Before we get to January’s numbers, here is a short reminder of the results from December. The full report from December 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 December 2011
Number of trades: 31
Number of losers: 18
Winning percentage: 41.9%
Worst losing streak: 6 in a row (last week of the year)
Net pips: +20
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 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
The market shook off the Holidays quickly and got active out of the gate. Despite 2 Holidays during the month, we had 32 triggers, which was more than December. The win rate sits exactly at 50%, and the winners were spread over the month, so you didn’t have to catch one or two key trades to do well. But it was also a month of swings as we went through several periods where we saw days in a row with nice trades and then days in a row with tight stop outs. But I’ll take a month like this any time. The net pip count was 330, which is a good start to the year. You can go back through the Blog or reports to view each trade by clicking here.
The interesting bit is that average ranges dropped quite a bit. The trailing 6 month average daily range on the EURUSD coming into the month had been 167, but it closed at 160. GBPUSD dropped as well from 146 to 139. Cross pairs dropped also. That’s a very interesting stat as December had been quite slow. For ranges to dip that much and have us still have a great month means that trading was a little unique, but it still points to the power of our strict system about stops and moving on. It’s a good start to the year either way.