Sunday 5 May.
I closed my April Trading last Friday on 3 May. The net results for April are pretty good: Account up +53.2% to $16,338. In the past week the account added 17.2% from the previous week. This means I have had 3 +ve weeks, 1 -ve week and 1 flat week (-1%). My personal ambition is to not have a negative week at all, and I’ll keep aiming for that goal. The larger goal is to surpass my February account level before the Cyprus debacle in March, which was $114,065, disregarding the intra-month high of $163,500. This month is a good first step towards that. I need to make closer to 100% each month to reach the previous high in about 4 months from now.
The account trades worksheet, updated to the end of April is attached here and also added to the ‘Account Performance’ page.
Thursday and Friday last week had some fantastic volatility after some very quiet days before. The price action around the NFP and Services ISM on Friday was very strange. Having traded through hundreds of such critical data days, I personally am convinced that the action clearly indicates a leak of the data. In the past I would’ve surely got caught in the swings and likely have suffered a lot. In my current improved state, I have learned how to trade crazy volatility like this and emerge safe, even perhaps make some good money. However, we must remember that the first aim of trading is to preserve capital, to preserve gains. Only then can we take some clearly defined risks where the risk/reward ratio is in our favour.
I’ve noticed that the markets lately have become very bi-polar: For a few days around some critical event there is a lot of volatility, while for the rest of the days there is nothing but drift without any clear direction. Due to my system requiring confirmation before entry, I have wide stops and I tend to suffer in the ‘drift’ phase. I have now tweaked my rules to improve my trading in these days of drift, or range-trading. This involved identifying the key levels in a range and trading only from those key levels with tight stops. This strategy will capture the maximum part of the range as well as keeping the risk small. The key is to figure out if we’re in ranging markets or trending markets and also to figure out the correct key levels.
The Zen of FX Trading 
Hi Zen, Congrats for such a strong come back in the month of April. Its the biggest challange to perform after any big negative trading result.I really appreciate your maturity in trading… Good luck ahead..
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thanks for the kind words. 50% looks good, but I don’t forget that this is 50% starting from a small base, after losing 90% of a larger base. There is still a big mountain to climb. I will need to average ~ 50% for 6 months to recover my previous level. But I remain determined and cautiously optimistic.
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Hi zen, sorry for being cynical, but I can’t see how you will be able to have no negative week and constant 50% growth for 6 months. That being said, I think you are more capable of achieving 200+% growth in 1 month and some negative growth the next. You’ve tested your system for many months and I think you will agree that it has never shown any signs of steady and consistent performance. It will bleed during ranging market and make a killing during trending market. What do you think?
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Hi Daniel, constructive comments are always welcome! I agree no negative week is a very tall ask, but I believe it is good to set high goals. If you aim for the moon you may not reach the moon, but you will reach higher than you thought possible 🙂
I keep testing and tweaking my system and learning as I go along. As I’ve said before, if not for the stupid mistakes in December and March where i)I knowlingly traded against my system rules and ii) kept big positions open over the week-end – if not for these mistakes I would be achieving >50% /mth. I have also adjusted my trading to take advantage of ranges instead of getting chopped about by ranges. That’s thanks partly to your previous comments about ranging markets. No negative month is a very achievable goal that I am aiming for, while no negative week is a ‘would be great if I can do it’ kind of goal.
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