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Oct
13

Who's Next in Line?

"Buy low, sell high" is one of the most popular memes in the investment and trading world. And obviously, it does make sense, who wouldn't like to buy low and sell high all the time? I found this to be quite a helpful advice to invest in stocks for example. Wait for a crash, buy it and sell again when prices are back to old highs. Of course, the problem often is to figure out what's actually a low...

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  2583 Hits
Dec
08

Looking at how the money supply affects trading in the markets.

There are two important components of federal market activity which affect long- term economic activity and stock and commodity values; these are interest rates and money supply. A contracting money supply was one of the factors that caused the Great Depression of the 1930's. In the early 1980's most traders focused almost totally on the money supply figures, which would cause cash bonds and T-Bil...

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  2566 Hits
Dec
02

"Once I’ve achieved success as a trader, then what? I’ve heard that after a while trading can become boring."

Question from a subscriber: "Once I’ve achieved success as a trader, then what? I’ve heard that after a while trading can become boring." I know you would all like to have that problem, but I can vouch for its being true. I always have to find new ways to trade or I do become bored. However, I have never run out of ways to trade that remain exciting, at least for a fairly long time. After the obje...

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  3290 Hits
Nov
17

Reaching Your Trading Goals

As a trader, it's essential that you set specific goals. Trading is chaotic enough without trying to achieve unstructured goals that are difficult to manage and reach. Making profitable investments requires you to prepare carefully. You have to develop hypotheses regarding current market conditions. You have to devise ways of identifying setups and determine how and when to enter and exit the trad...

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  2972 Hits
Nov
02

AlgoStrats:FX October Performance

It’s been three months since AlgoStrats:FX launched so I guess it’s time for a more detailed update on what happened so far. Here’s the up-to-date equity curve of the live trading account: The summary is that we had a tough start and two months of slow, steady drawdown until things turned around nicely in October. Nothing unusual, no problem but hey…couldn’t the markets have given us a slightly ni...

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  3519 Hits
Oct
18

New Video on Entry Signals

Just wanted to let you know that I uploaded a new video to YouTube a couple of days ago. This time it's about why Entry Signals are important and one way to test an Entry Signal isolated from Exit Signals. If you like the video or my videos in general, and would like to see more of these in the future - please go ahead and like it on YouTube, leave a comment, add it to your playlist and share it o...

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  2759 Hits
Oct
06

The Forex Trump Trade & Synthetic FX Pairs

One of the hottest topics right now is the ongoing US election and how it will affect the currency markets. If we take Trump by his words, there’s no surprise two currencies should definitely be affected strongly by a winning Trump, the Mexican Peso (MXN due to his plan to build a wall between the US an Mexico) and the Russian Ruble (RUB as Trump wants to get closer to Russia). Therefor the ultima...

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  2710 Hits
Sep
29

Why Pips Don’t Matter!

On a regular basis I get questions regarding Forex Trading in general or AlgoStrats:FX like: - How many Pips do you make per month? - How many Pips does a good trader make per month? - Does your Strategy make 100 Pips a week? Additionally to that, there’s advertisements all around that promise traders 1000 pips a month or performance reports that look like this: This month trades: 27 Sep: GBP/NZD ...

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  3278 Hits
Sep
23

Drawdown is the norm, not the exception

When I started out trading I had the illusion that being a successful trader meant to no longer have drawdowns or at least on very rare occasions. And I think most traders start out with that idea in their mind even though they don’t understand what it actually means. In Trading, you are in a Drawdown anytime you don’t make new equity highs on your account, or if you have multiple accounts across ...

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  3011 Hits
Sep
20

FOMC Days = Crazy Days?

Whenever the Federal Open Market Committee meets and releases its rate decision and its statement, it’s seen as one of the most important data releases in the markets in the currency markets. And it is, as sometimes there’s a real surprise that can have a huge impact on the markets. Because of that the whole FX world goes crazy days before it and waits for the statement in anticipation of big move...

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  2743 Hits
Sep
01

Trading on Vacation: Good or bad idea?

As I’m about to go on vacation I thought it’s a good idea to write down my thoughts about trading on vacation. Is it a good idea to do so, or just crazy? I believe it depends. If you’re longer-term position trader and have a couple of positions open that are doing great and you don’t want to close them out now for example, I think there’s nothing wrong managing your position once a day while you’r...

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  3094 Hits
Aug
24

(Good) Trading happens outside your comfort zone.

After writing about why good trading usually is quite boring last week, I’ll continue down that road today and write about another similar topic.  And again it’s more of a rant that many of you maybe don’t want to read about. But I believe it really can be an eye-opener to those of you who’re really serious about trading and these are the traders that I care for the most. Actually I wish I ha...

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  3307 Hits
Aug
16

(Good) Trading Is Boring

When you start out trading, it’s pretty much all about the excitement. You watch every trade tick by tick, gazing at a chart ticking up and down together your P&L. You’re long. When it goes up, you feel excited because you’re making money, if it goes down you’re excited because you’re losing money. But boy you’re making sure you don’t miss any of this. You sit there and gaze at that chart as i...

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  4015 Hits
Jul
22

AlgoStrats:FX Launches with Free Trial Week

I’m happy to tell you that AlgoStrats:FX is Live and Trading will start on Monday July 25th! To celebrate the Launch we’re starting with a Free Trial Week. Meaning you can follow AlgoStrats:FX completely free for a whole week. No strings attached, no credit card required - 100% free. Registration is already open, so go ahead and register your Free Account! I’ve also uploaded a new video ...

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  2909 Hits
Jun
29

POST BREXIT, ALGOSTRATS:FX LAUNCH AND NEW VIDEOS

And a few days after the surprise from UK (sorry to see you guys leave!) the markets seem to calm down a bit already which is nice. But I expect to see a few more crazy days and regarding the FX markets it’s all one big Risk ON/OFF scheme right now, driving up correlations between the pairs. Now I keep on getting emails asking when the Free Trial for AlgoStrats:FX will start but I won’t rush it as...

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  2816 Hits
Jun
23

Trading the BREXIT

Actually I didn't want to jump on the BREXIT bandwagon but since a few of you asked me if I trade the Brexit and if so how, I'll let you know and give you a bit of a warning along the way. There's tons of traders out there on social media, blogs, trading sites and forum talking about how they'll trade the Brexit event, stay up over night and so on. Now I'm not one of them. Actually the Brexit is o...

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  2927 Hits
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Jun
08

FOREX VS. FUTURES

What’s better to trade the currency markets? Trading Futures or Forex? This is the question I try to answer in my new video, where I briefly discuss the major differences between trading Futures and Forex from my perspective. At the end though there’s no “right” answer to that question, as it really depends on your needs.

  3408 Hits
Jun
02

Don't Trade Your P&L, Trade The Market!

I just posted another video on our YouTube channel about another very common trading mistake, and that's trading your P&L instead of the actual market. While there are many variations of this, I guess I covered some of the most common ones that I've done myself again and again when I started trading. Go check it out and let me know if you have any questions or comments!

  2841 Hits
May
05

New Q&A Video Online

I just uploaded Episode 3 of my Questions & Answers Series to YouTube. It covers questions on the usefulness of demo-trading and on trading 123 formations. In the last part I talk about why I developed my own python-based backtesting platform which is probably only interesting for those of you who're hardcore into system-development. So if you're not, just stop there ;)

  2954 Hits
May
03

EUR/USD Update

The last I did a post about what's going on in EUR/USD and that it's unlikely we'll see a significant move unless the pair breaks out of it's established range. Now that finally happened and the Euro is on a strong run for a few days now already. Now what to do? If you're already long, should you keep on holding the position? If you're not in the trade already, should you still buy at the market? ...

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  2947 Hits

Derivative transactions, including futures, are complex and carry a high degree of risk. They are intended for sophisticated investors and are not suitable for everyone. There are numerous other factors related to the markets in general or to the implementation of any specific trading program which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results, and all of which can adversely affect actual trading results. For more information, see the Risk Disclosure Statement for Futures and Options.