I believe what he is saying is that his friend scalps with full lots. USD100K account for some means a full lot account. Nowadays they do not really separate full lot and mini accounts anymore but they used to do that.

Yes I am. If you look further into the THV system, with it's so called triple moving average is nothing more than a combination of MA and MACD. Combine that with fractals for direction, daily pivot support/resistance and fib is all the tools I need.

The more indicators you have, the more you need to analyse which sometimes lead to 'analysis paralysis' and end up missing trades because you have too much info to make a decisive move when required.

Exactly. If anybody were looking at my post at 9:47pm to 10:06pm last night and any scalper who was scalping in that 20 mins would have seen an 80 pip movement in EU. For a scalper, it would not have been difficult to get 10 pips out of that. Job done in 20 mins, esp in an active market.

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Added on October 6, 2010, 9:48 amFor this year, silver is actually the bigger gainer than gold in terms of percentage gained.

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Added on October 6, 2010, 9:54 amThe only 2 currencies that are gaining strength is AUD and YEN. The rest are just playing against a weak USD, which we have to keep in mind that it can reverse very quickly.

In a trend like what the AUD is doing, gaining strength and at the same time playing against USD weakness, be very careful when trying to pick the tops to short. Even with no change in rates, the AUD recovered all that it lost last morning (AUD strength) and even went higher at night (USD weakness) shows you that this train is not stopping until parity. Pullbacks will be minor and I definitely will not be looking at any 300 pip pullback until parity.

This post has been edited by sleepwalker: Oct 6 2010, 09:54 AM

When I lose a trade, it is only 10pips (12 including EU spread) and that is only 1.2% of my equity. I convert scalping into day trading when the opportunity presents itself by moving to BE the moment I make 10pips and then let it run (and locking in profits with jumping stops after that). However, most of the time I would take out profit and immediately go into a reverse trade (keeping in mind that the market moves in micro and mini waves even when it is trending). So sometimes when I'm chasing the market, I can get into a row of losses -12, -12, -12 and then get it right with a +50. Sometimes it's up and down with -5, +15, -12, +10, +13, -2.

It all depends on market conditions. I do not use only technical but I combine it with fundamentals as I try to convert as many scalps into day trading if possible to maximise profit. I use scalping as an entry but not necessary the exit.


DISCLAIMER: Before the next joker comes in and yell "THis is a JOKE", please note that I'm answering a direct question to a member and this is my answer to him and not to every newbie or experienced trader. Don't read this if you don't like it. I'm not asking you to follow. It's just a bloody answer to a question.

This post has been edited by sleepwalker: Oct 6 2010, 10:11 AM

Yes. THV4. That's the current version. Don't think there's going to be anymore improvement to come, unless somebody else takes over the project.

8pm overlap but that is only until the end of the month. After that daylight savings will move the time to 9pm US forex open, 10:30am DOW open, 12:30 FTSE close and 1am London forex close. Just keep that in mind.

This post has been edited by sleepwalker: Oct 6 2010, 10:33 AM

I have 1m/5m/15m/ screen. I also use pipware dashboard and all the direction of the other timeframes are all on the same screen. I don't have to flip so much.


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I don't need the other screens to tell me the direction. It's on my dashboard, direction determined by fractals up to DAY and the number of bars since the last change.

To me, all time frames look the same. Here is a simple test. Take all the charts from 1m to 1 day, remove the timeframes and pips and most people cannot tell you whether it is a 1D chart or 4H chart. They all look very similar in their movements and catching those movements is what makes you the money. Too many people I know is trying to predict when the train is coming instead of trying to figure out where the train is going. It's catching the train going in the right direction that is important and not trying to figure out when it is coming unless you have enough money to change the arrival of the train aka BOJ.

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Added on October 6, 2010, 12:56 pmYou also using the disclaimer crap eh? Yeah.. you'd never know when somebody is going to throw the "This is not for newbie" joke pie in your face.

This post has been edited by sleepwalker: Oct 6 2010, 12:58 PM

Each of my trade is only 1% of my equity and the next trading opportunity is only a few minutes away. With 4 hours of trading from 8pm to midnight for the London/US overlap, there's plenty of opportunity to regain any losses. If you can lose 10 pips in 3 mins, you can also make it back in 3. It is not like the market is going to stop you out and then suddenly goes flat and you lose any opportunity to get back the losses (except when london closes and everybody goes to sleep)

I know that happens to medium and long term traders because once you missed an opportunity or if you end up in a losing trade, the next trade will take some time before the right opportunity happens again. I too started as a day trader and once I missed an opp, I have to wait for it. For scalpers, the next opportunity is just a few minutes away.

Before you say, revenge trade, re-entering a few minutes after losing a trade as a scalper is not a revenge trade. That is just how scalpers do it since our time frame is much smaller.

However, there is one thing I need to point out. I don't practice the usual BIG lots small pip that most scalpers do. I keep mine strictly at 10pips SL at 1% equity so that even with 5 losing trades in a row (not likely) I'm only 5% down. That keeps the emotions in check.

As for when to stop trading, that depends on the market conditions. If it is ranging nicely or seriously choppy or whether it is trying to take out a barrier (last night was a good example of a barrier in play and market stayed active until news announcement). Some people say that anytime is a good time to scalp but that is not exactly true either. Just like surfing the sea, the waves must be just nice and it can't be too choppy. What is choppy and what is not comes with experience and rather difficult to explain here. For me, if my MA8 on 1m chart can't keep up with the PA, then it's too choppy to even scalp.

Believe me that some people actually practice 'no losing day' to keep their records nice as it provides a great emotional support to know that your record is positive. Those would have a small target of 1% or even 2% profit per day (sometimes even just 1 win, irrespective of size) and they'd stop trading. If they lose, they try in that 4 hours or the rest of the day, to get back into positive so that they'd finish in the 'green'. I've seen people do that and they are especially proud to publish their 'no losing day' results (and then get accused of faking it).

So the 'no losing day' traders are not a myth. They are made to look that way.

The trade more win more is only applicable if you have a trading plan that involves a fixed risk. For me, no matter what, it is always 1%. If I want to trade 2%, I have to open more trades because my rules do not allow me to open one trade with 2%.

You talk about trading profit is by "magnitude" and that is the same. If you trade 5% per order, I have to do 5 times as much to match you, therefore bringing my magnitude to the same as yours. We can also look at your magnitude as 'trading frequency'. You are trading 5 times more than me. May not be exactly the same definition since we cannot use frequecy for size but if you use magnitude, then it is the same.

You are thinking that the more trades that one does, the more risk of getting it wrong. I can understand that coming from somebody who does long term trades. To you, more risk means less trade but bigger size. To others, it could be more trade but less size. Bigger Magnitude = Bigger size or more trade frequency but also = more risk. You have to risk big to win big.


Hmm.. this reminds me of a joke. Blonds don't take offence. No risk no win.

A broke blonde decides to ask God for help. "Dear Lord," she prays, "if I don't get some cash, I'm gonna lose everything. Please let me win the lottery."

Lottery night comes, but the blonde doesn't win. She prays even harder, saying, "God, why have you forsaken me? My children are starving. Please just let me win this once."

Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light, and the blonde hears God speak.

"Sweetheart, work with me on this," he says. "Buy a ticket."

First of all, you need to know what kind of traders there are. We are the small market retail traders in forex. We trade off the exchange with the broker. What we do does not move the market. We can scalp and get our orders fulfilled immediately. Anybody can place a market order and have their order fulfilled in 1 second.

Then there are the big boys. The ones that you see in movies like Wall Street. The ones that move millions within the exchange. For them, they cannot move in and out of the market as fast as we can. Their only choice is to play mid to long term and and most of them place orders with stop orders and not market orders like us. Their orders are places in advance, including their stoploss. That is why when you see the market hit a level where all the stoploss (long sell-stops or short buy-stops) are gathered, it starts moving through them as these orders gets fulfilled without any trader intervention. Their orders cannot be fulfilled within 1 second like ours.

That is why when you average out their numbers, a return of 40% per yer is more than enough for them if you had 100 million invested throughout the year. Keep in mind that the forex market makes 4 trillion in trade per day and if you only moved 100 million in a year, that is actually quite small.

Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. They are the market movers. They fight amongst themselves to move the market to make money. We are the little fish on the side, picking off their trail of food. Whichever direction the market goes during their fight, we just follow.

Where do you think the concept of resistance and support came about? That is the result of their fight. One big fish moves the market long and another big fish is ready to stop it with their own short orders. That line is the resistance line (price going up and the opposite would be support if the price is going down) where the other big fish has the short orders ready.

If the long fish lose the fight, the price bounce off the resistance line and go short (as we have seen happen many times) because the short orders were activated. If there is a fight, you'd see the price move along the resistance and then move up if the long fish beats the short fish (when short fish no longer has any short orders left coz they have all been bought by long fish).

Again, we are just the little fish waiting around and then short the market if the long fish lose or continue long if long fish wins. You get the concept now? That is how retail players do it. We do not predict and we do not move the market. We just follow and pick up the pieces.

Predict as in 'guesstimate'. You can only guess and use historical data to help improve the odds of succeeding. Every indicator out there is a descriptive indicator and not predictive. Descriptive as in it tells you where it has been but not where it is going to be.

All indicators are like a piece of pen and pencil that you use to keep track of Roulette results, the number of red/black and zero. It will not tell you what the next round would be as it is 50/50 red/black and 1 in 36 for zero and it is totally random. However, forex has a weakness that we can exploit. It is not totally random as it is influenced by fundamentals and it always trends in one direction (up, down or ranging). Once you learn to make use of this information, that is where you will succeed in 'hitching the ride of your life'.

Too many people I know is trying to predict where it is going and when they fail, it is not only a blow to their bank accounts but rather their self esteem and confidence. The saddest thing is that these people actually got the trend correct but are spending too much time trying to predict the outcome that they end up betting against the market because of their prediction.

Simple example, when EU was trending from 1.30 to 1.40, at every 100 pip round number, a lot of people is predicting that it is going to reverse and trying to go short. Indicators not showing any signs of weakness yet on the tweets I see so many people trying to short short short the EU. Why? Because their indicators show that EU is trending up, overbought and with the possibility of a reversal anytime soon. Again, it is descriptive (tells you it is trending up and overbought) but not predictive (it cannot tell you when it is going to reverse). Unfortunately, they focus too much on predicting the reversal instead of enjoying the ride on the uptrend as indicated on their indicators.

This would be the same as setting a buy-limit order 30 pips above the current price and a sell-limit order 30 pips below (with TP at 60 pips and SL at 30 pips). This way you only get hit once with the spread instead of getting 2x spread with 2 orders. You also need less equity since you will be only opening 1 order instead of 2. The risk is the same but half the equity and spread.

So many people think of this strategy but don't know how to do it the easier way by using limit orders. The name for this strategy is called Straddling the market.

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Added on October 24, 2010, 6:15 pmThat's because the majority of the stock movements are done overnight. Anybody following the DOW and S&P in the run up since Sept and Oct would have noticed that the market moves up 1 percent in futures overnight and during the actual day trading may move another 0.2-0.5 percent. However, the market would include futures and the movement for the day would be 1.2-1.5% while the poor day traders (those who trade from market open to close only) don't actually see the 1.2-1.5% move. The market moves more overnight when the day traders are not trading than it does during the day.

This post has been edited by sleepwalker: Oct 24 2010, 06:15 PM

His idea of opening 2 orders at the same moment is the same as straddling the market, which would be easier and correct way to do it.

Although the definition of hedging is having 2 opposite orders open, it does not mean they are opened together. Hedging is used to either minimize lost or to lock in profits and some even use it to maximise profits (by letting the profitable order run and hedging the dips when the market is trending).

The new CFTC rules are for Retail Forex would only affect small retail players and not hedge fund managers. I guess you don't follow fundamentals. US stocks up, USD down. US stocks are now at all time high this year = almost all time low USD. QE2 are also in the minds of the forex traders.

It's not that they are damn good. Effective 15th Aug 2010, FXCM started the practice of Positive Slippage. Almost all brokers practice negative slippage (as in they do not guarantee your stop loss) but at the same time they do not practice positive slippage (they just give you your TP even if price goes higher).

FXCM started practicing this in August, which is why you got a higher close then your TP. That is positive slippage.

This post has been edited by sleepwalker: Nov 1 2010, 11:41 AM

The UK market only closes at 12am during Summer and this week onwards is Winter DST for UK and their market will close at 1am Malaysian time. US DST changes this coming Sunday, which should be a good point to remember for anybody running EAs. Your broker's GMT time changes with the DST.

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Added on November 2, 2010, 8:55 amYou sure make a lot of money for somebody who gets London closing time wrong. Last week during Summer DST, London closes at 12am. Frankfurt closes at 11pm.

As I have mentioned above, this week onwards with Winter DST, London closes at 1am and Frankfurt at 12am.

This post has been edited by sleepwalker: Nov 2 2010, 08:57 AM

Bank transfers all take the same time nowadays. Usually just 1 day, max 2 days esp in different timezones. The efficiency comes from the broker who has to process your application and instruct their bank to transfer. If they lag behind, so will your transfer. Nothing much to do with the bank.

Just search for a broker that has 500:1 or higher leverage and you'd find it. THat is how much you'd need to open 2 micro lots with USD5 as per the statement above.