Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Test Results Week 2: Up 22.43%

Test Week 2 started on October 20 and ended on October 26.  I placed 5 trades of which 1 was a loser, so I traded with 80% accuracy.  My goal was to make $20, which is 11.59% of the amount I had when I started Test Week 2.  Instead I made $38.70, or 22.43%.  Since I had exceeded my profit target for the week by so much by the end of the fourth trading the day, I did not even look at my trading platform on the fifth trading day and spent all day playing computer games with my nephew.

During Test Week 2, I tried several different exit strategies instead of the exit strategy explained in my last update.  For trade #11, my first trade of the week, I bought 4 micro lots of the EurUsd but I did not place a take profit at my $4.00 target.  Instead, I checked the price every 15 minutes, more or less.  Thirty-seven minutes into the trade, my position was up 34 pips, or $13.60.  I closed half the position, or 2 micro lots, for a gain of $6.80 and allowed the other half to ride the trade until my indicators got me out of the trade.  This occurred 55 minutes after taking my initial profit.  At this time, my remaining position was up a total of 65 pips, or $13.00.  My total profit for this trade that lasted an hour and thirty-two minutes was $19.80.  That's $0.20 short of my target for the whole week! 

For trade #12 I tried a different and riskier strategy.  I shorted 4 micro lots of the EurUsd and, once again, I did not place a take profit at my $4.00 target.  However, this time I let the whole position ride the trade instead of clearing at least my target profit and letting the remaining position ride.  My indicators got me out of this trade 1 hour and 12 minutes later, when the position was up 39 pips or $15.60.  To put it in perspective, the strategy used in trade #11 would have profited us $6.80 when we closed the first half of the position at 34 pips of profit plus $6.90 when we closed the second half of the position at 39 pips of profit.  That would have been $13.70 versus the actual $15.60 we made.  By the same token, had we applied to trade #11 the exit strategy used in trade #12, we would have made $26.00 instead of $19.80.

So which strategy will I use in Test Week 3, which started today?  I'm not really sure.  Trade #12's exit strategy is certainly more profitable than trade #11's.  However, trade #11's exit strategy can guarantee that you will at least make your profit target in many circumstances where trade #12's exit strategy would result in a loss or a smaller gain.  Whenever I find myself in this crossroad, I revisit my post in On Greed: Part I.  Yep, now you know which strategy I will be using.

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