Wednesday, July 16, 2014

First Experiment (Money Management)

On my first post, I mentioned about conducting an experiment with the hypothesis ("Money can be made constantly through a system from trading)... This statement will be not applicable to me until I can prove it otherwise so how am I going about doing this?

There are several inputs I have to define before starting the experiment.. The first thing will be about system.... In my own definition, a system is a set of rules which regulate the whole process so some of the components of it are like tools, risk management, entry, exit and etc.

System

a) Money Management
I will adopt a high aggressive strategy, starting with a low capital. This is a new approach for me as I usually start with higher capital, with hope of generating consistent returns from it but always ended up blowing my own account. This mm system which I am referring is inspired by a post in the forexfactory forum. Initial capital will be 100 USD.

Initial Capital : $100
Risk : 50%
Risk Reward : 3











My simple rules be for this MM system will be as follow

*3 consecutive burst before tweaking on RR
* Learn to lose well
* Patience
*Monthly max 2 attempt 
* Increase RR on next attempt if I can go past level 6
*Increase Account on next attempt if I can go past 10

This is a very audacious attempt and very unlikely to happen given many reasons like the Risk reward I set and etc but I want to take a different approach this time, trying with lesser capital aiming higher return (low chance) than high capital with moderate return (higher chance). In additional, I want to hone my discipline, patience and my willingness to lose...  I will proceed on with the entry/exit mechanics on my next post. 

Introduction

I have been trading various financial instruments for around 5 years and up to date, I still don't have any profitable year. Lately, I have been trying to slow down to ponder the reason and something stumbled upon me.. If I can take trading as a "game"  or  a challenge and not just eyeing and hoping for the monetary gains, can I do better? The reason I am seeing this as a possibility is because for the previous 5 years, I have been always trading based on Greed, Fear and Hope and the reasons why these 3 emotions are lurking is primarily due to money. Looking back, I feel that I was acting very illogical at times, averaging down aggressively with no other reason besides trying to exit with a very small profit.. This worked occasionally but on hindsight, I reckon it did more harm to me by building a knowledge in me saying its a good method to earn back the capital..

Along the years, I blown my account many times despite knowing the fact I should not just average down with hope of small profit but no matter what, I was still committing the same mistake because every time, I just hope this time will be different and I just tell myself that i will change for better if I can get out of this mess but most of the times, it never happens for the better. I blame myself for being emotional. My trading got swayed by my emotions (like sadness from my personal life and etc) and i just hope I can  relieve my tension from trading but in the end, it only makes thing worse. Maybe I can't actually say I was trading but its more like gambling.  There are times when I got very lucky, getting the correct moment but all those profits vanish eventually too...

I was always trading for the pursuit of certainty but even life itself is uncertain so how can i expect something like trading to be predictable, hoping there's some magic formula to achieve 100% win.. I hope I can learn good traits from trading like humility, patience and open mindedness because I believe in this game, there's a checker mechanism built to keep the bad traits like ego, greed in check to create a harmony and equilibrium.

I don't know Zen much though I have strong interest in it but I want to take steps to trade with an empty mind, "feeling the movement" and trade accordingly... I want to adopt trading based on a scientific and artistic manner.. Science can help me in the aspect of money management(risk) while art will help me more on ways to enter/exit trade.

I am taking on a challenge with a main hypothesis in mind... Money can be made consistently through a system from trading. By default, this statement is going to be incorrect until proven otherwise... I will conduct several experiments with varying inputs like (system?), (consistency?time frame) and trading (instruments?). I know it might be paradoxical for me to mention about money again but eventually, this is the best measurement to gauge my own trading.

I am going to take on a life long learning experience on trading and also at the same time, learning more about myself to be a better person.