December 2016 performance summary

Happy New Year for 2017!

I want to wish you great year in 2017 for your own personal trading. I was pleasantly surprised that many readers of my blog sent me Merry Christmas and Happy New year messages. Thank you for all of your kindness. I started this blog with the goal of sharing the reality of trading to others. Judging by the emails that I receive, it has been making a positive impact. Once again, thank you for sharing your stories and I hope my blog will continue to benefit you in some ways.

Here are my performances for December 2016. Account statements and performance summary pages have been updated.

-1.47% on Trend Following account

-0.06% on PAMM Growth account

The growth account registered a small loss from only 1 trade. I am now half way through my second year of proprietary trading. The first half of this 2nd year had 11 trades, 10 losses and only 1 winner. The account is down -1.59% compared to the beginning of the year. This is risk management in action. Considering that I risk on average 0.5% per trade, this is effectively showing that I have taken 3 losses instead of 10. I work hard to give back as little profits as possible during the more difficult periods of trading. The reality of trading is that every trader will go through periods of draw down and my number 1 priority in trading is to survive the down periods as best as possible.

This year will bring along new projects for my trading. February 24 is my live trading challenge with Charlie Burton at the London Forex Show. I am also doing day trading using multiple strategies, systematic and discretionary. One of my goals for 2017 is to take up more discretionary trading to gain more experience with different market conditions. You can see my progress on Twitter (check the photos).

Wishing you a profitable year for 2017.

Viet

PS: I accidentally deleted the post for November 2016 :(

Weekly Forex Outlook 20 November 2016

It's been almost 2 weeks since the US election and the aftershock is beginning to settle. My analysis shows that both volatility and price action are no longer hostile to my trading methodology. Here are the currency pairs that I'm watching next week for possible trading opportunities:

AUDJPY - Resistance at 81.50 has been broken during the week but price action is still showing a lot of selling pressure. Thursday's and Friday's candles show that buyers and sellers are still struggling it out for control. At the moment, my analysis favours a long trade more than a short trade. This is because price action in the last 5 weeks show that buyers have been stronger than sellers. I am waiting to see how Monday's candle turn out before deciding on my next move.

AUDUSD - Support at 0.7440 was broken this week and sellers are in total control for the last 3 days. If price pulls back to 0.7740 then it could be an opportunity for me to enter short if this support levels turn into resistance.

EURAUD - This pair finished the week just under 1.4430 level. This has been a very strong support level for much of the year therefore it could now be acting as resistance. Despite the recent messy price action, there are still signs that it is a significant level for me to trade from. Going into next week, I am monitoring this pair on multiple time frames looking for signs of strong selling pressure below resistance to go short.

EURUSD - I'm looking at the weekly chart here and price is getting close to 1.0520 long term support level. Seller have been strong in the last 2 weeks therefore I only would consider a reversal long trade on daily or weekly time frames. Smaller time frames carry more risk than I can handle in this particular case. Let's see how it turns out.

GBPAUD - Resistance at 1.6720 has been tested and broken through. This setup has almost meet all of my entry criteria for a long trade. I need to see how the weekend gap (if any) would affect the numbers for entry and target that I have planned. My stop would be below 1.6400 which is the last swing low.

GBPJPY - Buyers continue to push price up after the US election and now it is close to 138.60 resistance. I want to see evidence that resistance holds up as well as selling pressure below resistance to enter short.

USDJPY - Similar to GBPJPY above, this pair has been on a strong uptrend since the US election. Price is now very close to 111.20 resistance level. This is a strong support resistance level in my analysis with a lot of strong movement away from it earlier on in the year. My approach here is the same as my plan for EURUSD (see above):  I only would consider a reversal long trade on daily or weekly time frames because Smaller time frames carry more risk than what my trading plan is designed for.

October 2016 performance summary

Here are my performances across the 2 accounts for October 2016. Account statements and performance summary pages have been updated.

+1.84% on Trend Following account
 0.00 on PAMM Growth account

This year so far have been full of surprises and it still has more to go with only 2 months remaining. My discipline have been tested many times when market does not produce trading opportunities.

There was no opportunity to trade on the Growth account this month. I am more than happy to stay on the sideline watching the market rather than forcing the market to produce trades. With the US election coming up next Tuesday, I will not be trading USD until Monday 14th.

The trend following account had a positive month with big winners on GBP shorts. GBPAUD short was opened for 5 weeks and finished with +5R. GBPUSD was opened for 7 weeks and also finished with +5R. This account will continue to trade as normal over the US election unless volatility goes above my risk tolerance (which happened prior to Brexit).

Weekly Forex outlook 16 October 2016

The Australian Dollar has been strong in the last week, breaking through key support resistance levels on many pairs that I trade. These are the possible trading opportunities that I am watching for next week:

AUDJPY - Resistance at 78.90 has been tested many times last week and was broken on Friday. Price has made a significant higher close. If resistance turns into support, there could be an opportunity for me to go long if price retraces back to test this level again.

AUDNZD - The opportunity on this pair is very similar to AUDJPY. A break of resistance offers a possible long entry if a retracement occurs. I will be looking for evidence of 1.0730 acting as support together with strong buying power before I plan my trade.

EURAUD - This pair created a new yearly low on Friday which is also a sign of 1.4430 support breaking in my analysis. I will wait until the Monday's daily candle to close before reviewing this pair again. Depending on how price moves on Monday, I could be entering short or long. I need more confirmation to better assess the risks. Next Thursday will have interest rate decision for EUR and I will not trade EUR on that day.

GBPJPY - Since the big drop from 2 weeks ago, this pair has been slowly crawling up. Resistance at 128.70 could be in play next week if buyers continue to push up. I will be monitoring this pair on multiple time frames for opportunities to short if I can see signs of strong seller pressure below resistance.

Weekly Forex outlook 10 October 2016

Last week produced some big movement for GBP. Stories of traders and investors losing everything have been coming in from the online communities. Trading requires absolute discipline because just one moment of carelessness can undo months of profits or even wipe out all trading capital. I choose to be a survivor because I value the experience that the market gives me. I choose to stay alive so that I can take profits another day.

It has been more difficult for me to trade since Brexit because of uncertainty in support resistance levels. I am 3 months into my second year of prop trading and I have done 8 trades with only 1 winner. The Growth account is going through a new largest draw down, partly due to the losses and partly due to the increase in position size (as required by the firm I trade for). However, my performance statistic is still within the acceptable zone. Losses are kept small relative to winners. Both short term and long term expectancy are still positive.

Thursday last week provided 2 trading opportunities: EURYUSD H6 long at 1.1120 support and USDJPY H6 short at 104 resistance but I did not trade because it was too close to non farm payroll the following day. It hurts a little to find myself missing out on profits because I follow my trading rules. But then I also remember that my rules were created based on statistics and not emotions.

My focus for this week would be to identify new support resistance levels for GBP pairs. The only trading opportunity that I can see right now would be USDCAD on daily chart:

USDCAD - Buyers managed to break above 1.3250 long term resistance and closed above that. Today's open had a gap down so I will wait until Monday's daily candle to close before reviewing this pair again. I am looking for opportunities to go long above 1.3250 which could now be acting as support.

September 2016 performance summary

Here are my performances for September 2016. Account statements and performance summary pages have been updated.

-3.79% on Trend Following account
-0.43% on PAMM Growth account

There were 6 trades taken on the Growth account, 5 losses and 1 win. These are the trades summary expressed in unit of risk (R): -0.63R, -1R, -1R, -0.77R, +2R, -0.56R

My trading plan always set TP at +2R. Theoretically, I should be have lost -3R but in reality I am only down -1.96R . Despite making a loss this month, I have achieved my goal of losing less than what I should have. My actual performance have been better than what my trading plan allows. I cannot control the outcomes of my trades but I have complete control over how much I lose.

The Trend Following account posted a big loss for September. Reversals on the trends this month had put a string of losses on the account. There are 10 months to go before the 2 years forward test is completed. I will not be making any changes until I have 2 years of real statistics to analyse. Unlike other traders, back testing result does not mean anything to me. I only make trading decision based on live trading with real money.