Before we get to May’s numbers, here is a short reminder of the results from April. The full report from April can be found here.
Tradesight Pip Results for April 2011
Number of trades: 26
Number of losers: 14
Winning percentage: 53.8%
Worst losing streak: 2 in a row (twice)
Net pips: +140
Reminder: Here are the rules.
1) Calls made in the calendar month count. In other words, a call made on August 31 that triggered the morning of September 1 is not part of September. Calls made on Thursday, September 30 that triggered between then and the morning of October 1 ARE part of September.
2) Trades that triggered before 8 pm EST / 5 pm PST (i.e. pre Asia) and NEVER gave you a chance to re-enter are NOT counted. Everything else is counted equally.
3) All trades are broken into two pieces, with the assumption that one half is sold at the first target and one half is sold at the final exit. These are then averaged. So if we made 40 pips on one half and 60 on the second, that’s a 50-pip winner. If we made 40 pips on one half, never adjusted our stop, and the second half stopped for the 25 pip loser, then that’s a 7 pip winner (15 divided by 2 is 7.5, and I rounded down).
4) Pure losers (trades that just stop out) are considered 25 pip losers. In some cases, this can be a few more or a few less, but it should average right in there, so instead of making it complicated, I count them as 25 pips.
5) Trade re-entries are valid if a trade stops except between 3 am EST and 9 am EST (when I’m sleeping). So in other words, even if you are awake in those hours and you could have re-entered, I’m only counting things that I would have done. This is important because otherwise the implication is that you need to be awake 24/6. Triggers that occur right on the Big Three news announcements each month don’t count as you shouldn’t have orders in that close at that time.
You can go through the reports and compare the breakdown that I give as each trade is reviewed.
Tradesight Pip Results for May 2011
Number of trades: 36
Number of losers: 18
Winning percentage: 50%
Worst losing streak: 5 in a row (May 16-19)
Net pips: +266
I much better return to form as we had 10 more trades trigger in May than April and things went pretty well and were spread out again. The interesting thing is that the Average Daily Ranges (6 month) dropped 2-4 pips on most of the pairs (except the AUDUSD and NZDUSD) during May, which is again a pretty sharp drop on a number based on six months worth of data when only 23 days are new. Still, the system works because holding winners into the next session pays off, and this time, there were several nice gainers scattered throughout the month. We ended up with a total net gain of 266 pips, which is much better than the last few months. As long as at least 3-4 months of the year are 250 pips or higher, we’re in good shape since we keep such tight stops.
It would be more interesting to see the average ranges gain for the first time in a while, which should only provide us with better results. Late summer isn’t the usual time to see that, but you never know, and we have early summer to deal with first. On to June…