Edit: unless they used leverage". They need to use maximum leverage to get decent returns.

Delusions Grandiose !! in Trading Systems May 27, 2011 at 18:59

zero,What point are you trying to make?Margin usage can vary and is NOT equal to risk. Could you perhaps explain your reasoning?Thanks,

Delusions Grandiose !! in Trading Systems May 27, 2011 at 18:50

By creating you own pairs, am I correct in assuming that if you decide to go long EUR/GBP, you go long EUR/USD and short GBP/USD? Or am i missing something here?Based on some of your posts (can't remember where) you state that you are a positional trader. Am I assuming correctly that you try to get into a long-term trend via synthetics?I assume you need the API to then manage your exposure in case it gets out of line. Based on your posts you seem to have very high volume of trades.

trixifx - PT3 in Trading Systems May 25, 2011 at 21:20

Zero,Generally my equity curve tends to look like this. Lots of small losers while nothing works and then suddenly in a short space of time everything clicks and I make decent money. And then of course everything goes stale again.Can't remember exactly since myfxbook also no longer pulls in the really old accounts, but at one point I was pretty much slightly down to somewhat more down for over a year before things finally clicked.Those times can get really frustrating.

trixifx - PT3 in Trading Systems May 25, 2011 at 20:45

Yes, I withdrew some funds while having an open trade that was way in the money.Once that trade closed out, WHAM up 100%. Since they have stopped updating OANDA accounts, and I don't use MT4, unfortunately this is where it stays.Currently the account is positive, but at the time, it was still slightly down as can be seen by the absolute gain%

Oanda FIFO change May 30 in Experienced Traders May 25, 2011 at 18:48

Yes, but the effect on the NAV will still be the same. In your example, the account will still have a big unrealised loss.End of the day, realised gains count for little if you can still get margin-called on your existing trades. Just ask the gridders from a few years back.

Looking for managers - large accounts in Experienced Traders May 04, 2011 at 17:10

I would definitely sign up if you do decide to host this training course.I am specifically interested in the donkey show, the relaxation provided by the marijuana and of course learning how to not kick the bucket. Please let me know if I have missed any areas of importance. ;)

FXSPYDER'S FUNERAL.. in Experienced Traders Jan 28, 2011 at 20:12

Hey zero,I am not too sure about your statement.I found their system to be very stable. I have had no issues since I started running FxSpyder.Also, I might be able to program MT4 to do what I need, but what would be the incentive in changing? I will waste a lot of time, while everything is already developed on FxSpyder. This took less than a week with their programmers providing the skeleton and me filling in my bits of code. The programming on my part was perhaps 5 hours.Yeah sure, MT4 is free, but the fee for FxSpyder is really minimal. If you can't afford to pay their annual fee up-fron...

EZG - live! in Trading Systems Jan 14, 2011 at 03:59

Wow, i guessed I'm f*cked then. Quite frankly, your logic is flawed. One of my best systems had win rates of only 40%, but the winners were much bigger than the losers. Currently I aim for 20% to 30% with really huge winners and small losses. Looking at only % profitable trades is meaningless if the losses go out of control. It is possible to have a blown account with 99% accurate trades.Just my opinion, but aiming for very high accuracy could actually derail long-term success.

Reasonable monthly/ annual returns in Experienced Traders Nov 09, 2010 at 20:58

10% a month equates to roughly 214% annualised. Even 5% per month leads to annualised returns of roughly 80%.Any of those returns would probably place you in the top 1% of all money managers.

Why not trade your own money? in New Traders Oct 29, 2010 at 18:46

Attached a spreadsheet to better express what I meant.First column is a purely independent trader with no external funds. Second column is a trader managing OPM in a 50:50 relationship with his risk cut in half. Third column is the client's account.The second and third columns show the effect fees have on both manager and client level returns. While the return for the year is still 17.5%, the manager gets 21% and the client 14%. Unfortunately in this example, I can't quantify the effect on the drawdowns, but the manager's drawdown will decrease slightly and the client's drawdow...

Why not trade your own money? in New Traders Oct 29, 2010 at 18:10

Hi Sim,Agreed the topic is about trading own money, I was merely pointing out a benefit to managing OPM that you do not have on your own account. For larger accounts, managing OPM can very desirable. Bruce Knover compares it to a call option and I tend to agree with his conclusion.Regarding MAR - If you look at it purely at the trading stats, you are correct. However, I was referring to the total return received (profits + fees) and this is probably one of the reasons people manage OPM. If you include these fees in your return calculations (not technically correct, but this would still be the ...

Why not trade your own money? in New Traders Oct 29, 2010 at 16:33

Managing OPM does have a benefit that is not yet covered here.If I as a trader manage my money and get returns of let's say 35% p.a. with associated drawdowns of 20%. My MAR on my own funds would be 1.75.If I now get a client who matches my money in my account, i.e. doubles the capital I have to trade, I can effectively cut my risk in half by trading at half the size. I will now be reducing my returns to 17.5% and drawdowns to 10%. While this may seem to be a bad deal, at this point, the math is before any performance or management fees. Once these fees get taken into consideration (on the...

LOT SIZE CONSISTENCY in Experienced Traders Oct 29, 2010 at 16:06

Why not base your stop-loss on your lot-size? 😇There are several ways to calculate lot-size, i.e. based on stop-loss, using ATR, % of account, etc. Of course, you still need to figure out a risk management method for the approach used, you need to be comfortable with it and it needs to actually work.

Reasonable monthly/ annual returns in Experienced Traders Oct 26, 2010 at 20:26

Yes, I read your original posts on OANDA's forum and I do believe you have grown a lot since then. It should be evident in your trading account.I don't believe you should target a certain group of investors. Trade in a way in which you are comfortable with and investors comfortable with your approach will find you. Of course, it is up to you to ensure that you comply with all the relevant regulatory requirements for managing OPM.If you find yourself changing your style to suit your investors, you will most likely not make it in this business. If you can't find investors comfortable...

EURUSD	1.0821	GBPUSD	1.29655	AUDUSD	0.6629
USDJPY	151.894	USDCAD	1.38538	USDCHF	0.8661

Posts by trixifx