Tip From the Geek May Recap – A Good Month
Recap of May Trading With The Geek – 20% ROI!
May was yet another good month for the old Geek account. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how the month was going to wind up, what with all the volatility we saw. I wouldn’t say that the market is rallying, or selling off, but I can say that it has been wrestling with long term trends and near term fears that have it banging it’s head against support and resistance. You know, the typical average kind of market that provides repeated entries for savvy short term traders and headaches for those who can’t adapt. In the end I closed 13 trades profitably, which out of 20 equals a win rate of 65%.
Total Cost Of Trading = $10,000
Total Return = $12,025
Net Profit = $2,025 or 20.25% ROI
May was a nice long month, 31 days, but only produced 4 Monday’s so only 20 tips. That’s OK though, it’s not necessary to trade a certain amount of times in a month, only to follow your rules. The rules for this account say 5 trades at the beginning of every week so that is what I do. So, out of the 20 trades 13 were profitable for a rate of 65%. I’ve been trading $500 since mid-Winter and so far that has been working well, no change there. My total cost of trading was $10,000 and I returned $12,025 for a net profit of 20.25% of my investment. As a portion of my entire account my profits for the month are a little over 11%, pretty dam nice for one month.
Recap Of May Trading
May really was a good month, I’m not just saying that. The market was choppy which made it hard to tell how I was doing just by glancing at my profile page. At any given time I may have had 2 or 3 losing trades showing in my account but its not what happens before expiry that counts, is it? I stuck to my analysis and managed to produce better than average results. The cause for the choppiness is a mountain of near term fears that have put serious pressure on the long term trends. The good news is that the long term trends are still intact, sooner or later near term fear will disappear.
Week One – 5/4/2015
This was the week of the May FOMC meeting. We had been expecting some firmer sign when they would raise interest rates and didn’t get it. This caused a ripple through the market world that affected all dollar based pairs, most non-dollar pairs, commodities and equities. It also set us up for a month of range bound trading. It was also my worst week of the month, I lost 3 trades, on oil, gold and the yen, all because I was a little too early in my positioning. I profited on all three of those assets in the following week. My wins were on the SPX and the euro, the euro may have been lucky, the SPX was rising in line with its trend and not yet at resistance.
Week Two – 5/11/2015
This is the week that US markets climbed the wall of worry and scaled to new highs. Earnings were better than expected, the FOMC hadn’t gotten hawkish and data was neither hot nor cold. It was my first of two great weeks last month, only one loss. That was on the euro, I tried to play divergence in my indicators but made the trade at least one week too early. My other trades all finished beautifully, especially the USD/JPY which finally made the upside move I have been anticipating for what seems like months.
Week Three 5/18/2015
This was the week the US broad market set a new all time high. It wasn’t my best week, but it wasn’t my worst either, I lost 2 of my 5 trades. My two losses were on gold and the EUR/USD. Gold had reached resistance after a strong move, I thought it would go to next resistance but that just didn’t happen, mostly due to economic data. At the same time I reversed my stance on the euro, tried to play upside momentum, and then that same economic data that sank gold sank the EUR/USD too.
Week Four – 5/25/2015
This was my other great week, four wins and one loss. I was disappointed because my one loss was on the SPX, my favorite asset and my first three trades on it were all winners but oh well. My other four trades this week, oil gold euro and yen, were all winners because I finally got into the dollar swings. Data was driving the dollar and that was driving much of the market.