Diving right in: The majority of my time this past month has been invested into my latest EA system, while our new Head Trader managed the Hunter account portfolio, and the Razor did its thing largely by itself until early this month.

Official August Results

• Hunter Evolution

  As outlined in our last monthly report, our new Head Trader now manages this portfolio. He commenced trading part-way into August, and after a great start gave back most of the gains he’d made, finally posting a small positive gain for the month. There is a bit of a learning-curve when coming up to speed with the multi-account-management software that we use, which led to a couple of good trades placed on his own account being missed on ’s — not to mention that due to his conservative nature, one trade had its SL moved to the break-even point where it was taken, only to see that trade turn again and move further into the traders favour. So it could very easily have been an excellent month if not for those near misses, both of which have been a learning experience, and are unlikely to be repeated.

  From what I have seen so far, I can easily conclude that we now have at the least one of the best traders I have seen! He has a fantastic trading style, where every trade is hard stopped, and never risking more than 1% of the account. Each trade is closed in 3 parts, each part being incrementally released as and when the price moves further into the traders favour. He’s capable of holding trades for big gains too, which a lot of traders are unable to do. Not only that, but every trade is always placed with a well considered in advance pending order versus a finger on the button style entry. He always lets the market either hit his designated preset take profit or hard stop, while the hard stop is typically moved to a break-even point as price moves in the trade’s favour, and then promptly moved again to protect profit too. So far there’s been next-to-zero drawdown — in fact its usually the opposite, with open trades running in profit more often that not!

  The trading executed last Friday was a supreme example of what I am trying to communicate, and as I have stated to him – consistent application of this style of trading is exactly what I am looking for. In short is very fortunate to have secured his services and it’s my strong belief that over the coming months you will be very happy with what you see.

• Razor Accounts

  These accounts were making some nice ground during the month, up by around 5-6%. As usual, as the momentum backed off, the EA stood aside and did not place further trades. At this point it’s looking to close its positions on the next chance and go flat and just wait. The market got within 30 pips of this — excruciatingly close; I walked away, only to come back and find that the market had then rallied strongly against those open positions, marking what has since become the start of a EUR/USD rally.

  This is all very much in the character of this EA: It picks entries well, but the exit plan runs just a little shy of the market sometimes, which is why I tend to run it at lower leverage, and look to add to its position on retracement so that I can manually average out of a negative position. To do this well, I have to be right on the ball and take the first chance I get, because there’s not often a third chance before being left holding positions against the trend.

  As it has eventuated, the EUR/USD closed right at its high last Friday and I elected to protect accounts from further erosion of account equity by installing a hedge. Shortly thereafter the market did indeed reverse leaving the hedge high and dry. This in combination with some whipsawing of the market into this week to foil the trading plan in place to deal with this, leaves us behind, albeit now short EUR/USD, early into this month. Currently the bad fundamentals for the EUR have recently been revived and the EUR is headed south against most major currencies, provided this also plays out versus the USD which I expect it to, this will play back into the Razor accounts now currently short bias, otherwise further downside account protection is in place.

• Momentum EA

  Due to the fact that I have invested the majority of my efforts this month in the further development of the Pendulum EA, presently Momentum is on the back-burner.

• Pendulum EA

  We’re now 3 months into development of this exciting new system.

  Pendulum is absolutely my pride and joy at the moment, with many a very early morning invested into its development. I still hold this EA out to be the best-of-the-best, and ’s premier achievement when it finally does come to fruition. Our Marketing Director, Gary — who is a master coder with almost 30 years of experience — was instrumental in the considerable progression of this EA due to his input about a month ago, which I’ve been able to build on further with the EA coder. I now have some tests that show phenomenally low DD for extended periods of time, but with extreme high rates of return. How high? Well, on some test settings, it’s returned in excess of 250% monthly – non compounded over the last 9 months run on complete autopilot and in live FWD testing with manual input nearly twice this (ahead of of further development to automate this presently manual input). So I am quietly confident that there’s definitely something very special about this system with its future use, pending real money performance, is still being carefully considered.

Managed accounts moving forward

It’s still business as usual. Aside from overseeing our Head Trader’s activities, and providing him with the support and resources he requires, as well as the basic maintenance required for the running of the Razor accounts, I’ll continue to focus on the longer term EA projects, and the upcoming Pendulum EA. It’s my objective to have the new managed Pendulum account or some such offer of the system available before the conclusion of 2010, which by then would represent 6 months of solid R+D of the system; involving well in excess of 1000 man hours (and counting) because the process of development is an ongoing one.

As always, if you’ve any questions please feel free to ask right here by leaving a comment below, or you can use the contact form to reach me directly. Either way I’ll always aim to give you a quality response by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

Diving right in: Although the Hunter accounts have mostly gone sideways again since last month, I’m pleased to report that the re-introduction of Razor accounts has proven to be a good decision as we report a positive result for those accounts this month.

Official July Results

• Hunter Evolution

  Our hard-stopped, flat-to-the-market every day, discretionary day-traded accounts. In short, these accounts have moved mostly sideways and a little down, at -1.5% now after 3 months of consistent application. In future, I’ll be spending less time manually trading these accounts, but instead focusing on quality (not quantity) of trading and also recommending some diversification into the Razor account if you are not yet already invested.

• Razor Accounts

  We recently reintroduced this account at 50% of its former risk level. This system traded furiously during a 2 week period in July, of which the reopened accounts saw only the second week of that action for a best result of 5%. Colleagues running the system all month saw 10+% this month; with all positions closed, and no losing trades.

• Momentum EA

  Following several months of hard work, late nights, early mornings, and a not insignificant amount of coding costs, this month we have been rewarded with the 3rd best set of EA results I have seen. Respectable annualized returns with acceptable drawdown are reflected in backtests going back ten years (which few EAs can boast).

  This system has been designed as a true hands-free set-and-forget multi-currency robot trader, already working well on EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD and EUR/JPY. It is based on comprehensive long-term backtesting, sensible hard-stopped trend-following trading theory and money management at 1-2% risk per trade with better than 1:1 risk-for-reward trades. It trades on average around 50 times a year per currency pair, so it’s more of long-term proposition (compared to a multiple trades/day daily scalper for example). There is still some further refinement to complete, but it’s running on a small live account on our VPS right now.

• Pendulum EA

  We’re about two months into development of this exciting new system. I ceased further R+D work on the Momentum EA to focus on this one. Pendulum EA is particularly appealing because its modus operandi is for very high returns via a very busy approach and significantly different approach (to what is considered typical trade theory). It involves a considerable number of daily trades and modifications and results in a market-driven mechanical trend-following grid-based system using a unique algorithm that results in it always being short when the market falls and always being long when the market rises from any point in the market!

  Having built and used two other proprietary grid based EAs, I can confidently state that contrary to the typical grid system methodology the Pendulum EA sets itself apart because:

  • it does not accumulate position against the trend, so there is no potential for open-ended risk in strong trends;
  • it’s specifically designed to thrive on volatility and strong trends, on the big days up and on the big days down this system will shine;
  • market price action determines the long or short bias, being long above, or short below any point in the market;
  • any losing position is always quickly hedged;
  • although nearly always in the market, it’s standard mode of operation is to go flat on every individual order set and it will always close flat over the weekend (eliminating the market open gap risk).
     
    

  Interestingly, when accumulating open positions that require margin (much as any other grid system does), this system in effect “cheats the system” by exploiting one very significant loophole when hedging (being an integral feature of this system): the brokers only require margin for one side of the hedge, so the balancing hedge is effectively “margin free”! What this means is that the account has an increased buffer over what would otherwise be available, which in turn translates to a lower relative DD, improving the overall DD-to-return ratio – which is a critical measure of an accounts performance.

Managed accounts moving forward

Essentially it’s business as usual; most of my days are (were) spent analysing the market and determining some good entries and exit points, and anyone who has traded understands that this in itself can be all-consuming. I will be spending less time doing that now, although I’ll still be keeping an eye open for just the absolute cherry trades (which will probably perform better than slavish day-to-day trading). Aside from the basic maintenance required for the running of Razor accounts, I’ll be focusing more on the longer term EA projects and some other aspirations I have for .  Ultimately, I think the refinement of the three EAs currently on the table will serve as solid base for us to keep going forward.

As always, if you’ve any questions please feel free to ask right here by leaving a comment below, or you can use the contact form to reach me directly. Either way I’ll always aim to give you a quality response the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

However, I’m not here to waste your time, and of course if you require your funds for other purposes then please don’t feel obliged in any manner: One of the benefits of an FX account traded to flat each day is that you always have 100% on-call liquidity. I’ll continue trading the Hunter Evolution accounts very cautiously and at low leverage until I see consistent forward traction as a result of the necessary adjustment in my trading. And at that time I’ll be looking to increase the leverage per trade.

The good times will come, and in the meanwhile do remember that the number one rule is to not lose – or at the very least to keep any loses tightly contained, which I’ve done very well recently. The market has been extremely volatile this month, especially EUR/USD with lots of indecision and news affecting that pair. The big story in that regard was the massive EUR/USD rally with the pair rising 350 pips in one day; a move of that magnitude has not been seen since back in 2008 in the midst the GFC. I certainly wouldn’t want to have been naked short (with no SL order) on that pair, although undoubtedly many were, and got wiped out in the process. Instead, I gave back around 0.5% trying to find a short entry among these extremely adverse moves. The saving grace of using SL orders is that even if you get the entry wrong, you only lose a small portion of an account.

The official result for the Hunter Evolution accounts for the month of June is -1%*

New Accounts

Moving forward, I have some exciting news and an alternative investment to my slow going on the day-to-day trading on Hunter Evolution. In retrospect, had the Razor system been left to run its course without intervention, it would have actually turned a fantastic year-to-date result for clients. My main concern at that time was the risk level, especially because we did see the risk pushed to its upper limit. Taken in combination with challenges on the Miner accounts, which were running a different system that also involved an open running negative position, I decided then to discontinue all the EA systems, which I felt was the best decision at the time. Subsequently, the Razor system did tick over of its own accord on some non-client accounts, and the performance just can’t be ignored. Time and time again, it has run its course of frequent trading in bursts on breakouts, and at times holding positions open for days before the market retests the high/low, the positions are closed and accounts goes flat. So to use a phrase coined by a colleague I’ll introduce below, “the system has been in the shop” and now its coming back out.

The official re-commencement of the former Razor accounts is July 2010. And also, previous Razor accounts are back in trade with the Razor system.

As you may already be aware, I’ve been toiling away in the background on a new proprietary momentum-based EA system. After several hundred hours of work I’ve very recently begun running live on one test account. It perfoms well over a 10 year backtest period on both GBP/USD and EUR/USD pairs. So far, it is working as intended, and after a trial period it will be further assessed and potentially opened to clients.

The official announcement of the Momentum EA trial account, July 2010. In due course we’ll provide a live feed link to this account.

OK, how about a different service provider with established long-term records? This is a different managed FX account opportunity that I’ve had access to: As you probably know, I’ve dabbled with other traders and various systems over the years, but these days I make very few recommendations for other FX traders, EA’s or systems. That’s because it’s such a risky business, and if my recommendations lose money, then I feel it reflects badly on myself. That being said, I’m also not afraid of calling things how I see them as many of you have experienced. If something comes across that really stands out, which so very rarely occurs these days, then I think it well worth a mention at the very least.

These folks are the main driving force I’ve come to know over the years while we’ve travelled in similar circles and coincidentally our paths to this day are still interwoven because we have much the same interests and values. After this long in the business, I can say that the group carries significant experience in Forex. I’m told that there are 9 minds behind what they offer, and with four different managed account options to choose from, in my experience you’d need every bit of that man power. Just trading a single system can be all consuming, let alone balancing multiple systems. As an overview of what they have to offer, from my observations of their accounts:

• Chrome and Precision Scalper accounts: Trading various scalping based intraday EA systems. These accounts use high leverage and volume, with aggressive trades sometimes topping 20% in a month. There are 6-12 months of track records on these two accounts.
• McLaren: This is a human trend trader, acclaimed by ED. This fellow traded and made folks plenty to be sure, though that’s not say that there haven’t been hiccoughs along the way either. Personally I think that a good human trader is the best, but they are extremely hard to find, especially over the long term. Recent re-introduction after being “put back in the shop”. Experienced trader, now running latest.
• Guardian Account: An advanced Grid system. This high frequency trading system with open running positions during profit phase that is wound back to flat periodically for withdrawals. Atypically (to a “normal” grid system) it thrives in a trend and tends to accumulate positions while range bound. All minimums for these accounts are USD5k and fees are in the 30% ballpark, which is about average in this industry. They offer their Precision, Chrome and McLaren accounts via a reputable, genuine Panamanian broker and their Guardian accounts through a US based broker.

Cayoflow June 2010 Month End Trading Report

To consistently achieve this level of return to-date is quite exceptional, all things considered. Certainly, I’m aiming to put myself in the way of the opportunity that I believe it represents, and I urge you to take the time to consider this for yourself.

If you’d like a formal introduction, then please send your contact details to me (Name, Phone, skype + timezone, preferred methid of contact) and I will make the arrangements so that you can conduct your own due diligence investigation.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

So, let’s cover this past month and review some of last month’s overview so you can see how it unfolded. As I hinted last time, I’ve mostly withdrawn from anything non-essential so that I can focus entirely on the development of my trading, and the development of some auto-trading software to manage some elements of my day-to-day trading tasks.

Since my undertaking to use strict stops-based trading on our Hunter Evolution accounts, without exception I have:

• remained flat to the market each day;
• placed limited low-risk trades with attractive reward objectives;
• employed strict money-management at its core, so that any potential loss is both limited and able to be defined in advance.

I placed 62 trades in total, and compared with the total starting balance I traded up by around 1.4%, then back down by around 2.8%, then back up again by 1.4% or so. I say “or so” because of the way the multi-account management software distributes volume of trades: Some individual accounts have made a little, some accounts are behind by a little, and in the end I actually reduced the leverage and exposure I had intended to use. I think a 0% result for the Month of May is about the right one to post.

Although it’s not a big fat positive, all the other boxes are ticked and I might add that the recent half of those 62 trades show a smooth consistent up curve, the steepness of which is directly pegged to the very low leverage trades I’ve been using.

Volatility was in the region of 3% intra-month and reflects the limited leverage, which is well inside the 10% peak-to-valley (highest to lowest balance/equity over the month) maximum DD tolerance outlined in advance. I’m planning to increase the leverage over time, while still working within that 10% peak-to-valley maximum DD tolerance.

At this point, I could expand on the deficiencies amongst those 62 trades, but I think it suffices to say that I am aware of them, and they are almost totally comprised of human based shortcomings: my charting and trading technique itself is very much better than what the end-of-month result might otherwise indicate. To be able to make continuous improvements, we must first become aware of our deficiencies, and then learn from them and move forward as a result. And that is exactly what I’m doing and will continue to do. Doubtless all good traders continue to travel along this path, for we are never perfect as humans nor as traders – myself definitely included. But that’s more than enough about me!

You might be wondering about this new software system? Is Adam actually onto something with this momentum based system, hereafter referred to as the Momentum EA. Well, thanks to modern technology, the knowledge base and the right contacts I can now have a system coded up with appropriate adjustable elements, and run it through simulated backtests going back ten years or longer! To do all this manually would take literally years, but it can now be done in a few weeks (of 3 am mornings mind you!), which leaves the door open to continued advancements and refinements for as long as I continue to invest effort into research and development of the trading concept.

About 50% of my efforts are investing in the Momentum EA. It’s a very exciting path to travel, and I’m rather pleased to say that I’ve already got something that looks fantastic. In fact, this is the best looking backtest curve I’ve ever seen on a hard-stops EA over a 10 year backtest… if I could replicate this curve with my manual trading over a ten year period, I would be among the top traders in the world!

Enough of the talk, click here to see 3 tests: 2 x 10 year backtest with 0.1 vs 1.0 lot leverage per trade, as well as 12 month to date 1 lot setup confirming what I observed in the charts. What is especially good about this setup is that:

1. It works over ten years, where as most robots can only muster short period of recent history;
2. It’s performance is relatively consistent year-to-year, and it actually works even better in recent years with their increased volatility;
3. It has a low relative DD for its returns;
4. Its maximum risk per trade is always limited by a hard stop;
5. Its risk versus reward per trade is always greater than 1:1, so it profits even with fewer than a 50% winning trades;
6. It is NOT affected by broker spreads like scalping robots;
7. It does NOT need to use high leverage like scalping robots because its TP targets are between 58 and 90 pips (25-50% of the average daily range of the currency);
8. It is not always in the market, the account is flat and not exposed the majority of the time, with 2 trades per week on average the past 12 months.

To me it reads like a wish list of what I’d like to see in a forex account, managed by a human or by software. I’m really not much different from you, in that I too dream of sipping pinacoladas on a beach in Tahiti, while my forex account is quietly generating cash flow – with my good lady and our young son no less! Aside form that, I do actually enjoy the challenge of manually trading and it serves enhance the long term development of an autotrading system that I know inside out, and that I have enough confidence in that I’ll eventually relinquish some of my trading load to it. What works well for me… so too for my clients. Next week, it will be going on a test drive on one small live account, and then over the coming months I can further evaluate its live performance as well continue to invest further efforts in the R+D side of things. Ideally I’d like to see it trade more frequently, with greater accuracy and with multiple currency pairs. I might add that already there’s various setup options which do work with other currencies and timeframes, but they all individually require weeks (or months) of R+D to fully explore – keep an eye on this space.

This month, the Self-Managed Gold account trading the Gold Rush system has obviously done well again – depending on where your buy points were, with gold recently reaching a new high in excess of $1240/ounce. Without wanting to sound like a parrot, not much has changed since last month – gold remains very strong in the face of an uncertain and volatile economic environment, having already been the standout performer of the past 12 months, so too is this extremely simple and easy to employ system which is better than 100% correlated in perfomance to the price of gold. This is the account I recommend if you want core long exposure to Gold, as long as you’re willing to take the relatively small investment of time to learn how to employ the system (and, just as importantly, to understand the associated downside risk). However, it’s essentially no riskier than holding the same quantity of physical gold, as long as you remember that any increase in leverage comes with an associated increase in risk.

Active marketing will be limited during the near future but any inquiries will be serviced to our usual high standard. If you have any questions please do feel most welcome to contact us, and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

In addition to refocusing my attention on trading, I’ve primarily been working with our existing clients to provide regular updates during the transition of all accounts to a strictly-defined hard-stops limited-risk style of trading, henceforth known as the Hunter Evolution account. Most existing accounts have been worked back to flat, essentially back to a break-even point or thereabouts. That will allow me to fully deploy this revised trading regime. Some tough decisions are being and have been made, but in short, it’s ultimately all part of moving forward.

This new approach been borne from the desire to provide you with the type of account that:

1. remains flat to the market each day;
2. places limited low-risk trades with attractive reward objectives;
3. most importantly, has strict money-management at its core, so that any potential loss is both limited and able to be defined in advance.

I’m calling this a new approach, but it’s really not – I’ve actually been writing the code and tracking the system for quite some time, and in fact an EA of this exact trading system is presently in the works. In the end, it’s quite likely that the EA will actually do better than me, because it can tend to accounts for all 24 hours of the day (I’m not capable of sustaining 24 hour days for terribly long), and it will not second guess itself and close trades early (that being a peculiarly human trait).

Of all the accounts and systems that I’ve ever traded, from any the signal services, EA’s or other managed accounts that I’ve ever used or investigated, this new approach has the lowest absolute risk, yet still allows for the possibility of very attractive monthly returns. My studies and observation reveal a high percentage of winning trades at better than 1:1 risk for reward, which is uncommon in most EA systems in my experience. But talk is cheap, which is why I’m not writing this report to convince you of anything. In the end, it’s the results that will count, and let’s not forget that smooth ride goes a long way too. I’ve set the bar at 10% maximum DD, and maximum 0.5% risk trades with TP objectives at around 1.5% on average. With trades placed on most days there’s a potential for 1% or better ROI daily, which is more than enough to alllow for a double digit monthly result.

Normally, at this juncture I’d show you the average returns across the various account types that we offer, but we have no way to generate any sensible numbers in light of the current situation, which will become clearer as you read on. Nonetheless, please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts (although they might look a bit ugly right now!) and, of course, to address any concerns you may have.

Since the last results update, the Hunter and Razor accounts have received the attention they required to get all but 3 specific accounts back to flat, with no open running positions. But that has also involved giving back all trading gains made on those accounts so far, give or take some small percentage. So, although both Hunters and Razors did suffer loss and drawdown from their peak balance, it was essentially limited to the previous gains that had already been made – on the whole, at least everyone has their principle back. I’m painfully aware that this is far from an ideal scenario, but it is certainly more desirable than taking a loss.

The remaining Miner accounts are also going through the same process, although I expect that these accounts will suffer an overall loss – primarily because of the ongoing fundamental weakness of the Euro against virtually all other currencies, which goes against the primary logic behind the Miner system. Combining that with the fact that the risk is rather open ended due the stopless nature of the system, which is exposing these accounts to more risk that I now deem appropriate. In light of all this, the Miner system is being discontinued. Under more favourable market conditions this system does work fantastically, the results were nothing but positive from our early experiences with the Miner system. But, just like when you’re buying stocks, the market needs to be headed in the right direction otherwise you are locked into a downward spiral if you didn’t define the exit point in advance (i.e. set a SL).

This month, the Self-Managed Gold account trading the Gold Rush system has obviously done extremely well, with gold recently reaching a new high in excess of $1240/ounce. And it remains very strong in the face of an uncertain and volatile economic environment, having already been the standout performer of the past 12 months, so too is this extremely simple and easy to employ system which is better than 100% correlated in perfomance to the price of gold. This is the account I recommend if you want core long exposure to Gold, as long as you’re willing to take the relatively small investment of time to learn how to employ the system (and, just as importantly, to understand the associated downside risk). However, it’s essentially no riskier than holding the same quantity of physical gold, as long as you remember that any increase in leverage comes with an associated increase in risk.

Going forward, all the new managed-account trading, herein referred to as the Hunter Evolution accounts, will be comprised of exclusively hard-stopped maximum 0.5% risk-limited trades, and with risk:reward objectives consistently in excess of 1:3. The trading system itself is of my own design and will be limited to just the EUR/USD pair, guiding trade entry and exit points using a combination of:

• a momentum based trigger entry;
• fibonacci levels;
• daily highs and lows;
• significant moving averages.

Recent detailed study and practical application of the system have so far confirmed profitability for very low risk; but the short term focus for is to establish an ongoing and unbroken track record of this specific methodology. Active marketing will be limited during the near future but any inquiries will be serviced to our usual high standard.

If you have any questions please do feel most welcome to contact us, and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

So, before I start to compile the Monthly Report for April, I’d like to take this chance to give you a brief rundown of last week’s trading. Most of the week was spent tracking my targeted entries, to anticipate how the trades would play out.

Of the trades I actually placed from the 12 generated on the main FIB system, I was unfortunate to get 3 of the 4 losing trades it had. But to balance that out, I also entered on 4 of the 8 winning signals – which, if traded according to plan would have worked out fantastically. Refining that plan has been a big part of how I spent my time this week, but… for the first week as an out-of-the-box trading plan it’s performed fantastically.

The orders are executed in such a way as to produce a 1:1 trade on 50% of the trade by volume, a 1:3 trade on 25% and a 1:6 trade the remaining 25% of the trade (in volume terms). A full winner would be in the region of 1:3 risk v reward, a 2/3 winner (TP1+TP2) would be in the region of 1:2.

The net effect is that I’m attempting to enter the market at small risk, get to break even fast and then stay in for the bigger moves with favourable risk versus reward outcome if the rest of the setups work out. At just 3:1 risk vs reward, 1 full win for 4 losers equates to break even, so 1 full win for every 3 losers or better and I’m making money for you. As you can see from the charts below (click them to zoom in!), so far I’m not too shy of 3 wins for 1 loss and with much better than 3:1 risk for reward just this past week – and with room to improve further.

Lets talk %’s, I’ll use 1:3 risk versus reward for the example below (but on average it is actually a higher number than this)

The net result 6.8% for a week, placing 12x 0.4% risk trades (4.8% total risk for the week).

Two of the losers could have been either avoided by simple filters (and will be on similar trades in the future), and the losses minimised on remaining losers with tighter stop. In fact, from observation of my charts and some simple math, I realize that I can enter even closer to the levels I identify and install a tighter stop for both improve gains and risk reward profile (0.3% risk versus 0.4% risk per trade). It may even come to pass that the 1:1 bounce/rebound component of the trade can be eliminated or held for TP1 and/or TP2 levels (further decreasing risk and/or increasing reward).

The approach in itself (outside of the money and order management) is relatively simple but requires consistent accuracy and focus to implement; essentially just testing of previous significant areas of support and resistance, very often in confluence with commonly observed Fibonacci levels because that’s what a lot of technical traders observe in the market. I’ve pasted some of my charts below for those of you with an interest in charting (again, you can click the thumbnails to zoom in), and with a bit of detailed observation you should be able to decipher the long/short entries and the corresponding stop loss and take profit level.

FYI: Each trade is dented by “Long 1”, “Short 2”, “Long 3” etc. Blue up arrows are longs, blue down arrows are long take profit points and red down arrows inverted are long order stop loss. The reverse is applicable to short orders. Refer to the key in the chart.

The chart I completed on Sunday has the “into the future” levels plotted in advance, as well as the chart not long after open today (have a look at every level I plotted in advance and how the price reacted today). Get these levels accurate and trade with tight stops and I believe it’s the closest thing to knowing the results of event in advance (legally!) and being able to place risk on it for favourable reward profiles – but it requires a human… I’m not yet sure if I could have this approach coded into EA. As you can see there seems to be between 1-3 entries with great risk for reward most days, so its just matter of being up to date with my charting, having a good plan to exploit the price action as it unfolds and following my rules – trading rules and technical levels I know have a solid foundation in trading.

This is the first day of May and the start of great things I’d like to think – at least that’s my plan.

Kind Regards,

Adam Liddiard

To see further information on any of our current accounts, just click on the name of that account below and read the brief account summaries that follow. As always, please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts and, of course, to address any concerns you may have.

Official March Results:

• Managed FX Miner: -53.57%¹
  • Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Managed FX Hunter: -2.01%¹
  • Weblink to detailed account reporting
• NEW Managed FX Razor: -0.4%¹
  • Weblink to detailed LIVE account reporting

The Miner account had a really bad month. The account was rightly long on EUR/CHF and short on AUD/NZD, according to the long-term correlation theory on which it is based. In addition to this, the Razor EA (which runs on the Miner account too) was also short the EUR, and that too was the right thing to do – until this recent rally.

And then, simultaneously, all of those pairs headed in the wrong direction such that within 24 hours account equity went from somewhere near reasonable, to extremes that pushed the smaller and more highly leveraged accounts to a margin call. (A margin call occurs when the sum total of all open trades exceeds the account balance, and the broker closes all positions at a loss to the account holder).

While we already knew that the possibility for EUR/CHF and AUD/NZD to head to these extremes was there, statistically it seemed extremely unlikely – and even more unlikely that they’d both do that simultaneously while the EUR also rallied against the USD… but, fundamental forces resulted in: CHF rather EUR’s (for now obvious reasons); AUD rather than NZD, because Australia is a natural resource power house with virtually no sovereign debt. After a strong EUR sell off, which brought some strong profits for the Razor, it now seems that the market wants EUR for USD’s, while the Razor EA has short positions down low.

Were it not for the EUR/CHF and AUD/NZD positions, or even if the worst affected accounts had received additional capitalization, then they would likely have had enough to room to breathe with their additional EUR/USD trades. All said and done now, it should never have gotten to this point, and the decision to first run the Miner as a stopless system, and later the same for the Razor system has proven fateful for our Miner account clients, the company and myself.

The Hunter account’s relatively consistent run of profitable trading continues with most account about flat for the month, albeit with a game of hedge on the GBP/USD pair for a period. The overall negative results was a results of two saftware malfunction on two accounts causing orders to unintentially close. The open position DD has continued this month, though to a lesser degree than it has otherwise been recently. The month finished off smoothly for the Hunter accounts, despite focus being somewhat diverted to the Miner account issues.

Given the lessons learned from the Miners, and considering the long-term trading of the Hunter accounts, these Hunters are now being traded with some variation to their strategy: That is, from now on I will take more regular smaller losses in order to prevent a large accumulation of any currency pair, and rely more on good entries and exits with shorter term stops. The idea is to remain more consistently flat to market, with no large open positions. The more recently opened Hunter accounts are now in profit and flat over the weekend. And, boy, I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to not have those accounts constantly in the market, exposed to ever changing fundamental market forces.

The Razor accounts performed nicely for the first part of the month, but were unfortunately caught in a series of short EUR trades placed on a Friday. The market then rallied significantly to our upper most risk tolerance, at which point I manually implemented a hedge. This gives a trader time to develop a trading plan to deal with the situation. I waited for that opportunity, which seemed to arrive on Good Friday when the market failed to reach 1.36; I placed a take-profit on the hedge at 1.3585 (with a protective long hedge again at 1.36 in case price rocketed north), and simultaneously added to the short position with stop-loss at 1.36. The market just had to hit that 1.3585 mark again, while not reaching the 1.36, and then drop far enough that I could close out all orders in profit without taking a single loss, and get the accounts back to flat for this plan to work out perfectly.

As I was manually installing orders to execute this plan, on the first account I manually closed the long and went short, before moving on to the next account. By this time the price had moved just below the long hedge, so I installed a take-profit very close, thinking we’d surely have another spike towards 1.36 – if not breaching it, thus reapplying the long hedge (this prevents the situation from otherwise worsening). Well, the price didnt come back and proceeded to tank – just my luck it seems this month. At the end of the day I will again need to await the right opportunity to try the same plan again until it works; the only alternative would be to manually close all orders and take the open position hit of around -30%.

This month, the Self Managed Gold account didn’t close out any trades, which is hardly surprising given the downside seen in gold, care of the recent flight to the USD. Still, it remains very strong in the face of an uncertain and volatile economic environment. This is the suggested account of choice for folks wanting core long exposure to Gold, and who are willing to take the relatively small investment of time to learn how to employ the system, and importantly to understand the associated downside risk. It’s essentially no riskier than the same quantity of physical gold but with any increase in leverage comes an associated increase in risk.

The sum total of everything that is on my plate right now has made me realise that I need to become more focused on a fewer trading systems myself, particularly the stopless systems that require 365 days a year attention. And rather, to work more on more stringent risk management, while further diversifying into a quality range of forex accounts and services that do not exclusively rely on my own input. I still feel there’s an immense amount I can offer, but the format of delivery will need to be changed to leverage it more profitably for you. As I stated previously, the details of all this are forthcoming.

If you have any questions please do feel most welcome to contact us, and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

Miner accounts

This new Razor EA accounts performed well this month across all the brokers we use. Although it produced rather less than we might have liked to see, it still brought a very respectable result and we fully expect that with the passage of time we’ll see some far better months. The huge advantage of this system is that it’s often flat to the market; that is, it has no open running positions, which is in stark contrast to the Hunter and Miner systems which are always in the market to some extent.

The Razor account still has a super low-entry of US$2,000 for our initial limited trial client intake of 25, with first priority to existing clients. If it continues to perform as well as it has been doing on live accounts recently, and as well as we’re anticipating, then this may be your only chance to enter. Some new accounts have also been established at a semi-private ECN/non-market-maker brokerage, so far in our live testing it has shown to trade slightly better than even Alpari (UK).

To see further information on any of our account types, just click on the name of that account below and read the brief account summaries that follow. As always, please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts and, of course, to address any concerns you may have.

Official February Results:

• Managed FX Miner: 7.84%¹
  • Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Managed FX Hunter: 9.40%¹
  • Weblink to detailed account reporting
• NEW Managed FX Razor: 3.96%¹
  • Weblink to detailed LIVE account reporting
  • Weblink to detailed demo account reporting at Alpari(UK)
  • Weblink to detailed demo account reporting at PBFX (an ECN broker in the US)
• Self Managed Gold Account: 5% (approx)

The Miner account has had a great month in terms of balance gains thanks largely to our addition of the Razor EA, bringing some some accounts in the 12-13% range for the month. And also helped by the fact the Carnifex EA does also hold long AUD/NZD, where it took profit on some trades for nice balance gains; And finally profits from some smaller range bound grid trades care of the original (but rewired) Miner EA. However the core long-EUR/CHF and short-AUD/NZD strategy of this account pushed open position drawdown further into the negative according to degree of leverage used.

The upside is that the EUR/USD pair seems to have found a bottom, the threat the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain – Eurozone governments with severe sovereign debt problems) posed in the currency markets seems to have abated, and when you add in to that mix the Swiss National Bank’s repeated intervention then it would seem the EUR/CHF is probably now poised at a bottom.

The AUD/NZD pair by comparison has risen to level not seen in nearly a decade, which is not ideal. However, provided the longer term regression-to-the-mean-average holds anywhere near true, then it will mean that account holders will have sold their Australian dollars at premium price in the cycle, and will reap the benefits in due course.

There’s been a big retracement with AUD/NZD in recent days, which could mark the top for that pair. And there’s a strong argument in my mind that additional capitalization of existing and newly opened accounts at these levels is the right thing to do. In the coming months, you might otherwise be kicking yourself if you don’t give some forethought at these extreme levels, because it never becomes evident what you “should have” done, until after the event. But, it should always go without saying that the opposite might also be true, however, what’s for certain at this stage is that the ideal time in the price cycle to be long the AUD/NZD pair was last month – to get on the train now is certainly, at the very least, a late entry.

Moving on to the Hunter account’s continued consistent run of great trading; the very weak GBP caught us a little unprepared while we were net long in that department, suffering a very sudden and dramatic fall on that pair at which point a we implemented a hedge to stabilise equity, which is still a work in progress. The beauty of the Hunter accounts is that its risk is spread across multiple pairs, so it’s very much business as usual for the rest of the pairs in trade with some solid gains being posted thanks to above average volatility of the markets this past month.

The Razor account performed nicely for its first official live month, making an average 4% return on balance across all accounts, with all positions now closed. It was rather quiet though, only chosing to trade in a very narrow window of 4 days this month placing only 36 short EUR/USD trades during that period. I expect that it will begin to trade again when the EUR/USD decides to break out either to the upside or downside of the recent range, and traditionally the direction of its trades is very indicative of strong trending moves. The fact that it’s no longer short EUR/USD, and that EUR/USD has held at 1.3450 adds weight to the fact that bottom could be in for the EUR, and this also marks the top for the USD rally, which I think is all but confirmed already, anyway.

This month, the Self Managed Gold account closed out one trade in the US$1075-1125 range. This reflects one of the beauties of this truly simplistic system in that it still makes gains in the gold market even when the market is going sideways. Now it’s posted consecutive months of gains simply buying at US$1075 and selling at US$1125. If gold continues northbound, sideways or even just drops a bit you’ll do well and you can hold your account in variety of currencies so you’re not linked to the USD dollar. This is longest running system that has; it would have worked for years prior to our actual implementation, and will only cease to work when gold truly starts heading south in excess of US$300 from a peak which, with all of the additional fiat currency injected into the world economy in response the WFC, would seem rather unlikley.

There are, of course, two sides to the “gold bug argument“, but for now it seem the gold bugs are right, at least until we see gold headed strongly south. If you’re on the other side then you can simply run the system in reverse, swapping Gold for USD’s all the way.

This is the suggested account of choice for folks wanting core long exposure to gold and who are willing to take the relatively small investment of time to learn how to employ the system and importantly to understand the downside risk associated. It’s essentially no riskier than the same quantity of physical gold but with any increase in leverage comes an associated increase in risk.

If you have any questions please do feel most welcome to contact us, and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

This new Razor system works extremely well on live-money accounts, and has been well tested at 5 different brokers so far. As of the first week of February, we’ve begun running it on all existing FX Miner accounts, where its trading has followed the current big trend with 100% accuracy, and with only rare periods of relatively minor DD. Even though the details posted below are based on backtest studies and live forward-testing (because we do not yet have dedicated stand-alone FX Razor accounts for the month of January), I do want to stress that the latest stand-alone live-account performance is equally encouraging.

To see further information on any of the accounts we offer, just click on the name of that account below and read the brief summaries that follow further down. As always, please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts and, of course, to address any concerns you may have.

Official January Results:

• NEW Managed FX Razor: 16.3%/32.6%¹
  • Weblink to detailed demo account reporting at Alpari(UK)
  • Weblink to detailed demo account reporting at PBFX (an ECN broker in the US)
• Managed FX Miner: -1.75%²
  • Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Managed FX Hunter: 5.68%²
  • Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Managed FX CarniFeX: 1.98%²
  • Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Self Managed Gold Account: 5%

The new Razor account has a super-low entry investment of just US$2,000, but we have only a limited initial trial client intake of 25, with first priority given to our existing clients. If this EA continues to perform as well as we’re anticipating, and as well as it has been doing on live-accounts recently, then this may be your only chance to enter! We are currently trialing at PBFX (a semi-private ECN/non-market-maker brokerage in the US), with the view to also offer the accounts there, because our live-testing has shown even better trading returns at this particular broker. 60% and 70% months are entirely possible even at standard leverage, and between all our live-trading to-date, and our 10 year backtest, we’ve found just one losing month in it’s entire history!

The Miner account performed as expected given the market. At the depths of the extreme move against the system, I gave some returns back with lost hedged trades. That turned out to have been rather unfortunate, because not long after that, two very favourable events occurred:

1. The SNB intervened not once, but twice to support the EUR/CHF. Such things usually precede a base being formed and an eventual reversal. This puts us in good stead, and I would like to thank the “powers that be” for protecting the downside which would only be exacerbated by the current PIGS situation.
2. The RBA surprised the market by not raising rates further, causing an immediate downward spike on the AUD/NZD pairs closing out a bunch of shorts for a nice profit.

Despite those favourable events, the whole situation lead to some evolution in our FX Miner system and, having consulted with all existing FX Miner clients, it’s now become ’s mixed robot system. The update includes:

1. the CarniFeX EA, which has been doing a great job long and short the EUR/CHF and AUD/NZD pairs versus the one-direction only Miner system;
2. and the new Razor EA, our other all-time favorite EA that really proven itself over the past 10 months.

Going forth, this may very well be one of ’s highest yielding and consistent accounts with some accounts already up as high as 7.5% on February month to date.

The Hunter account’s consistent run of trading continues; although the very strong USD surge caught us a little unprepared being net short in that department. Given the primary trend has changed on the USD, we are looking at things from a USD strength position until a reversal is clearly evident. In the meantime Hunter account holders are going to have to live with some open-position DD – although this shouldn’t adversely affect their ability to continue to make consistent balance gains across the mixed portfolio of positions in the interim period.

The recently introduced Carnifex Pro account has proven ideally suited to the recent market conditions. Our most recently commenced account has also gained the benefit of an excellent entry: The relative extremes in the current price of EUR/CHF and AUD/NZD creates a fabulous opportunity to enter the market at a price far above or below the long term median prices, which should really pay off in the longer term when the price moves back towards that median.

This month, the Self-Managed Gold account closed out one trade, provided your broker of choice did see below US$1,074.50 along with the high of US$1125 for January. With the recent scramble to USD, Gold has taken a bit of dive but it’s also said that when no one else wants to, that is usually the better time to buy. Only history will tell for sure. This is the suggested account of choice for folks wanting core long exposure, and who are willing to take the relatively small investment of time to understand the downside risk associated. It’s essentially no riskier than the same quantity of physical gold but with any increase in leverage comes an associated increase in running open position total.

If you have any questions please do feel most welcome to contact us, and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

The New Year inevitably brings resolutions to mind. As a recipient of these monthly posts, you’ll begin to see some more positive changes as the result of some of the company’s New Year’s resolutions. Our focus will be shifting away from the diversification of our combined energies, and moving much more towards the most important aspect of ’s business, which is generating healthy and consistent monthly returns for you: More specialization on a smaller range of accounts, and even greater efficiencies in our online infrastructure thanks to a the impending relaunch of our website; and to the refinement of our VPSs leading-in to the use of our newly updated EA¹s for 2010. With the EAs increased functionality, my trading load will ease and free more of my time for more exacting exploitation of the FX market, which will bring better ROI and lower DD. With all of this will soon come the introduction of our newest team member and business partner, coming into the fray to assist to this end.

To see further information on any of our accounts, just click on the name of that account below and read the brief account summaries that follow. As always, please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts and, of course, to address any concerns you may have.

Official December Results:

• Managed FX Miner: 2.70%²
  • NEW – Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Managed FX Hunter: 4.07%²
  • NEW – Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Managed Gold Account: -12.51%²
  • NEW – Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Self Managed Gold Account: 0%

The Miner account performed as expected. The market retraced after quite a run against the system on the AUD/NZD pair, and the additional shorts placed on these accounts paid off nicely as the pair tumbled several hundred pips. Against my expectations, exactly the opposite of that occured on EUR/CHF – support at 1.50 gave way and the pair tumbled 300 pips from where it has been for the last several months which has brought some increased DD on this pair. We’re still very much within the limits of the system, and the bonus on the additional long EUR/CHF positions is that of positive overnight interest differential in addition to trading gains, which has the effect of offsetting DD to a degree over time, and is added on each trade as they close.

The Hunter account’s standout run of trading continues; the USD strength continued until the very first few hours of 2010, and with a rather subtsantial covering of shorts taking place, which resulted in many pairs rallying significantly against the USD. In particular, the GBP/USD pair rallied hard after of having being quite heavily shorted by the majority of the market which resulted in some healthy end of year gains and a very favourable effect of open running positions for Hunter accounts, as the inflows also assisted greatly in the short EUR/GBP trade.

The longer running Managed Gold accounts weren’t shining brightly, as you might have expected, with Gold tanking to below US$1,080. With my long bias and a rather volatile market, I found that rather difficult to negotiate. It’s highlighted a long standing gut feeling that I should step aside on Managed Gold accounts. In comparison with the Hunter accounts, they are much harder to trade for a number of increasingly apparent reasons, not least among which are:

• the fact that it’s more expensive to trade gold
• and that gold is much more volatile and harder to find cheap entries that work as well as the fundamentally core long bias (which works great in rising market but inevitably gives some back on retracements).

Add to this fact the overall load on my time, then the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that I must focus on doing less, but doing it better. In line with that, the decision has been made to discontinue any additional gold trading accounts and look to wind out of current accounts as when the opportunity presents itself, with further communications directed to affected clients.

This month, the Self Managed Gold account didn’t close out any trades as is to be expected given its fundamentally long bias. This will become the suggested account of choice for folks wanting core long exposure and are willing to take the relatively small investment of time to understand the downside risk associated. It’s no riskier than the same quantity of physical gold but with any increase in leverage comes an associated increase in running open position total.

If you have any questions please do feel most welcome to contact us, and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

To see further information on any of our accounts, just click on the name of that account below and read the brief account summaries that follow. As always, please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts and, of course, to address any concerns you may have.

Be sure to check the “NEW Weblink” views to see the live-account reporting data in a very user friendly format, with a special thanks going to GE our Technical Director for implementing it. Please note that, due to different account balances and the fact that official results post outs represent an average of all accounts, individual account-to-account performance will vary accordingly.

Official November Results:

• Managed FX Miner: 2.09%¹
  • NEW – Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Managed FX Hunter: 7.08%¹
  • NEW – Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Managed FX Scalper: -3.73%¹
  • NEW – Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Managed Gold Account: 10.07%¹
  • NEW – Weblink to detailed account reporting
• Self Managed Gold Account: 20%+

The Miner account performed as expected again, although the market has continued to make quite a run against the system on the AUD/NZD pair. Given that leverage was reduced earlier, and that relative DD is lower than would otherwise be expected, we’re now presented with the option to increase the leverage again – with due consideration given to the fact that we may very well see a further a run against the system. On the upside, the EUR/CHF pair appears to be awaking from its sleep; there’s now talk of a run north towards 1.5250 which will greatly assist in offseting the drawdown on the AUD/NZD pair.

The Hunter accounts continued good run of trading continues; in spite of the current USD strength and GBP weakness, we’ve ended up with a respectable positive month, with both comfortable running open-position DD and account exposure.

The Scalper accounts have now been discontinued. Refer to our October Results post for further details.

The longer running Managed Gold accounts were shining brightly as you might have expected with gold at around US$1200, leaving us with good balance and equity gains. As it happened starting into this month of December with rather better than expected NFP numbers bolstering the USD, gold tumbled quite dramatically and along the way at least some of those returns were given back. The focus will now be to look for a good long entry with the view this bull run has not yet hit top!

This month, the Self Managed Gold account again closed several long trades for a big gain. The results page of the website will be updated with exact numbers shortly.

While some accounts do have open-position DD to varying degrees depending on the account particulars, with the exception of the discontinued Scalper accounts, everything else is performing well overall… which I trust is a nice addition to your Christmas stocking.

If you have any questions please do feel most welcome to contact us, and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

Moving on, if you’d like to see further information on any of our accounts, just click on the name of that account below, and as always please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts and, of course, to address any concerns you may have.

Official October Results:

• Managed FX Miner: 2.81%¹
• Managed FX Hunter: 5.56%¹
• Managed FX Scalper: -3.21%¹
• Managed Gold Account: -2.3%¹
• Self Managed Gold Account: 3.8%

The Miner account performed as expected again, bringing no surprises given the rock-solid predictability of this system. The market has made quite a run against the system on the AUD/NZD pair. As mention in our last post, the leverage was reduced due to out-of-favour pricing being rather close to the long-term median price. That turned out to be a prudent move as the AUD/NZD pair continues to move further away from the long term median, because our relative open position drawdown is lower than would otherwise have been the case had the system been left completely to its own devices. Thinking ahead, this presents an improved position to consider increasing the leverage, which we might expect to bring a return to higher monthly ROI numbers.

The Hunter account, by comparison, had a tough start to the month in terms of maximum DD with a hangover from last month. But, as the month played out those positions came back to us. I’ve had a rather good run of trading these past couple of weeks, and we’ve ended up with a respectable positive month now, and we’re back to a comfortable running open-position DD: Currently around 5%.

The Scalper accounts have once again had the ups and downs that are in its character. Unfortunately, down more than up this month, and after a rather prolonged lack-lustre performance this account will officially be discontinued for at least the present time, while we do some further evaluation and testing on our account. Only if we see vastly improved performance will it again become an official offering. Current clients have 3 options:

1. to continue per our test account, which Emmanuel our Tech Director will take charge of;
2. move those funds to an Miner or Hunter account;
3. discontinue the Scalper account altogether and withdraw.

Note that not one account is actually behind on starting balance, but for the risk and methodology over the last few months, it simply doesn’t make much sense at present. However, I have certainly not given up completely; it’s just that I want to see some more verification of its performance before I’ll accept any new accounts.

The longer running Managed Gold accounts at ODL and FXPro didn’t shine as brightly as you might have expected. The reality is that I misjudged gold’s rise; I had anticipated a pullback to clear out short hedged positions at FXPro and ODL accounts that never came. I’ve been swapping some of the balance gains made previously for reducing the short hedge, and was trying my best to time picking the top, release longs and to average back to the short position. All aimed at cleaning up accounts with the view to resume a long-only stance.

Note that as it stands now all account holders at FXPro and ODL are at about starting equity plus a little when taking into account the short hedged positions, and net 0.01 long from US$1082. Moving forward from here, all current and future gold accounts will be traded long only, and, if gold does retrace the short positions can be covered (i.e. removed). And if that doesn’t eventuate, then it’s fine and in fact preferred: Equity will continue rise with the price of gold, and we can effectively ignore the hedge for the time being.

FXDD gold accounts are not in the same position, due to anti-hedging regulations that came into place I took a hit on these accounts at that time to clear all the short hedges. At that time it did hurt, but ultimately turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I could not hedge further even if I wanted to. This, in addition to added scaleability of 0.01 increments (versus 0.01s only at FXPro and ODL) results in a nice positive month for account holders, with no open position drawdown.

It’s a regrettable and unfortunate turn of events for ODL and FXPro account holders, but please do take some consolation in the fact that we are not talking about losses here, just unrealised gains. All the accounts are ahead, and will continue to increase their equity position just as long as gold continues its march north. The Self Managed Gold account again did close a trade this month for a 3.8% gain. Yes, this is one of the ideal market environments for the Gold Rush system and it’s absolutely kicked my proverbial discretionary gold-trading backside! And, for US$99 and about an hour of your time it’s yours. Existing Managed Gold account clients are entitled to complementary copy of this digital product to provide you with 100% control over a long only gold position – just contact us and we’ll issue you a copy.

It’s tough to have to officially discontinue the Scalper accounts, and I may have to forgo some assets under management in the process. It will, however, free up my time to focus on what have proven to be the better performers, and much easier to trade to boot; that is, the ultra reliable Miner accounts and the very actively traded Hunter accounts, as well as additionally for the Managed Gold accounts. It will also free up more of the team’s time so that we can focus on improving our customer service and response times, and ultimately invest more time into the back-end R+D for our client’s benefit.

If you have any questions please do feel most welcome to contact us, and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

Again, the portfolio as a whole achieved a respectable result this past month. Despite a losing month on the Hunters, those with their risk diversified across a range of accounts were again positive overall. This shows the value in applying modern portfolio theory; that it’s recommended for investors to employ a wide range of uncorrelated strategies in their portfolio to maintain a consistent equity curve.

I’m pleased to report that plenty of progress has been made in the back end of the business. We now have three VPS structures, with one dedicated to each specific account type: one for the Miners; one for the Scalpers; and the last for the Hunters – although our Gold accounts share VPS space with the Miners.

The development work for our newest proprietary EA system continues, and I’m not sure that it will ever completely end. That said, we do have one client account running live already – upon his insistance to get it into live trade, no less! So far so good, it’s been in trade for only a short while, and even though it’s not designed to be an extremely high yield system, it’s already in profit and moving forward nicely. There’s virtually zero DD to-date, but then again the market has been kind to the likes of this system just recently. Before it’s released en-masse, I’m refining the system and its settings even further to allow it to operate comfortably on the AUD/NZD pair, as well as the current EUR/CHF pair for more balanced operation in general. I continue to be really excited about this system in particular, which I view as the best long-term automated trading-system for a number of reasons that will soon be revealed. You should expect to receive a detailed overview of the system this month provided I can make the time and no technical hold-ups preclude me from doing so.

Moving on, if you’d like to see further information on any of our current accounts, click on the name of the account below, and as always please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts, and of course to address any concerns you may have.

Official September Results:

• Managed Gold Account: 6.17%¹
• Managed FX Miner: 1.7%¹
• Managed FX Hunter: -2.87%¹
• Managed FX Scalper: -2.46%¹
• Self Managed Gold Account: 4.1%

The Miner account performed as expected again, bringing no surprises given the rock-solid predictability of this system. The market did make its typical runs against the system and back again, and has continued to move away from the ideal entry zone on AUD/NZD (which has recently been the most profitable pair) and hence leverage has been reduced. Simultaneously, the market is moving into favour of the EUR/CHF where leverage has been increased accordingly and some recent northbound market spikes were very nicely received in favour of the Miner system on the EUR/CHF pair.

The Hunter account, by comparison, has had a tough month in terms of returns (some accounts did see a realized 5-10% dip) versus maximum drawdown (15-20%). The xxx/JPY pairs did head south this past month and I was not always on the right side of a lot of those moves. The bread and butter AUD/USD and USD/CAD pairs have, however, been very kind to those accounts and continue to be so. The recent GBP weakness is the toughest pill to swallow causing the most grief in the accounts with our short EUR/GBP position. But given time, patience and good money-management, we’ll find ourselves out of that trade.

The Scalper account has again had its ups and downs as is its character. Still we ended positive, taking into account that the last trade of the month changed the outcome from what would have been 5% plus result. I concede that it’s not yet living up to expectations, but still we are, at least, headed in the right direction.

The longer running Managed Gold account performed the best in terms of realized gains this month with some nice northbound moves. Still, I note that gold is struggling to go above US$1000, yet at the same time it gets bought up aggressively on the dips and has maintained its high price – this shows buying support for now at least. It’s tipped to go much higher still, but I’ve learnt not to buy into that sort of hype. If it does indeed go higher, we will of course be on the lookout for long positions, but even if it tanks then that would be fine too.

The Self Managed Gold account again did close a trade this month for a near 5% trade, and just missed out on the US$1025 target by $1 which would have resulted in a near 10% month – after several months of sideways action the gold market finally came to the party with this simple system.

If you have any questions please do feel most welcome to contact us, and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

Well, it’s come around to that time of month again.

Overall, the entire portfolio achieved a respectable result this past month and, with our infrastructure and manpower becoming increasingly able and refined, we are very well placed for the future!

We’ve completed much of the development work for our newest proprietary EA system. I’m really excited about this system in particular, because I view it as the best long-term automated-trading system for a number of reasons that will soon be revealed. You should expect to receive a detailed overview of that system this month.

Moving on, if you’d like to see further information on any of our current accounts, click on the name of the account below, and as always please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts, and of course to address any concerns you may have.

Official August Results:

• Managed Gold Account: 1.68%¹
• Managed FX Miner Account: 3.13%¹
• Managed FX Hunter Account: 8.46%¹
• Managed FX Scalper Account: 11.79%¹
• Self Managed Gold Account: 0%² (now approx 5% September to date, with 2% open)

The Miner account performed as expected, bringing no surprises given the rock-solid predictability of this system. The market did make its typical runs against the system and back again, but has now moved away from the ideal entry zone on AUD/NZD (which has recently been the most profitable pair) and hence leverage has been reduced. Simultaneously, the market is moving into favour of the EUR/CHF where leverage has been increased accordingly.

The Hunter account had a stellar month in terms of returns (+10% best) versus maximum drawdown (-5%). The xxx/JPY pairs did head south this past month and I am glad to say I was on the right side of a lot of those moves. The bread and butter AUD/USD and USD/CAD pairs have also been very kind to accounts, as have some long GBP/USD positions after its 800 pip move south from 1.60.

The Scalper account has again had its ups and downs, but this month we had some great days which put them well into positive territory overall. We did deploy the old version of the other EA (non-scatter-trade version), and operated it on a pair that has been producing good profits lately (USD/CAD), as well as continuing with what has long been a profitable pair (EUR/CHF) at reduced risk.

Given that our selected broker changed the spread structure, all Scalper accounts were taken out of trade for one week while others took the chance with real money. Since no dire reports surfaced for the second week they were re-applied at low risk. The accounts did make gains live so it would seem that profit potential continues to lay in the systems and risk will be increased back to the previous settings this coming month.

The longer running Managed Gold account returned a small positive this month, with predominantly sideways-to-bullish gold price over the course of the month again. That is, until the last two days of the month when gold rocketed northward into the 990’s (6 month highs) and more balance gains have been made in the past two days than over the whole of last month.

The Self Managed Gold account again did not close a trade this month, but did so shortly thereafter, so is approximately 5%+ month to date.

If you have any questions please feel welcome to contact us and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day

Sincere Regards,

Adam

Miner accounts

This and a host of other changes implemented over this month are all aimed at the long term success and ongoing viability of , but focusing on that along with some sub-optimal trades on my behalf have impeded the Hunter and Managed Gold account performance this month. Nonetheless, rest assured that nothing is amiss, and we’re simply laying more groundwork for the future.

We’ve also gained a new team member, who is being trained to work on our web-based non-trading work load, which will free time for me to do more trading, which equates to more profits on the trading accounts!

Expect to hear more shortly, about both my latest creation and our newest team member.

Another point I want to bring to your attention is that despite this lean month, we’ve still produced an overall positive result across the entire portfolio, and we did it with relatively low volatility and low risk when measured in terms of both balance and peak-to-valley performance. You can bet that I would have liked to have seen better results, but half the challenge with FX is in not losing; because, the good months will come to those who are patient and are able to view FX investing over the long term, and not as a day-to-day adventure.

If you’d like to see further information on any of the accounts, click on the name of the account below, and as always please do feel very welcome to follow up with a direct inquiry. We’re always delighted to furnish genuine inquiries with live-account statements, read-only access to live-accounts, and of course to address any concerns you may have.

Official July Results:

• Managed Gold Account: 2.99%¹
• Managed FX Miner Account: 2.31%¹
• Managed FX Hunter Account: 0.11%¹
• Managed FX Scalper Account: 0.61%¹
• Self Managed Gold Account: 0%²

The Miner account performed as expected, bringing no surprises given the rock solid predictability of this system. The market did make its typical run against the system, followed through by a move back into its favour… and against, again. All these moves are very much within the expected tolerance limits. Open position draw-down did become very low during the course of the month, but I took the opportunity to exit final remaining open-positions for some FXDD based Miner accounts: especially in light of the potential new NFA FIFO regulations coming into force at FXDD.

These regulations have not yet impacted any Miner accounts, so if your account is still locked in, then you are not in any immediate need of intervention as yet. The worst-case scenario is to remove all “take profit” orders, and exit by awaiting a positive enough move to break even or better on all remaining open positions. This is no big issue, and just requires understanding the exit plan.

The Hunter account, after a stellar month, went relatively quiet. Unfortunately I didn’t fully capitalize on the biggest single opportunity: I used the beginning of that move to get accounts back to a near flat state with no open positions. I’m pleased to say I achieved that objective, albeit at a small cost, although if I’d held, we’d have experienced another month similar to the last. But that’s a traders life sometimes.

This coming month, if stocks do tank big-time, then you will be sure to see some significant gains on the xxx/JPY positions in your accounts. We’re definitely in territory where JPY is very oversold, and any market scares will see significant yen strength. If you have any stocks, a simple 25% trailing stop strategy will assist in lifting potential losses. Many experts agree that a pullback is extremely likely in the near future.

The Scalper account has again had its ups and downs, and again ended the month just above break-even. The achilles heel of this system is that it can suffer losses that are significantly bigger than any one winning trade, and frustratingly that is what occurred again this month. I still remain faithful to the EA’s currently in use, in fact one of them has only had one losing trade to date, so it remains in place and unchanged for the coming month.

We’re looking to deploy the old version of the other EA, and operate it on a pair that has been producing good profits lately, as well as continuing with what has long been a profitable pair (except very recently – EUR/CHF) at reduced risk. Because, the old version is from before the scatter-trade releases, which the designers equipped with a delay function to cope with so many market participants wanting simultaneous execution at the same broker. This way execution would at least occur, when previously literally hundreds of market participants wanted the same price at precisely the same moment, and the orders couldn’t be filled.

All of that accounts for the slightly inconsistent entries and exits experienced across accounts. Now that most users have moved to the scatter-trade version, it makes sense for us to move back to the old version, because then our trades with the old release will be towards the front of the line, versus being delayed and at the end of the line for many users of the newer versions.

The longer running Managed Gold account returned a small positive this month, with a predominantly sideways-to-bullish gold price over the course of the month – still accounting for some downside risk protective shorts that remain in place. These days gold behaves more like stocks, and is highly speculative. As such, I think when we see a pull back on stocks, gold will follow: Although I remain bullish in the medium to long term.

The Self Managed Gold account did not close a trade this month, after an outstanding performance last month, with the price of gold going more south than north without a significant retracement to profit from.

If you have any questions please feel welcome to contact us and we’ll endeavour to get back to you by the next business day.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

If you’d like to see further information on any of the accounts, click on the name of the account below and feel welcome to follow it up with a direct enquiry. We can furnish genuine enquiries with live account statements, read only access and address any concerns you may have.

Official June Results:

• Managed Gold Account: 7.01%¹
• Managed FX Miner: 7.45%¹
• Managed FX Hunter: 18.69%¹
• Managed FX Scalper: 0.91%¹
• Self Managed Gold Account: 0%²

The Miner account performed as expected, and not to sound repetitive, but again no surprises given the predictability of this system. The market did make its typical run against the system followed through by a move back into the favour…and against, again. All moves were very much within the expected tolerable limits. Open position drawdown did get very low during the course of the month which quite often occurs as the market returns to an equilibrium in relation to this strategy and currently running well within expected tolerances.

The Hunter account has also been performing exceptionally well, with a maximum open position DD of around 8% and just shy of an official 20% month on the account we currently track. It’s a lot of work to trade this particular account but the returns that can be achieved are very much commensurate with the input.

The Scalper account has again had its ups and downs and ended the month just over break even. We had a very good start on accounts, with steady gains across the month. The achillies heel of this system is that it can suffer losses that are significantly bigger than any one winning trade. I still remain faithful to the EA’s currently in use and if not for the one or two losers over the month we’d have seen a good monthly return.

The longer running Managed Gold account returned a nice positive this month despite the downturn in the gold price over the course of the month – which is the real advantage of this predominantly bullish gold system over the Self Managed Gold Account option…

The Self Managed Gold account did not close a trade this month, after a stellar performance last month, with the price of gold going more south than north without a significant retracement to profit from.

If you have any questions please feel welcome to contact us and we’ll endeavour to get back to you within 24 hours unless it’s the weekend.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

Managed

If you’d like to see further information on any of the accounts, click on the name of the account below and feel welcome to follow it up with a direct enquiry. We can furnish genuine enquiries with live account statements, read only access and address any concerns you may have..

Official May Results:

• Managed Gold Account: 3.54%¹
• Managed FX Miner: 7.58%¹
• Managed FX Hunter: 9.94%¹
• Managed FX Scalper: -0.7%¹
• Self Managed Gold Account: 9.09%

The Miner account performed as expected, no surprises given the predictability of this system. The market did make a 500 pip move against the system which it soaked up with ease, even on a 2 x leveraged account, as it is designed to do. Later in the month the market made a big move back into the favour of this system…racking up a heap of gains along the way and significantly reducing open position drawdown, in some recent accounts to zero open position drawdown at times.

The Hunter account has also been performing exceptionally well, with a maximum open position drawdown of just 5% and not too far shy of a double digit month on the account we currently track. Just one relatively minor blemish on the account with a bad CAD/JPY trade, spoiling an otherwise near perfect run.

The Scalper account has by comparison had its ups and downs and ended the month close to break even. Not such a bad result considering the potential ROI and leverage involved. To this point this week we have seen close to a 7.48% gain in just 3 days of trading – at that rate it would more than double an account over 4 weeks, that’s what this account is about and why the monthly profit expectation is posted at 20 -30%.

The longer running Managed Gold accounts both returned positives this month with the Self Managed Gold system posting an exceptional result. The Self Managed Gold system is absolutely long only so of course it really prospers in the uptrends….by the same token we had two months prior without a result and there is increased downside risk by comparison to the managed option. The Managed Gold account has also posted some nice gains this week and is on a good start for June.

If you have any questions please feel welcome to contact us and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours unless it’s a weekend…even then you’ll probably get lucky.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

For those of you who are using our Gold Rush system, by now you will have discovered that there is a weakness related to using 0.1 lots and US$50 spacings:

Let’s say you have a buy limit order set at US$875 and a TP of US$925 on that order, and perhaps another open US$925 long with TP at US$975. Then, the market goes to US$880 (just above the US$875 order, so it’s missed) and then proceeds past the US$925 (missed TP point because you didn’t buy at US$875) and onwards to US$965 (this happened recently): This results in no trades, and no profits over a range from US$880 to US$965 in the example above… a big move!

The good news…

To address this weakness, we’ve now created our very own EA: Gridder EA. This is automated software which buys an order 1/10th the size, but 10 times as often, with the same US$50 TP objective on each order. You’ll struggle to do this manually and that’s a big advantage with expert advisors…AKA “Robots”.

That is, instead of buying 0.10 lot every US$50, you get your Robot to buy 0.01 every US$5 with the same TP objective of US$50. It’s vastly more efficient this way, and involves negligible additional downside risk that is outweighed by the vast increase in efficiency. (An MT4 generated backtest to be tendered in a future post will confirm this).

The standard system will still be profitable over the long term (and we will continue tracking it), provided gold keeps within its range of the last couple of years or goes higher. If the standard system really appeals, you needn’t change a thing.

The really good news…

The proprietary Gridder EA is complimentary to all current Gold Rush clients as a thank you for your business. And into the future, it will be added to the package as well as being available as a standalone trading tool. The Gridder EA is a very useful tool once you learn how to apply it and we use it everyday to assist us in actively managing our Miner and Hunter accounts.

So, is there any catch? Not many in fact, but here they are:

• You will need to upload and setup our Gridder EA.
• You will need to use FXDD broker in the US, the only broker I know that offers gold in 0.01 lot sizes.
• You will need to have your MT4 platform running 24/5 (or get it hosted on a virtual server, we can help you there too).
• You will need to advise us of the account number on which you intend to trade and we’ll send you the compiled EA/Indicator combination with full instructions.
• There is only 1 demo and 1 live account activation per licence.

Those of you interested in the performance of this simple new approach using the Gridder EA set in the afore-mentioned fashion, just click here, which will take you to a recently commenced US$10,000 demo. Save this link and refer to it from month to month and see it’s “slowly but surely” progress…that is if you can call 5% per month slowly.

Don’t let the fact it’s a demo put you off either – with this particular type of system, demo testing is as good as live money (not the case with scalping EA’s for eg). We do, for the record, run a small portion of our portfolio with the standard system, but obviously for us (and Managed Gold Account clients) the larger portions, Adam trades manually.

That’s all for now. Cheers to our prosperity.

Kind Regards,

All of our new accounts are going from strength-to-strength with some very good numbers being achieved, especially by comparison to the longer running Managed Gold account which has been copping more downside gold price action of late than up.

We’ll be summarizing our results updates from this point forward, so to view the full history of results for each account, click on the name of the account below:

Official April Results:

• Managed Gold Account: 4.27%¹
• Managed FX Miner: 9.31%¹
• Managed FX Hunter: 12.17%¹
• Managed FX Scalper: 18.3%¹
• Self Managed Gold Account: 0%²

Self Managed Gold accounts missed a TP target at $925 by just $7 and missed a 5% return this month. Unfortunately it also missed 2 trades last month for the same reasons. We do however have a solution, an EA (autotrader) in current test mode that will address this deficiency for improved efficiency and guaranteed profitability on balance month-to-month, which will be available later this month, so keep a lookout!

If you have any questions please feel welcome to contact us and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.

Sincere Regards,

Adam

Although I’m a gold bull at heart, like many of you, as I write this I’m currently watching gold test the previous recent low of $US865 now potentially forming a double bottom (if it breaks we can expect more downside with not much noted support until US$800).

My speciality is in trading itself and I’ve long been a supporter of diversification into various unrelated strategies in the market to achieve consistent monthly gains.

To that end, we here at have some exciting new managed forex account options requiring lower minimums to invest, some posting double digit monthly returns on REAL MONEY accounts:

• Managed FX Hunter Account

  The objective with this account is to be buying up certain currencies as they become cheap relative to the USD – mainly buying long positions on the CAD, AUD, CHF and GBP.

• Managed FX Miner Account

  This account employs an EA which is a form of auto-trading system with discretionary management applied that achieves very consistent but small daily gains with relatively low DD.

• Managed FX Scalper Account

  A high leverage, high risk and commensurately high ROI account, employing a combination of two scalper EA’s with discretionary management.

Both the Miner and the Scalper accounts are hosted on our dedicated VPS at no additional charge to our clients, and they are managed by myself. We also have a new team member, Emmanuel Gob, onboard as our VPS Technical Manager to assist in maintaining and supervising our VPS. To date Emmanuel has been invaluable and you can rest assured our team is acting in varying capacities to provide our growing client base a high level of client service.

As we manage each account individually, your risk preference can be precisely customized. For the most part the EA’s are left to their own devices but from time to time, manual trading intervention becomes prudent to both limit losses, decrease volatility and to increase the likelihood of profitability.

If you’ve any questions at this point please check our recently updated Managed Account FAQ page.

If you’d like to proceed with opening your own brokerage account please check our recently updated How to Open a Managed Account page.

Some of my clients who keep in close contact have already ventured into some of the above-mentioned accounts, so to you most of this will be “old news”, but the website now reflects the offers in a more “official” capacity.

As usual, if you’ve any questions not covered on our website, please feel free to contact us and it will be our pleasure to respond.

Sincere Regards,