I am finding trading quite difficult lately.. the techniques which I have been trading with have not been doing so well and as a result, my account has plummetted. I wrote around December/January time that my account had reached all time highs.. the market was really good with me and I made a killing.. however, the market has changed and what I was doing which worked before, doesn’t work any more… trading really is tough!

Also, it is hard to find the time to stalk and wait for these opportunities.. I work most of the days and when I come home, there is a limited time window for trading…

I still love the idea of being successful as a trader but as close as I got.. the further from where I would like to be is apparent with the recent losses… a trader needs to be flexible enough to be able to adapt to all conditions.. I am not quite there yet!

Anyway, this brings me onto the FXCM  Forex trading system..  I am currently running their 30 day free trial to see how it works and whether it could work for me.. it will trade the markets automatically buying/selling where needed.

There are 40 systems to test with and you can look at the performance and there are all sorts of criteria to select to find the trading system for you. I tried to find the one that had the lowest drawdowns with the highest profits… and I came across one called TrendEscape. You then select the trading system (or systems)… yes you can attach more than one system to your account and off you go.

With the demo, you start off with a balance of 100,000 USD. I applied the Forex Systems I wanted to use and left it to get on with it..

The system I selected opens 6 trades at any one go.. I’m not sure how to change this as it’s quite high.. when (and if) I open my real account, I wouldn’t only really want to trade 1 trade… not 6… I don’t have that sort of capital!

The first trade was a short of the GBPJPY at 131.03 (18th Feb 09).. this didn’t go well with a loss of -173 pips per lot… that’s a loss of 865 pips! Holy crap!

The next trade was on the 23rd Feb 09 with a short of the GBPJPY at 138.53.. these each closed at a loss but at -5 pips or so…

OUCH!

Anyway, today, I have 12 positions open… 6 are a short of the GBPJPY at 138.98 and a short of the GBPUSD at 1.42609.  The GBPJPY are roughly 80 pips up each and the GBPUSD is about 60 pips up.

The $100,000 USD demo account is currently at $98,862.46 from the closed trades but with about $900 in the bag so far for the open trades.. it’s not too far off…

I’ll just run with this for the full 30 days to see how it goes…

If you’re interested in having a look… go to http://www.fxcm.com/forex-system-selector.jsp

Tags: automated trading, easy money, expert advisors, forex robot, forex trading signals, forex trading system, fxcm, fxcm forex, fxcm forex system selector, make money, money

A long time ago, I wrote about automated trading, how you could run a ‘trading robot’ on your trading platform and it would open and close your trades for you automatically. This was completely automated and works great.. the only annoying thing is that you need to keep your computer on for the ‘trading robot’ to function. If you want to read that post again, go to:

http://www.makemesomemoney.co.uk/2007/08/24/make-money-while-you-sleep-with-automated-trading-part-2/

Anyway, I found a company who can run the Metatrader software for you and additionally, they can preload two of the currently best selling ‘trading robots’ on the market, FAP Turbo and ForexAutoPilot (or you can load your own)

Basically, you rent a machine of theirs which is running the software and they’ll load the software for you… It’s quite clever and costs you $69.95 a month to run. You can remote control the machine that you are renting to access you trading account. It’s a very clever idea and I recommend that you look at it if you are using any of the Expert Advisors with Metatrader and want to run your trading operation truly 24/7. They promise a 99.9% uptime and if you don’t like it, you can get your money back (before 60 days).

Give it a try, click here to access EZ Forex Host

Tags: automated trading, currency trader, currency trading, expert advisors, fap turbo, foreign exchange trading, forex, Forex trading, forexautopilot, interbankfx, trading robot, trading system, trading systems

My trading of late hasn’t been very good and I’ve lost focus hence the lack in the number of emails.. anyway, I spent time away to think through and go back to the basics.

Trading the DOW is definately a way to lose money.. the DOW is just a basket of 30 stocks and is easily manipulated… quite frequently when you see a move beyond a level, you expect it to move beyond but no, more often than not, the market will just reverse and do the opposite.. the big boys are obviously aware of the smaller players in the market and know what they are looking for and hence seek to do things to ensure that we lose as much as possible and fill their coffers.

I am going to try and concentrate on trading the Forex markets and am using the Metatrader software. The Metatrader is free and you can easily sign up with a broker for a demo account to test. There are a host of free indicators and also free systems which can automate your trading decisions.. I like to be in control however and prefer to manually trade the markets.

Anyway, there is a system which I have been following for a while now and yesterday there were two entries which I could have taken. Actually, I took the first trade which was a long at 1.8523 on the GBPUSD. However, this soon hit my stoploss and by then I was already in bed. Shortly afterwards, there was a short entry which I could have taken if I was still awake.. it was a short at around 1.8514 and it would have allowed us to close at 1.8373 for a profit of about 140 pips!

I will be watching this trading system closely to see how it performs and will keep you informed. This trading system is meant to be good for GBPUSD and EURUSD markets. People also trade the USDJPY with it.

Tags: daytrading, expert advisors, foreign exchange, forex, free trading, gbpusd, interbank fx, make me some money, makemesomemoney, metatrader, spreadbet, Spreadbetting, Trading, trading system, trading the gbpusd