Forex rebates on every trade - win or lose!

FreemanFox, thanks for that, when I dabbled a couple of years ago what kept catching me out was my stop loss strategy, I was trying to set fairly wide stop losses but they kept getting taken out by spikes, probably ignoring them would have been a better strategy but I was using SL's to try and limit my risk, it meant I didnt make much or lose much but I want to do better than that.

Your pattern for the day strategy sounds interesting. I am also a IT person although I dont like programming !

On question on Tradestation, can you trade dircetly from it? if so how is that done? do dealers provide tradestaion as an add on?

Give us a call when you're spammed up, Spacie :)

Spaceman,
With Tradestation they are a broker as well, though I believe you can nominate other brokers to go through if you wish. They are rated very highly though, voted number #1 with Barrons (see this link http://webreprints.djreprints.com/1911390585556.html) so I'm sticking with them, at least initially to see if they are as good as they are rated. Incidentally, I also have an account with number #2 on the list, ThinkorSwim so I will let you know later how I think they compare, once I've used Tradestation a bit, still going through all the tutorials. It seems very powerful and configurable which suits me down to the ground.

I know what you mean about SL's getting hit on spikes. That's the main reason I navigated away from trading short term timeframes, though plenty of others on here seem to be able to make it work. Maybe I'm not disciplined enough, not sure, but hopefully if I can program a successful Tradestation strategy that is fully automated I won't have to worry about it :-)

What I do a lot nowadays, is effectively when I initiate a trade I put 2 positions on. I take half off when I have a reasonable profit and move stop to breakeven and leave the rest to ride to what I calculate is a reasonable target level. That way, if a trade spikes and hits my b/e stop loss after I've tightened it up I don't feel so bad as I have often taken something out of the market for that day.

Spacie,

This may sound like it's obvious, but I'll say it anyway.

Firstly, trading FX is no different to trading any other instrument. The rules of the game are exactly the same. If you can trade stocks or commodities or even fruit and veg from a wheel barrow at a street market, then FX will be a doddle. IF YOU CAN'T DO THAT, THEN DON'T EVEN BOTHER TRYING! Sorry, but it had to be said.

I said the rules of the game are simple. You simply buy it when it's going up and sell it when it's going down. You just need to put a system in place that tells you clearly which way it's going according to your preferred timeframe and then trade what you see and not what you think. That system could be anything from a ma crossover or a signal from the macd or some form of signal from an overbought/oversold oscillator or a combination of two or more indicators. Straight lines drawn on a chart with no indicators whatsoever also work well.

The important thing is that you stick to the rules. Don't worry about trying to buy the bottom and sell the top. There's an unpleasant story concerning people who pick bottoms.

If you don't break the rules, you'll do fine.

As for the automated trading through MT4, this is something that I'm very interested in. There's nothing that I would love more than to just leave the computer trading away for me while I laze around the pool and jolly off to a tapas bar for lunch. There's an awful lot written about it on the internet.

Unfortunately though, it's way, way over my head. So far over in fact, that I fear even if I were to ascend to the levels of the geeks who talk about their 3,000 pip/month profitable EA's, I'd need an oxygen mask and cylinder for accompanyment.

For now it's just a dream, but if anybody here can talk me through EA's in words of one syllable or less, I'm all ears.

I did have the details of a chap in the Ukraine who does clever things with MT4. I filed them somewhere safe. So safe that I can't remember where it was.

:o)

Hil, I can give you the Chocopops (how do you do that little TM?) rendition of The Entertainer for accompaniment any time ;)

Oh, and I can give you the details of a Polish chap who does clever things with bricks if you like.
And I'm just about to find out how nifty he is with a paintbrush.

This little TM, Chocopops?

:o)

'Tis easy. You've just got to insert the superscript html taggydoodaas.

Typing this:

^Superscipt

Produces this:

Superscript

Btw. I hope you'll be deducting tax and NI from your Polish chap's wages.

:o)

And adding VAT.

Morning ladies.

hey that's dinky

Ta ever so, Hil :o)
And indeedy, I shall - 20p isn't it?

I'm operating a poundstretcher scheme.

Hils,

In order to program EAs successfully (and more importantly robustly) you need more than a rudimentary understanding of how they work. In fact a little bit of knowledge could be dangerous.

In essence the concept is easy; absolutely any objective and quantifiable condition (eg. MA crossover, MACD turning positive, etc.) can be programmed so that when it occurs you can enter or exit orders. You can even get clever and use trailing stops, scaling into/out of positions or anything else you could possibly want to do in a trading plan including logic to perform money management and lot sizing.

When I replied to Spacemans post I mentioned coding an Automated Strategy in Tradestation, not MT4. Im just ploughing through all the tutorials and getting to grips with the programming before doing it in a simulation account. When Ive come up with some trading rules to code that is!

As for MT4, Ive done loads of programming of my own indicators in that and there are loads of EAs that do automated trading for you. I consider myself pretty good at that now, but havent used it for live automated trading. A good site to go to for EAs is Forex-tsd where you can download them. In fact, recently I subscribed to the Elite section they have and they have loads of EAs they continually monitor the performance of. At the bottom of this post Ive included last weeks league table. Makes interesting reading. I like you just would like to get in the position of leaving my computer running just making money, hence why I want to start programming a strategy in Tradestation.

If you want something doing in MT4, let me know and I can search to see if there is something similar already in the members only Elite section. I could then modify it to do what you want.

27th of April - 04th of May winners
________________________________________
Winners for the above mentioned week are the following EAs:

EURUSD:
1. TrendEnvelopeExpert_v2.2 with 443 pips.
2. Scalp_net_v1.3 with 239 pips.
3. MaChannel with 210 pips.
4. Scalp_net_v1.3 with timefilter with 82 pips.
5. SBS_1.21 EA with 61 pips.
6. SBS_1.23 EA with 61 pips.
7. Envelope 2.11 with 55 pips.
8. DayTrading3, timefilter with 20 pips.
9. Brainwashing 1c. M15 timeframe, dynamic iTrend levels with 12 pips.
10. Brainwashing 1c. M15 timeframe, 8-18 timefilter, dynamic iTrend levels with 12 pips.
11. KSRobot_1_5_eur_m15 with 9 pips.

GBPUSD:
1. SBS_1.23 EA with 365 pips.
2. StepMAExpert_v1.45 IBFX mini broker with 148 pips.
3. SBS_1.21 EA with 80 pips.
4. 20PipsExpert_v2.1 with 80 pips.
5. TPE EA, IBFX broker with 33 pips.
6. Brainwashing 1c. M15 timeframe, dynamic iTrend levels with 14 pips.
7. Brainwashing 1c. M15 timeframe, 8-18 timefilter, dynamic iTrend levels with 14 pips.
8. Alpha9v1.19 with 14 pips.

USDJPY:
1. TrendEnvelopeExpert_v2.2 with 214 pips.
2. easyLMA_v6 with 65 pips.
3. Electra v1.11 with 17 pips.
4. Brainwashing 1c. H4 timeframe with 12 pips.
5. Brainwashing 1c1. H4 timeframe with 11 pips.
6. Firebird v0.65, timefilter with 9 pips.
7. Alpha9v1.19 with 7 pips.

USDCHF:
1. TrendEnvelopeExpert_v2.2 with 202 pips.
2. SBS_1.23 EA with 95 pips.
3. MaChannel with 88 pips.
4. Firebird v0.65 with 84 pips.
5. SBS_1.21 EA with 61 pips.
6. DayTrading3, timefilter with 40 pips.
7. TPE EA, Alpari broker with 33 pips.
8. StepMAExpert_v1.45 Alpari broker with 10 pips.
9. StepMAExpert_v1.45 Fibo Group broker with 6 pips.

Hey well done Foxey with the MT4 programming. The best I've managed so far is to use the Metaeditor to customise a few existing custom indicators to suit me better.

I do use Forex TSD and everyone there is very helpful. Unfortunately though, they say some things on there which I just don't understand. I even downloaded a whopping great PDF book telling me how to write indicators and EA's. After the first couple of pages I realised my limitations and decided that the Janet and John books made far better reading.

Out of interest, my preferred current system uses a combination of indicators from different timeframes - entering the market when they all line up and exiting when one of them turns. Is it possible to write an EA that would work along those lines?

Sorry double post. This board seems very slow recently. It can take a minute or two load a thread or post sometimes.

Hils,

Absolutely. You can mix any indicators from any timeframes though it does get pretty complex. In fact, you can go further than that and even base your decisions on one currency pair by checking the data of another. For example, say there is a correlation between two currency pairs but one lags the other. You can generate a signal from the leading pair to place an order in the lagging one. It is something I have been observing recently and want to look at programming something along those lines.

Most things are possibly. Just need clearly defined rules and a lot of programming and thorough testing!

Dunno if any FXers use the IG Index Puredeal platform, but they recently introduced trailing stops which I used today for the first time. Knew I was going to be away from the screen this morning but thought I recognised an opportunity to go long on EUR/JPY at 159.21. Set the stop 30 pips below the opening level with a 10 pip step. The stop kicked in at 16006 during the afternoon retracement and I was very chuffed to have locked in a much bigger profit than had I just left it to its own devices. Perhaps the only mistake I made was to use a 10 pip step rather than a 5.

Here's a date for your calendar: June 12

That's the date that Ireland goes to the polls for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, the document dreamed up to replace the failed European constitution. Ireland has a habit of throwing a spanner in the works of European referendums and this vote comes very early in the tenure of the new, untested Irish prime minister. If Ireland fails to ratify the treaty, look for at least a brief period of turmoil as euro-skeptics use the vote to advocate breaking up the eurozone and reverting to national currencies. Most countries, fearful of a repeat of the debacle that surrounded the European constitution referendums in 2004 steered clear of a popular ratification and had national parliaments approve the treaty.

Hi all, Hils thanks for the warning, dont worry I have been around for long enough to know the basics, ;-) after all I designed the Concorde Method.

OK here are my reasons for having another look at FX.

1) Simple in concept
2) very responsive and reactive to world and country specific events (I believe)
3) FX may be easier to trade with better value that I can get on stocks (lower total charges) not confirmed yet.
4) Easy to trade anywhere anytime.
5) Potential for simpler semi automated trading (note I said semi automatic, I dont believe that fully automated would be safe)
6) Seems to have a much bigger dedicated following that it did a couple of years ago, at least on the internet, I see this as giving greater opertunities for developing and perfecting my trading method.
7) looks fun !

I may not be around for a while. I'm moving in a couple of weeks and BT, with their typical efficiency, have managed to disconnect my line ahead of schedule.

Dora from Delhi seems unable to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, it's the broadband line that they've disconnected and whilst it's still working now, I've got a horrible feeling that will be the next to go.

Broadband is generally left on the line until the next owner arrives, so you should be OK.

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The dollar could extend its recent rally next week if key Federal Reserve officials offer support for the increasingly popular notion that the U.S. central bank is done cutting interest rates in the near term.

Economic data also might add to the greenback's three-week rebound, as a better-than-expected U.S. statistics would bolster the view of a Fed on hold.

Some market observers say the dollar may even push the euro down to the symbolic $1.50 level next week, a full dime under the single currency's all-time high above $1.60 it hit in April.

"The U.S. data has been coming in a little better than expected recently, and a continuation of that trend would certainly help the dollar next week," said Win Thin, currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York. "Weaker data out of Europe would have the same effect. We may be seeing a shift in U.S. and European outlooks starting to develop."

On the flip side, the euro's declines this week did not break decisively below a technical level around $1.5340, which could suggest it still has upside potential against the buck. A disappointing reading on U.S. retail sales could lift the euro, though few expect it to return toward $1.60.

A return of stock market volatility, or weaker-than-expected U.S. data and indications by Fed officials that more rate cuts are possibly in the works, would also spell trouble for the buck. Risk aversion was evident in Friday's trading as high oil prices, concerns about slumping equities and a hawkish tone from the European Central Bank all weighed on the greenback.

With this as a backdrop, analysts say the euro could drift between $1.50 and $1.56 next week, while the dollar is likely to see tighter ranges against the yen. The U.S. currency could move between Y103.50 and Y105.50 next week.

Friday afternoon in New York, the euro was at $1.5458 from $1.5399 late Thursday, while the dollar was at Y102.95 from Y103.92. The euro was at Y159.18 from Y160.02, according to EBS. The U.K. pound was at $1.9487 from $1.9526 late Thursday, and the dollar was at CHF1.0424 from CHF1.0523.

The dollar has risen 4% against the euro since its record low in April. A modest recovery in U.S. stock markets has given currency traders a reason to fight for a dollar-comeback as well.

In the past, a sustained rally for U.S. equities has supported the greenback as investors from abroad buy dollars in order to snap up U.S. stocks. The dollar's strong appreciation between 1995 and 2000 was largely spurred by the stock market boom.

Adding fuel to the dollar's current recovery, a statement from the Fed in April hinted that, amid the calmer markets, it aims to stop reducing rates following 325 basis points worth of cuts since September.

But the Fed statement also left the door ajar for more rate cuts if needed. Investors now want to get a grip on which way the central bank is leaning. Speeches by Fed officials next week could provide an update.

The presidents of the Fed banks of Dallas, Kansas City and Philadelphia, each of whom have suggested their reluctance to cut rates further due to inflation worries, are due to speak next week. This could provide a steady stream of dollar-positive headlines.

But San Francisco Fed Bank President Janet Yellen, an influential member of the Fed who tends to be less hawkish on inflation than others, is also speaking next week. She has previously said that a weaker U.S. economy should help contain inflation, and if she reiterates this, the dollar could be hurt.

In Europe, currency traders will watch for first quarter economic growth data as well as regional industrial production data.

Hil Hope your move goes well. Thanks for all your hard work and support on this thread.

You asked about trailing stops. My current preferred method is to use the previous (if long) low before the previous high, i.e. two lows back. This seems to take a lot of the noise out.

Spaceman, you wanted to know people's methods of trading, and I think Hil answered it brilliantly. The things that have made the difference to me are:

1) don't go against the prevailing trend. If things are moving (say) down, look for a retracement or pause before committing to a short, maybe as Hil says, on a shorter timeframe.

2) Think about the margin. There's a lot of noise on Fx, and as Hil says regularly, the 100:1 typical margin you get on Fx makes small moves seem highly significant, which is great if it's moving in your direction If you make 1% a day, you double your money after 22 weeks, and multiplies it sixfold over the year. 2% a day doubles your money in 15 weeks and multiplies it 45 times over the year! There are lots of ways of illustrating fantastic returns, but as Hil says, 'you've got to be in it to win it!'

3) Watch out for major announcements. I used to try and trade the announcements, but several burnt fingers later I've realised this is pure gambling! Know when there's news due out, especially non-farm payrolls and interest rate decisions.

4) watch for direction shifts / continuations around lunchtime. Many pairs swing back in the opposite direction around lunchtime, or pause then continue in the same direction. A break below a significant '00 number may retrace, even if it goes to the 80 level, but then may continue down.

4) Watch over many timeframes, get direction from the longer (H1, H4) charts, then look to the 5 & 15 min charts for entries. Plan with the longer timeframes in advance.

5) Always always have a stop and don't forget to remove it if you close for a profit. I nearly forgot about a stop on EUR JPY last week. If I had forgotten, it would have netted me hundreds of pips :-( but it could so easily have gone the other way, and I prefer not to get lady luck involved.

6) Get a few indicators eg stochastics and MACD histograms, have a look at Ruth's Magic arrers TM method.

Hope this isn't teaching you to suck eggs, and it's all the help I can come up with in a short post like this. Hope all goes well.

Well I'm still here and I hope Kayak is right about not disconnecting my broadband.

In the meantime, I came across a monthly currency trading mag in PDF format at the weekend which is available for free download, although you do need to register.

Currency Trader Mag