The idea of this competition is two fold:

Firstly I’d like to increase traffic numbers to an all time high and recently numbers have been picking up with close to 34,000 individual views since I first began last October. This competition will be open to subscribers of this blog, if you haven’t subscribed you can do so on the right hand side of the blog.

Secondly I’d like to thank those subscribers who have supported and continued to read my blog through the rough times and the good times.

So, on to the competition…

The idea is I will give a free copy of my e-book each week for the duration of the cash-master trial. To qualify you need to submit a trading related article. This can be of your own creation or one you’ve found on the net. I sometimes worry that this blog gets too results orientated and I’d like to expand on the blogs content. I will select a winner each Friday afternoon.

 Any comments are welcome.

Yesterday was a pretty remarkable day trading wise and whilst my TUFXP method missed trading I did manage to secure several decent trades and a handsome profit was made, it’s brought July well into the green zone and it’s always a good feeling to get on the winning train.

The original TUFXP method had a win but not before a big scare when Moodys downgraded Portugal’s status. Here is the chart:

I didn’t enter this trade as the 50 SMA was still trending down but I suppose an excellent entry was possible when the trade went to -25 or so before rising all the way back up. It seems to return to my dilemma last week when I was questioning whether to avoid invalid trades or take a significantly better entry. On this occasion I didn’t take advantage of the better entry but I have made annotations in my results.

I’m finding my results are an invaluable part of my trading as when I need to find something I know exactly where to find it. I’ve always been big on keeping strict results and it stems from my racing days. Ask your average punter their P+L and they’ll 9/10 reply with an inconclusive answer. I imagine it’s the same for a lot of traders. If anyone would like any help on how best to record trading results, just let me know, I’d be happy to help out.

So the scores for July for the TUFXP method are -25 pips for the original method and -14 for my method despite not trading yesterday.

1.5000 was also a major concern and when it bounced to 1.5027 I thought my goose was cooked but thankfully strong selling pressure won out and a nice victory was gained and I also managed to hang onto it for +33.

I’ve always questioned the wisdom of TUFXP employing a sole company to providing a data feed and they swear blind they do not receieve any commissions off IQFeed which I find extremely difficult to believe. Why is it the likes of Fxpro, FXDD, Alpari, OANDA can all provide excellent feeds for no cost yet IQFeed charge over $88 a month for a sub-standard service that regularly drops out which in turn affects the outcomes of PTPs.

A friend in the trading room, Mike, mentioned you can request to pay 12 months upfront and you can receive 50% discount on your subscription. Thanks for that Mike!

I hope everyone enjoyed Graham’s first post, he’s still having a few problems logging onto the blog but I’m sure he’ll get around the technology soon

Onwards and upwards..

TUFXP officially had a loss today but I didn’t take it for two reasons; UK news was due out in 20 mins and I didn’t fancy getting into a trade only to be whipsawed straight back out on the news, and secondly the indicator I’ve been using showed there wasn’t much room to the upside for a profitable trade.

Firstly here is a s/shot of a very important level shown by the indicator which I’ll call cam levels:

Through talking to Steve and doing some of my own research and watching how it performs, we agreed that ideally a TUFXP trade needs at least 25 pips between an entry and the cam level. Here is the TUFXP trade:

Entry was at 1.5185 which gives only 15 pips of room between entry and the cam level. Target was past the notorious 1.5200 for this week also. So how can you benefit from this tool? Wait for a pullback from entry and then enter to get your 20 pips. It would have worked perfectly on this trade and you’d of got the full 20 pips despite it not reaching the scalp target.

GBPUSD has done a repeat of the last 3 days where it tested 1.5200 and has been heavily rejected for the 3rd straight day, surely it’s only a matter of time before the pressure becomes too much and it crumbles hard to below 1.5000 and targets the June low.

Have a good weekend everyone, Graham has been in touch and should be making an appearance over the weekend hopefully.

It’s not going to set the world alight but neither I am trading huge amounts. I traded 126 lots over the course of June which lasted longer than the minimum of 5 minutes required to acquire the rebate. Also my broker isn’t the friendliest for rebates only offering $2 per round lot but their spread makes up for the low rebate compared to other brokers. As I hopefully keep increasing my account each month it means my rebates will also get bigger and even if I stayed at the same level for a year, an extra $3,000 isn’t to be sniffed at for doing absolutely nothing different.

If you’re interested in looking which brokers offer rebates then you can look here. Yes it’s an affiliate link through me which means if you sign up through that link I’ll get a tiny portion of whatever you trade but it doesn’t cost the user anything. If you prefer not to use the affiliate link the standard link is here.

Using my newest, most favourite indicator, it also clearly signalled a reversal was possible right at 1.5230-1.5240 region so with this information I decided to take a small risk of 1% and set a sell limit order at 1.5235 and target 2% gain. GU climaxed at 1.5241 before setting about wiping all of yesterday’s gains off pre BOE release which could either send it below the strong support at 1.5080 or fire it right back up into 1.5200 territory.

TUFXP was eerily quiet for the first 3 and a bit hrs and I was wondering if it had had a malfunction overnight! But it seems it was working for some and not others as a short was signalled at 800AM for at least person in the trading room but didn’t appear for the rest of us. Thankfully a nice looking short arrived at 955AM and triggered just after 1000AM. There was a little debate as to whether it was valid as the rules state finish trading at 1000AM but I am of the school that the signal arrived before the cut-off and the difference of 1 minute is neither here or there and I doubt the forex gods flick a switch come 1000AM.

I’ve intentionally left my daily S&R levels to be set off local time as time and time again they indicate good areas of reversals or bounces and a classic case today with R1 being shown at 1.5235 which coincided with my own short at that level.

Let’s hope tomorrow rounds off a mini recovery.

I’ve been working on an idea which stirred in my brain whilst in the shower this morning about how it seems most TUFXP trades go into some sort of profit. It was first brought to my attention by Steve in the trading room as he mentioned doing higher lots but less pips. We  agreed that that sort of money management would be incredibly risky but today I went about testing a theory. As with a lot of TUFXP things, the backtesting looks promising but I believe the theory is sound and I have set about live testing it. In backtesting it seems to return around 25-35% a month based on 5% risk and it was nice to see a first winning live trade today. I’ll track it live for several months and if still performing well, I’d like to implement it into my trading.

A blogger has been arranged to test my updated e-book so hopefully within a couple of days the test will begin. It’s not an ideal time with August fast approaching but I’m confident enough for it run through this period and hopefully secure a profit.

It caused a fair bit of discussion in the trading room also. It seemed almost certain that 1.5200 would prove incredibly tough to pass first attempt and with stochs indicating overbought, I was happy to wait for a better entry. After 20/30 minutes it finally did succumb to pressure and fell off the ridge of 1.5200 and I entered at 1.5180 with a risk of 21 pips to win 34. The maths looked good. However, in hindsight perhaps I should have set my target for 1.5200 as it was obviously a very strong resistance point and it did try to pass 2 more times before being rejected and went all the way to stop loss. So did I turn a winner into a loser or did I save myself 14 pips by entering a better level? Or did I waste 21 pips by entering a trade that wasn’t valid according to my filters? It’s those questions which are bothering me. Strictly by the book the trade didn’t qualify under my rules and thus avoided the loser and it went on to find a better setup much later to record a win.

This time the news played a big part in GU getting past 1.5200 and thankfully brought home a win which were becoming hard to find! My official totals for July so far are -81 pips for the standard method and -94 for my filter method so my filter method needs to gain some ground.

On a more positive note, I did have success with my own strategies and EURUSD won nicely adding a healthy 50 pips to the bank, this strategy definitely goes through phases and whilst June was sporadic with losses and only a few wins, July has already gotten off to a flyer.

I’ve added a couple more blogs lately and the most recent one is Trading Places. A worthwhile read for any sports trading fans..

There was some pretty decent movement on GBPUSD in the morning and unfortunately TUFXP was on the wrong side of it. Here is the first trade which was pretty much a good setup in terms of everything agreeing but in hindsight 1.5200 was always going to be tough to pass on a weaker than usual Monday considering how hard it was on Friday after NFP.

So a small 13 pip loss  (15 after spread for me) and as there wasn’t any more valid trades before the end of the morning session, I pretty much called it quits and only returned a little later to see how everything was looking.

This was the 2nd losing trade that the stochs indicated was pretty deeply oversold and on a weaker than average day, a bounce is pretty common.

I’ve actually yet to have a winner on the filter method for July and I’ve quickly found myself down 114 pips after only 3 trading days but there was a swing of -100 pips in June and the month still ended up close to 300 pips in profit so still plenty of time to recover.

Hoping today can be a little more productive..

And finally…apologies for the new blogger not arriving yet, he seems to of disappeared off the face of the earth…Graham if you’re reading this, do get in touch..

A bit of a disappointing end to the week TUFXP wise and for the 2nd day running, my filter method came worse off. Whilst CM doesn’t trade NFP days, I’m willing to as I personally don’t think the markets quieten down until the afternoon session. A long signalled and it went against the 50 SMA trend so I declined to take it but said I’d take it if it went to -10 as the risk was 16 pips; my reasoning being a 6 pip risk for a gain of 30 was outstanding value and smart money management. It went all the way down to -14 before going all the way up to scalp! I guess I didn’t have full conviction in my thought process as I dithered around the buy button before refusing it.

A 2nd long then signalled and again the 50 SMA didn’t agree until the price had blown through entry and was well over half way to scalp which was just shy of 1.5200. Price took a pretty sharp u-turn off 1.5200 and gave me short signal and this time everything lined up….except someone forgot to tell the price to drop to scalp instead of SL! Whilst disappointing, I’m certainly not going to abandon my extra indicators as I think they have real merit. So a bit of a faltering end to the week but still happy enough with how things are going, my own EURUSD trade came home nicely last night for +50.

If anyone wants to join my trading room, you’re more than welcome, just leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll do the rest. Have a good weekend everyone and catch you all on Monday where I’ll just be trading the morning session as the US takes a holiday for Independence Day.