More Pain, Little Gain...

Wow! Drawdowns like this are just awful. The unfortunate fact is that the person who wants the largest and fastest gains must put up with the deepest drawdowns. I've hit a -62% so far. Actually, it a little more than that, since the equity high was more than $200.
 Why has this been happening? Simply a lack of a trend in most of the pairs I trade. Notice that the EUR/CAD trades have been producing profits... and notice that that pair has been hitting new lows all along the last few weeks. The EUR itself has still been stuck in a range.... first breaking one way, and then turning back around to challenge the opposite side of its range... only to be rejected yet again.
 At some point, the markets will pick a direction and go... once most of the breakout traders are completely demoralized. I will not be demoralized... because I've seen this sort of thing too many times.

So far this week, we've been whacked twice already... once in the AUD/USD, and once in the USD/CHF. Four other trades are currently open... all are currently sporting losses.

Short 534 USD/JPY at 90.20 with stoploss at 90.62
Long 139 GBP/USD at 1.5062 with stoploss at 1.4901
Long 150 EUR/CAD at 1.3840 with stoploss at 1.3690
Long 134 GBP/JPY at 136.50 with stoploss at 134.82

Current account equity: $81.40

Results for the Week of 3/14-3/21

Beginning equity: $102.63

Currency        Units  P/L      Equity
AUD/USD     462    -2.63    100.00
EUR/USD     495    -5.18    94.82
GBP/USD     371    -5.18    89.64
GBP/JPY     308    -5.76    83.86
USD/CHF     281    -2.42    81.36
USD/JPY     879    -5.73    75.63
EUR/CAD     629    12.90    88.37
EUR/CAD     184    0.82    89.20
EUR/USD     189    0.56    89.76

The Wages of Growth...

...are devastating pain. It is always so hard to accept, but the price of going for the huge gains is horrifying drawdowns. I've been through drawdowns this bad before, and charged on to new equity highs. It isn't a bit of fun to go through it, however.

All the currencies have been doing a whole lot of leaping in one direction and turning back around with nearly zero net change for the week. This strategy hates that kind of action, but that's what we have.

We've already lost one trade this week... a short in the Aussie. We're close to losing another, and the rest of the open trades are looking pretty bad too. We shall see.

Short 462 AUD/USD at 0.9101 stopped out at 0.9157 for a loss of -$2.61 or -2.54%

Open trades:
Short 371 GBP/USD at 1.5062 with stoploss at 1.5201
Short 495 EUR/USD at 1.3660 with stoploss at 1.3764
Short 308 GBP/JPY at 136.15 with stoploss at 137.82
Short 629 EUR/CAD at 1.3940 with stoploss at 1.4021
Short 879 USD/JPY at 90.16 with stoploss at 90.75

Current account equity: $85.07

Results for the Week of 3/7-3/14

Beginning equity: $156.20

Currency      Units    P/L      Equity

AUD/USD    588    -3.73    152.45
USD/JPY    758    -8.21    144.18
USD/CHF    771    -6.94    137.08
EUR/USD    615    -7.46    129.62
EUR/CAD    436    -7.32    122.30
GBP/JPY    369    -8.20    114.10
GBP/USD    551    -9.16    104.94
USD/JPY    273    -0.81    104.19
AUD/USD    304    -1.54    102.65

Still Waiting...

...for a decent move in EUR. We've been chopping around for the past couple of weeks. I expect we'll see further downside, but so far nothing dramatic has happened. This has been pretty tough on the account equity, since the strategy really seeks to catch large trending moves, which are admittedly more rare than rangebound action.
 So we've lost the AUD/USD short, and we've triggered into the EUR/CAD short. USD/JPY is looking pretty strong, and we are unfortunately short... but that's how it goes. Otherwise, we're either at small profits or losses on the open positions. Still, there is much of the week to go...

Short 588 AUD/USD at 0.9062 stopped out at 0.9125 for a loss of -$3.73 or -2.39%


And the new position:
Short 436 EUR/CAD at 1.3923 with stoploss at 1.4094


Current account equity: $150.12

A Nice Turn So Far

GBP turned lower quite dramatically, so what was once a sizable loss has turned back to a profit. It's early, and anything can happen... but the pattern drawn on the chart is quite bearish for the near term. That pattern would be a failed breakout of the upper line of a month-long down-trending channel.
 Several trades have triggered since the last update. They are all sitting at slight profits or losses, with GBP/JPY once again sporting a nice profit of 130+ points! The only trade yet to trigger is EUR/CAD, which we will very likely be shorting sometime soon.

Short 369 GBP/JPY at 135.69 with stoploss at 137.70
Short 615 EUR/USD at 1.3586 with stoploss at 1.3707
Long 771 USD/CHF at 1.0772 with stoploss at 1.0676
Short 758 USD/JPY at 89.71 with stoploss at 90.69
Short 588 AUD/USD at 0.9062 with stoploss at 0.9125

Not much to do but wait...

Current account equity: $170.76

Holding On

Well, this past week's results were underwhelming to say the least. We looked just fantastic in the early part of the week, with the trading campaign having finally ticked back into positive territory. The pairs all turned against the open trades midweek, handing us some disappointments. Still, there is nothing to do but follow the strategy.

We have a holdover short in GBP which was very nearly stopped out this morning. It has managed to hold on by some miracle. The longer it holds up, the greater the chances it becomes a profit... so I'm hoping we've seen a near-term high in GBP.

No other trades have triggered yet, so there isn't much to say.

Last week's standout EUR/CAD short was very nicely profitable, and two small gains were taken on the long side of Oz. The OneNightStand short in EUR/CAD failed to survive the Asian session, capping off a disappointing week with another disappointment. Still... we press on!

Current account equity: $150.66