Geek April Recap – The Streak Is Snapped!
It was a long time, a long time watching my hard earned trading stats deteriorate, a long time enduring the most wicked losing streak I’ve had since I began trading. I’m serious, it SUCKED like no other and was counted in months, not weeks. The good news is that I’ve broken the streak and am back on track. The last month wasn’t great but on a trailing 4 week basis I’m in the green with positive outlook. April was really a good month for me, trading aside. We took our daughter to see grandparents, a great grandma, a handful of great aunts and uncles, an aunt, her fairy godmother, an uncle and a cousin. This means I took a week off of trading which was a really good thing, it’s nice and necessary to clear the head every once in a while.
Total Number Of Trade = 20
Total Cost Of Trading = $10,000
Net Return On Investment = $175 or 1.75%
The Streak Is Snapped!
Ok, to be honest, strictly speaking April trading was a net loss. The thing is, it was only 3 weeks of trading with the vacancy and all so I’m going to include the 1st Monday of May as well, which happens to be the 1st of May as well which pretty much makes it the last day of April as far as the trailing four weeks of trading and these stats. If you follow me. So, four week’s of trading is 20 signals and of those I won 11 and lost 9. The thing I want to note is that the second two weeks were better, 8/10, and put me on the upswing once again with a possible 5/5 in the next week as of this writing. Moving on, 11/20 works out to 55% or just barely good enough to be profitable. The NADEX account did much better because of payouts and cutting losses on bad trades.
What Happened In April?
For one thing, I was getting burned out on trading so it was nice to have a week off. For another, the market was still screwy with Trump nausea, EU political issues, Brexiting process, the early stages of earnings season and adjusting to a recent interest rate hike. Basically there was so much going on in every arena that the usual correlations were broken. In my account this means trouble because I trade a lot of dollar affected assets such as EUR/USD, USD/JPY and Gold. All of these usually move in tandem to some extent but regional differences in news, flight-to-safety and data had them moving independently of each other.
Week One April 3rd 2017
“This is going to be a big week. Lots and lots of economic data, a little bit of earnings and the possiblity of real, good or bad, Trump news. He’s meeting with Xi Jinping, the leader of China, and will talk about things such as trade and North Korea. So long as we don’t see the beginning of world war III the data should carry the week, and the market, to new highs”… Well I was wrong, nothing happened at all it was a total dud. I lost 4/5 trades, only won the Euro.
Week Two April 17th 2017
“Geopolitical hooplah, that’s what I say, hooplah, is wreaking havoc on the market. But not really. There are some shifting near term trends but nothing to alarming. It’s all setting up for great long term entry signals, we just need to wait until they show up. For now I am going to go with the flow, flight to safety and all that, with short term 3 day entry on most of my positions.” I got a little cocky here, but was basically right, but also a little early. I lost 3 trades including the SPX and Gold but rounded a corner to more profitable trading.
Week Three April 24th 2017
“Yet another possibility for a hot week. The French election is basically over, there is an ECB meeting, FOMC is next week, flight to safety is overish, we get US 1st quarter GDP and of course earnings season is in full swing. Let’s see what happens, I’m bullish on the US, the dollar and bearish on EUR, JPY, Gold and Oil.” This week I was getting back in tune, and about dammed time if I say so myself. Won 4/5 trades only lost out on the EUR/USD.
Week Four May 1st 2017
“This could be the biggest week for the market in at least 6 weeks. We are smack in the middle of earnings season, we get a ton of economic data, the FOMC is meeting and geopolitics continue to play a role. Exiting times, exiting times. Now, how to trade them…” The answer to the question, in line with my fundamental outlook and utilizing solid support levels that had FINALLY been reached. I won another 4/5 trades.