Thursday, March 31, 2016

Review of March 2016 Campaign

March has been profitable. I've managed to beat my performance in February (4.27% vs 3.96%).

Myfxbook

Trades opened: 16
Account growth: 4.27%

More trades

Because of my decision to go back to trading the minor crosses late last month, I've traded more in March than I did in Feb (16 trades vs 10 trades). I believe this would explain my higher return in March.

Steady as she goes

Nothing major happened in March. My trading has become quite routine and ordinary, which is where you want it to be. There was no major drawdown to report. However, as March ended, I sensed a minor psychological fear of turning a positive month into a negative month, and manually closed a few trades early to pocket the profit. Most of those trades would've hit my original profit target, so I've left money on the table.

Next month

I've ended the first quarter of this year in profit. I think I'll press my foot on the gas a little bit harder and increase my maximum risk to 2% for April. 

I'll also endeavour to become less obsessed with Myfxbook metrics. It messed me up a little in the end. I'll reduce my time looking at Myfxbook and live charts (every time I looked at a live chart, there's a small chance of messing around with a trade. Look at a chart enough times, and those chances accumulate. Ditto with Myfxbook, where every glance increases the obsession with Myfxbook metrics). 

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Review of February 2016 Campaign

February has been good. I managed to recover from my losses in January, and made a bit of profit above that.


Trades opened: 10
Account growth: 3.96%

Back to the Crosses

After January's loss, I reduced my position size to a maximum of 1.5%, and became more selective with my trades. Because I was more cautious, I only opened three trades in the first half of February. Psychologically, I found that much too little. With so few trades put on, I found myself becoming more attached to the outcome of those few trades. That's definitely not a good thing. A trader should be objective and detached.

Halfway through the month, I revisited my backtests and research, and decided to trade the minors again (but not the exotics). I expanded my backtests to make sure I was doing the right thing (all the systems I currently trade have been tested on 25+ currency pairs).

I was reluctant to go back to the minor crosses, as changing your trading plan is usually bad. My systems and risk management are still the same. But trading more often has cured that psychological itch, and I found myself much more objective again. A win here and a loss there doesn't matter so much, as there'll likely be a new trade tomorrow.

Next month

Because I'm finding more trades more often, my plan is to continue limiting each position size to 1.5%, and let compounding do the heavy lifting.