tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-204531072008-05-08T20:43:20.557-07:00The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-17886673624651775912008-05-01T11:15:00.000-07:002008-05-01T11:29:54.962-07:00

I just came across this angry note I wrote to myself last year after a particularly bad run of trades that could very easily have been avoided. Ever had that feeling? I find it often helps to scribble something like this down immediately afterward to help get that awful sinking feeling out of your system, and to remind yourself of the lessons you've (hopefully) learned. Enjoy... You have

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-22436902560059270982008-04-08T16:51:00.000-07:002008-04-08T17:15:30.038-07:00

A while back FX Engines switched its strategy from automated trading systems based solely on backtested technical indicators to systems that are fine-tuned with input from a community of forex traders. To reflect this new community-based methodology, it's now called Hivetrader. Here's a quick breakdown of how it works, lifted straight from their front page: You view the hive [the community of

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-64906473527978483082007-10-22T09:27:00.000-07:002007-10-22T09:32:33.888-07:00

If you were short the EUR/USD today, that is - which as luck would have it I was. I haven't seen volatility like this in quite a while...over 200 pips of movement. Hope you're all short the Euro today as well!

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-32242477601221228862007-10-16T17:16:00.000-07:002007-10-16T17:39:45.242-07:00

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating - especially after reading about the rise and fall of Soul Trader's Grail forex system, which I always regarded as one of the most advanced automated systems around. Reading his explanation of why this system finally had to be shut down really brought home to me the need for rigorous internal controls on your trading system. By internal controls I

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-24473462006748612412007-10-11T10:35:00.000-07:002007-10-11T11:22:44.857-07:00

Hello again, and apologies for this blog's recent suspended animation. For various reasons hinted at above I decided to give forex a rest for a while - but I'm now back and have just made my first foray into live trading the EUR/USD again. The principal reasons I took a break were: I was frankly a little bored and disappointed with the progress of my EUR/USD trading system. Out of impatience

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-1744350801938850672007-06-04T19:59:00.000-07:002007-06-04T20:18:20.819-07:00

I just thought I'd point out this rather rare candlestick pattern from last week's EUR/USD daily charts. This unusual creature emerged on May 29, undoubtedly in response to some piece of news I wasn't paying attention to at the time: What you're seeing here is a 100 pip range, and a closing price just 1 pip above the open. In candlestick parlance it looks like a Doji Star to me, or possibly a

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-7868812921977223342007-06-01T15:37:00.001-07:002007-06-01T16:00:34.158-07:00

Yesterday I made a trade I shouldn't have, and I made it because I was rushing through my trading routine and not paying enough attention to important little details. In short, I was sloppy. And the result was I lost 21 pips I should never have even risked in the first place. That's the great thing about forex - you can usually put an exact cost on your mistakes. In retrospect it's pretty clear

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-496301164759330732007-05-24T09:39:00.001-07:002007-05-24T10:29:58.107-07:00

Yesterday I made an overdue switch of trading platforms from FX Engines to FXCM's TradeStation II. If you've been following the last couple posts you already know the reasons: FX Engines has been down for several days (still is, in fact). As a result I missed three winning trades in a row, and would've missed another winner last night if I hadn't made the switch to TradeStation. Fortunately

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-56854138539865628172007-05-21T15:04:00.000-07:002007-05-21T15:23:22.091-07:00

As if to prove that nothing can ever go completely right in forex, I woke up today to find that my trading system made its seventh winning trade in a row - definitely a new record for real trade predictions, not just theoretical ones in my historical backtests. The problem was, I couldn't make this trade, just as I couldn't make the sixth winning trade last Friday (as I mentioned in my previous

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-83826783080894056812007-05-18T09:39:00.000-07:002007-05-18T10:01:59.325-07:00

If you've been following the blog much lately you'll know that I currently get a lot fewer trading signals because of some strict filters I've set up. So when a trading signal does come along, it's a big deal. And yesterday I got one to go short the EUR/USD for 22 pips, and in the ranging price action that followed it turns out it would have been a winning trade. Which would make it the 6th

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-49247594906772237942007-05-10T11:13:00.000-07:002007-05-10T11:43:59.158-07:00

There's a lot less daily drama and a lot more sitting on the sidelines in my forex trading these days, and so far it's a strategy that seems to be working. Because of the filters and meta-signals I've added to my trading system, it generates a lot fewer signals than it used to, since it's switched off during periods when it's likely to underperform. So in an average week I'll now make 2 trades or

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-59642649604146936062007-04-30T14:08:00.000-07:002007-04-30T14:29:12.478-07:00

The first forex trading platform I ever used was Global Forex Trading's DealBook FX software, which I liked for its many charting options and indicators and fast trading performance. But I always felt a little limited by the fact that it wasn't a web-based application, which meant I always had to access it from the same computer unless I went through the install process on every PC I planned to

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-72230308207446694272007-04-30T08:35:00.000-07:002007-04-30T08:57:28.841-07:00

Strange as it sounds, my current trading system has me looking forward to days with extreme price swings, or whipsaws, which I used to anticipate with dread. The key to this change in perspective was shifting my strategy from primarily trend-based trading to a system that looks for profits in ranging behavior as well. The result is that a whipsaw no longer looks like one of the nastiest patterns

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-50643407549315919652007-04-25T10:36:00.000-07:002007-04-25T10:50:16.529-07:00

This isn't really forex related, just a rant about the rampant content theft that goes on out there in the blogosphere. I keep discovering sites that are lifting my content and publishing it verbatim on their own domains and with their own ads, and it's pissing the crap out of me. The only positive side, if there is one, is that I get a little traffic out of these bastards since they're so lazy

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-72229493896502714882007-04-19T13:01:00.000-07:002007-04-19T13:02:18.799-07:00

While I'm not currently trading the GBP, I thought this was an interesting bit of news - on Wednesday, April 18 the British pound hit its highest level versus the dollar since 1981, breaking $2.010 for the first time in 26 years. And here I am looking at daily, weekly and monthly highs and lows - sorta puts your own little trading timeframe in perspective. The big rise against the dollar

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-24247701759329561252007-04-13T14:22:00.000-07:002007-04-13T14:28:32.482-07:00

For all you US forex traders out there who've put off your taxes to the last minute (like me), I just discovered some good news you may not have known about. I'd just assumed the 2007 IRS deadline was Monday, April 16...first business day after April 15, right? Well it turns out April 16 is a little-known holiday in Washington, DC (Emancipation Day, my new favorite holiday) and because of an

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-47344170463910062792007-04-11T11:43:00.000-07:002007-04-11T12:24:32.352-07:00

I was just reading this post over at Trader Rich's Forex Project about a study at MIT that concluded that "treasury bonds are random, the stock market is correlated, and forex is chaotic." Firstly, let me say I haven't actually read the study in question, and probably never will. What I have read is Rich's summary of the study author's summary of his findings in Currency Trader Magazine. Also

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-55512683365628906032007-04-02T11:25:00.000-07:002007-04-02T12:12:04.839-07:00

If you've watched the forex markets for any length of time you've probably noticed that they spend an awful lot of time in ranging activity, ping-ponging back and forth between support and resistance levels without breaking above or below them. So if you've come to forex expecting high drama every day, it's a good idea to adjust your expectations and get as comfortable with range-based trading as

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-84112543149235363502007-03-26T22:24:00.000-07:002007-03-26T22:52:31.399-07:00

Finding myself in a self-referential mood, I thought it would be interesting and maybe even useful to share the most popular blog posts and subject labels on the site. I'll add this list to the links over on the right and do my best to keep it updated regularly. But remember, just because they're the most popular doesn't make them the best - a principle as applicable here as it is to Britney

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-7783921923219877622007-03-26T09:30:00.000-07:002007-03-26T10:09:59.742-07:00

And sometimes it's even likely. This is a paradox I often find myself wrestling with as a trader, particularly since I like to think I approach the forex market with a statistical mindset. Why do you think I go on about Bollinger Bands so much? They're one of the more statistical indicators out there, based on a measurement of 2 standard deviations from a specified moving average. But if you

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-20929123499283326542007-03-22T12:44:00.000-07:002007-03-22T13:14:43.509-07:00

When you're sitting around waiting for the market to do something a fun way to pass the time is calculating how many more pips you'll need to reach $1 million. Of course before there's any point in doing this you'll need a disciplined trading strategy that's been thoroughly tested and has at least a half-decent chance of earning you the necessary number of pips. Got that? Then let's proceed...

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-4041564939233130272007-03-21T11:38:00.000-07:002007-03-21T11:59:13.818-07:00

So I've been sitting on a long EUR/USD trade all week getting more bored by the minute, and finally today the pair exploded upward through my limit order following the Federal Reserve's decision to keep US interest rates at 5.25%, based the weak US economic indicators and continuing inflationary pressures. The US stock markets are way up today as well, with the Dow Jones up over 1% at the moment.

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-35104021035160935462007-03-19T10:55:00.000-07:002007-03-19T12:02:28.435-07:00

If I had to categorize the different ways I've used trading signals in my brief forex career, I'd break them down into something like this: 1) I have no idea what a trading signal is, but I'm very eager to find out so I can get rich this year. 2) I'm trading with the first signals I read about in a book/website because someone said they work. But for some reason I'm not getting rich. In fact

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-91060025219763690802007-03-12T09:10:00.000-07:002007-03-12T09:22:55.389-07:00

One of the simplest ways to improve your odds as a trader is to get less greedy. Leave more potential money on the table and satisfy yourself with a smaller profit after each trade. After a bad run of trades in ranging market conditions, I've switched to a take-profit strategy that aims for just 33% of the previous day's trading range. It's far more likely to make money off of a whipsaw than my

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20453107.post-15378612292396391532007-03-06T19:15:00.000-08:002007-03-07T22:14:01.719-08:00

While this is a forex site and this article by investment columnist Henry Blodget is about the stock market, I'm featuring it here because it's got good general advice no matter what market you trade in. The article takes a critical look at the recent stock market declines and the panicky headlines that accompanied them, as they always do. Back in the day, Henry made a name for himself as one of

The Rivermannoreply@blogger.com