Before we get to February’s numbers, here is a short reminder of the results from January. The full report from January can be found here and you can get the last several months in a row vertically by clicking here and scrolling down.
Tradesight Pip Results for January 2012
Number of trades: 32
Number of losers: 16
Winning percentage: 50%
Worst losing streak: 6 in a row (around January 4-8 and again late in month)
Net pips: +330
Reminder: Here are the rules.
1) Calls made in the calendar month count. In other words, a call made on August 31 that triggered the morning of September 1 is not part of September. Calls made on Thursday, September 30 that triggered between then and the morning of October 1 ARE part of September.
2) Trades that triggered before 8 pm EST / 5 pm PST (i.e. pre Asia) and NEVER gave you a chance to re-enter are NOT counted. Everything else is counted equally.
3) All trades are broken into two pieces, with the assumption that one half is sold at the first target and one half is sold at the final exit. These are then averaged. So if we made 40 pips on one half and 60 on the second, that’s a 50-pip winner. If we made 40 pips on one half, never adjusted our stop, and the second half stopped for the 25 pip loser, then that’s a 7 pip winner (15 divided by 2 is 7.5, and I rounded down).
4) Pure losers (trades that just stop out) are considered 25 pip losers. In some cases, this can be a few more or a few less, but it should average right in there, so instead of making it complicated, I count them as 25 pips.
5) Trade re-entries are valid if a trade stops except between 3 am EST and 9 am EST (when I’m sleeping). So in other words, even if you are awake in those hours and you could have re-entered, I’m only counting things that I would have done. This is important because otherwise the implication is that you need to be awake 24/6. Triggers that occur right on the Big Three news announcements each month don’t count as you shouldn’t have orders in that close at that time.
You can go through the reports and compare the breakdown that I give as each trade is reviewed.
Tradesight Pip Results for February 2012
Number of trades: 30
Number of losers: 13
Winning percentage: 56.7%
Worst losing streak: 3 in a row (start of the month)
Net pips: +70
February was not a great month for Forex. To start with, ranges dropped sharply. The 6-month average daily ranges on the EURUSD and GBPUSD dropped 10 pips each during the month. When you realize that you are averaging six months of data, a 10-pip drop is significant. Smaller ranges are bad for us as traders. This was also a short month (29 days with a Holiday), the shortest month of the year. In addition, we had FOUR trades during the month that triggered in the morning and that we closed at the end of the session because they were right around the entry, so they hadn’t stopped or hit the first target. This almost never happens.
That said, we did end up with a positive month, although nothing extraordinary compared to many other months. It still proves that the system works, as we won 56% of our 30 trades and kept the losers tight as usual. Not much else to say except that I hope the ranges expand again and we can get back to a more normal environment soon. It is somewhat shocking that we ended up nowhere with so much going on in Europe with the bailout.
