Before we get to March’s numbers, here is a short reminder of the results from February. The full report from February 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 February 2014
Number of trades: 22
Number of losers: 8
Winning percentage: 63.6%
Worst losing streak: 2 in a row
Net pips: +50 pips
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 March 2014
Number of trades: 21
Number of losers: 10
Winning percentage: 52.4%
Worst losing streak: 3 in a row
Net pips: -125 pips
I’ve been waiting for this to happen. Action and range in the Forex markets has been poor since August, but we managed to keep trucking along racking up gains most of those months. Typically, if you are going to have a losing month in Forex, it should be when ranges are bad, and I usually expect one or two of those a year. This was certainly it as the action was the narrowest yet. Before we discuss the ranges on the major pairs, let’s look at the results. First, less trades triggered than we’ve seen in a while as the market didn’t move. Our win ratio wasn’t horrible, but here’s the striking statistic. Not a SINGLE trade followed through beyond the first target. That’s extremely unusual and represents a dead market. In fact, at that point, you should be happy on days when nothing even triggers, which, we had a few of those. In terms of ranges, the EURUSD and GBPUSD spent over half of the days of the month in a 60 pip or less range, less than half of the statistical norm. Our system is designed to prevent us from getting beat up badly in narrow markets, and this month may have been the single worst that I’ve seen in ten years of trading. Let’s hope it comes to an end soon and gets moving again.
