Hard to believe it's been as long as it has since I've posted on this blog.  I always have the best of intentions as far as posting... but then life gets in the way.  Things have become a lot busier for me over the past few years; I have a 5 year old grandson who lives with us and is a joy that deserves a lot of my free time... plus last year we moved into a new home that is not only almost 4 times the size of our last home, but also has some nicer aspects like a bigger yard, and an in ground pool complete with pool house with full bath.  However with all of these nice things comes more responsibilities and less time for things like blogging about my trading and trading systems.

For those that followed this blog in the past and wondered, yes I have continued trading and actually grown my trading business substantially. I never really expected to be trading the size that I'm currently trading... or have as much capital available as I do either.  When I started out almost 15 years ago and I was trading penny lots on a thousand dollar account I would pull in a profit of a dollar and some change on a trade and joke around about spending it on the McDonald's dollar menu.  Now I watch my equity swing in the hundreds or thousands of dollars in a day or week's time and it seems surreal.  At first it was tough to stomach... even when I worked as a professional broadcaster and made a nice living I never made as much money in a day as I sometimes see as a gain or loss in my account equity now.

With all that's happened in the last several years, I really want to get back to taking the time to do my trading analysis publicly and post some of my trades like I've done in the past.  I don't know on how much of a regular basis I'll be able to provide detailed analysis... but I'd like to post something at least once a week.  Maybe that will be on a weekly time frame (where I start my analysis) or a Daily (where I take most of my trades these days)... but I'd like to offer some more education to those looking to learn.  At one point I probably had tens of thousands of followers, many of them using the Forex Profit Monster system to trade with just like me...  and considering I think I've learned much more about trading in the past few years I think I have even more to offer than I did back then.

So, if you're still following this blog be prepared to see more commentary coming soon... and if you just tripped across it, great timing... follow it now and let me know what you'd like me to focus on in upcoming posts.  You can contact me at "forexprofitmonster" at gmail.com.

Official 2015 Year End Results

Every once in awhile I receive a comment/email asking me whether or not I'm still trading, since I obviously am not updating this blog on a regular basis anymore.  The answer is yes... I am still trading and in fact it's what I love to do and I don't see myself ever stopping.

However I also enjoy writing about trading and helping people who are trying to learn to trade/invest for themselves.  I've gained A LOT of experience over the past decade since designing the original "Forex Profit Monster" trading system... and I feel like I have a lot to "give back".  One of my goals for 2016 is to become more active in writing on this blog again... not just about my own trading but offering my insight/advice about trading in general that may help those who are trying to learn... either from a beginning stage or just trying to move to a new level in their trading.  In fact, if you have any questions regarding trading that I might be able to help you with feel free to drop me an email to the Gmail account associated with this blog.  It's simply "forexprofitmonster" at Gmail.  (Written that way to cut down on the amount of spam received).  Not only will I try to answer your email but it may provide the inspiration for a post here on the blog.

Some of the people who contact me also want to know what happened to my website that was attached to this blog (forexprofitmonster.com). The answer quite honestly is there wasn't much use for it anymore and so I shut it down.  I decided at the beginning of last year to stop selling Forex Profit Monster, not because it's not still a quality system or that I don't use it anymore, but because interest in it had waned to the point where it wasn't worth my time to continue to offer it.  It seems people who trade are only interested in the "newest, hottest thing" and FPM was almost 10 years old and therefore didn't fit that category anymore... even though it was working as good as ever.  So I pulled the plug on not only the website but selling it on eBay.  So if you're one of the people who contacted me wanting to buy FPM my apologies but I don't check on this blog enough and may not have gotten your message for weeks or months after it was sent.

The good news is if you're still looking for a profitable system that can be traded in just a few minutes a day I may, for a VERY short period of time, offer a new system that I've been trading for the past couple of years.  More on that to come.  If interested you can let me know through the above email address and I'll contact you when I decide to make it available.

On to the main reason for this post... the results from 2015.  I'm going to make this short and sweet... I followed up 2014's 55% return with a 24.22% return for 2015.  I think this a pretty big accomplishment considering I didn't really trade that much in Forex in 2015.  Most of that 24.22% was from trades opened in 2014 that I continued to manage all the way through 2015!  Add to that the fact that I started out the year by taking a hit of (-22%) on the Swiss National Bank devaluation... and finishing up by more than 24% on the year is something I'm very happy with.

So far to start 2016 I'm also happy to say I've seen some nice moves in the U.S. Dollar that already has me ahead by 4.1% in just the first 7 trading days of the year.  (And this is just in the part of my portfolio that I track for these results... I've actually seen double digit increases across all accounts/sectors!)

So that's it for the 2015 results for the section of my portfolio that I manage with FPM... and here's to posting more often in 2016!

Happy New Year to all and best of luck in your trading in 2016...

Jim

2014 Official Year End Performance for Forex Profit Monster/Effect of Swiss National Bank and the Swiss Franc "depegging" from the Euro

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(The portfolio of currency pairs being traded on the 4 Hour chart with Forex Profit Monster consist of:  EUR/USD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CAD, EUR/JPY, AUD/USD, GBP/CHF, AUD/CAD.

This portfolio will remain the same each quarter unless stated otherwise.

All results INCLUDE transaction costs... THIS IS REAL LIVE TRADING so all costs, spreads, slippage, interest rate swap, etc... are included in the results.)

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In the last post I mentioned that I was up about 54% for 2014.  The final results are in, and I finished the year up 55.05% with Forex Profit Monster.  While it was a spectacular year, I do see some changes in store for me in 2015.

The amount of money that I am currently trading is actually getting to be a respectable amount (for a retail trader anyway :-P).  I've come a long way from the guy who started out with less than a couple thousand dollars several years ago... so, as of this post I've changed my time frame from the 4 Hour chart to the Daily chart.

The reason I was trading the 4 Hour chart to begin with was to increase my opportunities and grow my account faster.  As far as I'm concerned I've accomplished this... and now I'm more interested in reducing some of the transaction costs and equity curve volatility by trading less.  The current trades I have open on many of the pairs (EUR/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CAD, GBP/USD and AUD/USD) seem like they are long term trends... and now would be a good time to continue them on the Daily time frame.

I am also considering making some changes to the portfolio that is currently being traded after doing some research on a new system.  I feel there are some pairs that have performed well over the past 25-30 years on both Forex Profit Monster and the new system... and will likely be adding them in the very near future.  The size of my account will also allow some additions to the portfolio... so again, the timing is right.

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Now some comments about the Swiss revaluing their currency by "depegging" from the Euro.
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I know it was tough for a lot of retail traders who lost their accounts because of the huge move... heck, it even put some brokers out of business (R.I.P. Alpari UK).  In fact my own broker, FXCM, almost went belly up as well (I was moved from IBFX to FXCM last summer when Monex Group decided to end its MT4 retail Forex arm of the business).  It was a close call, but FXCM has gotten a new influx of capital to continue operations... and there is even a rumor that they may try to "revive" Alpari UK to give themselves a foothold in the brokerage business in England.

With all that happened last week because of the Swiss "ambush", the news wasn't so bad for me personally.

One of the lessons I've learned (and tried to pass on to others for the past several years) is to TRADE RESPONSIBLY... USING THE PROPER SIZE FOR YOUR ACCOUNT AND NUMBER OF VEHICLES YOU'RE GOING TO TRADE.  Because I follow my own advice (which not all traders do) I only suffered about a 22% draw down from the "Black Swan" announcement from the Swiss.  Most of that was lost in a long USD/CHF position... and it was thousands of dollars in open equity profit... not really much in the way of cash after I was able to close out the position.

While I can't say that I "jumped for joy" over several thousand dollars in profit disappearing in the blink of an eye and an immediate draw down of 22%, compared to what happened to many others that day it certainly could have been much, much worse.  I've also recovered some of that draw down already through other open trades and am currently only down about 13%.  Even better news is that the draw down was from a higher equity high than I ended 2014 with, because I was up almost 15% on the year already for 2015 when the Swiss announcement was made.  What this adds up to is while I lost a lot of open equity profit over this mess... I'm really only down a couple of percentage points from where I finished 2014... and only a few hundred dollars in cash.  My new mantra for now is "... it could have been worse... it could have been worse... it could have been worse..."

While I do legitimately feel sorry for those who "lost it all" last week, I must say that I feel very good about my own trading.  I figure if I can weather an event like the CHF revaluation and keep earning double digit returns that I may just be in this game for the long run. For me this fiasco was a confidence builder... yes, even after all these years of trading it's nice to build your confidence through events like this!  This is a marathon for me, not a sprint... with the ultimate goal of not just trading for a living, but to be able to provide an even better lifestyle for my family and to use the skills I've developed into my retirement so I'm never forced to have to worry about where my next $ or "paycheck" is coming from... or worse, depending upon someone else to provide "investment returns" that I'll be living on.

Here's hoping you survived "Hurricane Swissy"... and if not, consider it a life lesson. Get up, dust yourself off, find a little more risk capital and start trading with more confidence that with the knowledge gained you can probably withstand a "Black Swan" like that next time.

If you have any questions just send me an email through the website and I'll be happy to lend an ear... as much as I legally can :-)

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

2014 Year End Post/FPM Performance

It's been a WILD trading ride for me this year... probably the wildest since 2008, not long after I started this blog.  The markets continue to fascinate me and even though I consider myself so much more knowledgeable now then I did back then, I continue to learn each and every day.

During 2014 that learning included more instruction "outside" of my own observations and self-teaching.  I built upon my recent professional mentorship from last year by spending the spring of this year taking two online college courses... one in finance with Nobel prize winner Robert Shiller at Yale, and another in behavioral economics with Dan Ariely at Duke.  I learned a lot from both and have found ways to put their teachings to use in my own work in systems development and daily trading activities.

While studying with two professors considered the leaders in their field in the finance/economics arena was very helpful in furthering my education about the markets, it pales in comparison to what I learned during the first several months of 2014 from my own trading!

From the end of 2013 into 2014 I spent 8 months in a HUGE drawdown.  I had only one winning month during the winter/spring of 2014, and it was an anemic one that really didn't make much difference to the overall equity in my account.  (For the way I trade I really considered it a losing month as well.)  At one point in June I was close to a 60% drawdown and had traded the actual cash value of my account down to less than 1/3 of what it had been just a few months before.  (Read that again... I didn't say I lost 1/3 of the cash value... I said that's all that was left!)  I'm not going to lie and say I took it all in stride... there were a few times where I questioned if the past decade had all been a waste of my time.

Then came July.  The U.S. Dollar started getting some legs... and I started seeing some trends start.  Then the FED/Janet Yellin started getting hawkish on the U.S. economy and talked about the end of Quantitative Easing and maybe even the beginning of interest rate hikes in late 2015... the Dollar gets even stronger... the trends really start to kick in.  Then the European Central Bank head Mario Draghi goes on a rant about the Euro and defending Europe's economy by devaluing the Euro... Dollar gets stronger... so do the trends. Then PM Abe in Japan does the same... says he still won't allow a strong Yen because Japanese export based businesses won't be able to compete amongst the other Asian countries... trends really start to move.  By September I found myself sitting on an almost 30% profit for the year after being down almost twice that much just several weeks before!

As I sit here writing this year-end post, the trends that started in July are still well underway and I'm going to close the year out with over a 50% profit (right now it's at 54%).  Although I'm not in the prediction game, being human I do have opinions and am pretty sure I'll see these trends continue into 2015... even if we experience a small correction along the way.

Going through the 60% drawdown of 2014 is what shakes most retail traders out of the game.  Even with all of my focus and training on the psychological and risk management side, I was still questioning my methods and systems.  The difference is I had the discipline to stick with them and come out the other side.  I've said it and experienced it before... but never to this level of a 60% drawdown... and hope that it's a long, long, time before I have to go through any drawdown that large again :-)

Usually I end these posts with an opportunity to purchase my trading systems.  I got too busy to keep up with the eBay listings last year and basically stopped selling for awhile.  I'm considering offering them back in 2015 at a lower price as I've been doing some work on another system that I feel performs just as well (if not better) that's even easier to trade.  More information on that in 2015.

Happy New Year, and I hope you learned as much as I did in 2014!

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results 4th Quarter and 2013

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(The portfolio of currency pairs being traded on the 4 Hour chart with Forex Profit Monster consist of:

EUR/USD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CAD, EUR/JPY, AUD/USD, GBP/CHF, AUD/CAD.

This portfolio will remain the same each quarter unless stated otherwise.

All results INCLUDE transaction costs... THIS IS REAL LIVE TRADING so all costs, spreads, slippage, interest rate swap, etc... are included in the results.)
*********************************************************************************


The 4th quarter of 2013 was a nice end to the year, showing almost a 7% gain.  There was a lot of volatility in this quarter... especially in December.  At one point the returns for the quarter were almost double what they finished as.  I contribute this extra volatility to the "big money" money managers making changes in their positions and portfolios for the coming year.. and this volatility usually continues into January.  After 7 years it doesn't get any easier to watch some "paper gains" disappear, but if you're going to be a successful trader you must understand you will never capture every pip of a move.  The goal is to grab as much of the "middle" as you can... and to not let your emotions cause you to enter or exit a position early (or late).

Here are the results:

4th Quarter: + 6.71%

102 total trades  Win rate: 32.29%

Max Drawdown: 9.68%  Average "Reward to Risk" ratio: 3.42 to 1

As you can see there were some very strong/long trends during Q4.  While the win rate was only slightly higher than Q3, the R/R ratio was much stronger this quarter at 3.42 to 1.  This accounts for the extra profits captured in Q4.  Here's an equity graph of the account balance during Q4:

Of course the end of the 4th quarter also brings an end to the year, and here are the numbers for 2013 overall:

2013: + 34.34%

Win rate: 29.84%

Max Drawdown: 17.84%  Average "Reward to Risk" ratio: 2.9 to 1

Here's the equity curve of the account balance for 2013:

Thanks for following along and best of luck in your trading!

For more information about purchasing Forex Profit Monster for your own trading (and also my daytrading system Forex Day Monster), visit my website at www.forexprofitmonster.com.  Or you can visit my eBay page (http://www.ebay.com/usr/jimsgr8stuff4less) where I list one or two systems per week at a discount off the regular price on the website.

Jim

www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results 2013 3rd Quarter

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(The portfolio of currency pairs being traded on the 4 Hour chart with Forex Profit Monster consist of:

EUR/USD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CAD, EUR/JPY, AUD/USD, GBP/CHF, AUD/CAD.

This portfolio will remain the same each quarter unless stated otherwise.

All results INCLUDE transaction costs... THIS IS REAL LIVE TRADING so all costs, spreads, slippage, interest rate swap, etc... are included in the results.)
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The 3rd quarter of 2013 was actually a profitable quarter... even though the equity graph posted below doesn't look like it.  One of the unfortunate things about mark to market accounting is that you are accounting for ALL value in the account, including open equity, so an equity curve of an account balance can be deceiving.  Q3 was a quarter where some of the trends came along toward the end of the quarter and were not closed out but carried over into Q4.  This makes the account balance curve look like it's still in a drawdown even though the fund is at new equity highs:

Here are the stats for Q3 for Forex Profit Monster:

3rd Quarter: + 4.33%

104 total trades - Win rate: 30.39%  

Max Drawdown: 17.26%  Average Risk/Reward ratio: 2.17 to 1

Some things of note... even though the win rate was about the same as Q2, the returns weren't as big because the average risk/reward ratio was smaller.  In "human english" for those not as experienced in trend following it just means the trends were there... they just weren't as strong/large/long during this time period.

Here is an equity curve for the first three quarters of 2013:

This equates into a total growth of 25.89% for the first three quarters of 2013.

In the next post I will provide the results for the 4th quarter and the blog will be up to date until the first quarter of 2014 comes to a close!

Thanks for following along and best of luck in your trading!

For more information about purchasing Forex Profit Monster for your own trading (and also my daytrading system Forex Day Monster), visit my website at www.forexprofitmonster.com.  Or you can visit my eBay page (http://www.ebay.com/usr/jimsgr8stuff4less) where I list one or two systems per week at a discount off the regular price on the website.

Jim

www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results 2013 2nd Quarter

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(The portfolio of currency pairs being traded on the 4 Hour chart with Forex Profit Monster consist of:

EUR/USD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CAD, EUR/JPY, AUD/USD, GBP/CHF, AUD/CAD.

This portfolio will remain the same each quarter unless stated otherwise.

All results INCLUDE transaction costs... THIS IS REAL LIVE TRADING so all costs, spreads, slippage, interest rate swap, etc... are included in the results.)
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The second quarter results for Forex Profit Monster were much better than the first quarter, showing a gain of almost 21%.  April and the first part of May were drawdown periods, but good trends were caught across almost all pairs in mid-May. Some of these trends carried over into June and that was the month that saw most of the profits realized.

Here is the FPM equity curve for the 2nd Quarter of 2013:

2nd Quarter 2013: +20.77%

103 total trades  Win rate: 31.06%  Max Drawdown: 10.12%  Average Risk/Reward: 2.73 to 1

Again, the chart above and the information regarding total trades don't match exactly due to some open equity trades being carried into the 3rd quarter.

You'll see that our win rate increased from the 1st quarter to 31.06%. While I still lost almost 70% of the time, I managed to earn close to a 21% return for the quarter.  This is because my risk to reward ratio stayed static while my win rate increased by about 11% from Q1.  The drawdown also increased, but only by about 7%.  I consider a 10% drawdown a small drawdown for my trading, especially when you look at return v. drawdown (a 3 to 1 ratio).  During prolonged losing streaks I expect to see drawdowns as large as 50-60% across time. While this won't happen very often, it is possible for the risk amount I take (on average about 1.5%).  To keep drawdowns smaller simply reduce the amount of risk.  Cutting the risk in half (to 0.75%) will reduce the drawdown by about the same.

As mentioned in the previous post, you must be patient and wait for your profit opportunities.  The months of May and June were abundant with those opportunities, even if January, February, March and April were not.  Here is the equity curve for Forex Profit Monster for the first two quarters of 2013 in total:

This equates to a 20.67% gain on the portfolio after the first 2 quarters of 2013.

Remember, this equity curve would be even higher but does not include the open profit trades carried into the 3rd quarter.

The next post will feature the results of the 3rd quarter of 2013.

Thanks for following along and best of luck in your trading!

For more information about purchasing Forex Profit Monster for your own trading (and also my daytrading system Forex Day Monster), visit my website at www.forexprofitmonster.com.  Or you can visit my eBay page (http://www.ebay.com/usr/jimsgr8stuff4less) where I list one or two systems per week at a discount off the regular price on the website.

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results for 2013 1st Quarter

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(The portfolio of currency pairs being traded on the 4 Hour chart with Forex Profit Monster consist of:

EUR/USD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CAD, EUR/JPY, AUD/USD, GBP/CHF, AUD/CAD.

This portfolio will remain the same each quarter unless stated otherwise.

All results INCLUDE transaction costs... THIS IS REAL LIVE TRADING so all costs, spreads, slippage, interest rate swap, etc... are included in the results.)
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As promised in the last post, here are the results of Forex Profit Monster from my fund performance from 2013.  For those of you who have been following the results of FPM for the past several years, remember there are a couple of differences now.  First, the GBP/JPY pair in the portfolio has been replaced by the GBP/CHF pair.  For those of you with "inquiring minds" this was done to balance the correlation in the portfolio to keep it from being too Yen heavy.  As mentioned previously it definitely cost me some money during 2013 as the GBP/JPY pair has had some huge uptrends since mid 2012 and the GBP/CHF has only had some minor trends during 2013, but I will accept a smaller return for less correlation and downside volatility.  I will also most likely be adding the GBP/JPY pair back into the portfolio at a later date once the size of the account allows for trading more pairs.  Speaking of which, due to growth in the value of the account I've also added another pair to the portfolio; the AUD/CAD.  This pair was selected to keep the portfolio balance in tact.  The currency pairs being traded on the 4 Hour chart with Forex Profit Monster now consist of:

EUR/USD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CAD, EUR/JPY, AUD/USD, GBP/CHF, AUD/CAD.

This portfolio will remain the same until otherwise noted.  

The other change being made to how the results are posted is that instead of posting the results in pips won/lost, I'll be posting the equity gained/lost by quarter.  The figures used include open equity on trades and therefore I use "mark to market" accounting of the equity value of the account at the end of the trading month.  This means the value can be more or less than the current cash value of the account, but is the value if all open postions were closed out. This is how most money managers provide statements for their clients and is also how I track my performance for this fund.  It is also the easiest way for me to transcribe the results to this blog without much extra effort.  This will allow me to post results in a timely manner and keep those following my progress with FPM from losing interest due to lack of information being posted.

One more note... all results INCLUDE transaction costs... THIS IS REAL LIVE TRADING so all costs, spreads, slippage, interest rate swap, etc... are included in the results.

With that out of the way, here are the results of Forex Profit Monster for 2013...

1st Quarter 2013:  (-0.0009%)  

86 total trades  

Win rate: 20.93%  Max Drawdown:  3.83%  Average Risk/Reward ratio 2.72 to 1

Yes, you read that correctly.  A loss of 9 one thousands of a percent LOL.  If you are new to trading you're probably wondering why I bother.  Three months of trading, almost 100 trades, and NO PROFIT... plus all of the transaction costs (remember, these are included in the results so no extra money was paid out to achieve these results).  Well the answer is easy.  You'll learn that being profitable in the markets means being patient.  No one wins all the time.  In fact, most of the best traders LOSE most of the time.  You have to wait for certain market conditions over short periods of time to collect your profit.  To be a good trader isn't really that exciting... in fact if you're doing it correctly it should really be quite boring.  The best way to trade is defensively... lose as little money as possible while waiting for your gains.  If you're thinking about getting into trading for the excitement learn to adjust that viewpoint quickly or don't even bother trading!

What you should be taking away from these results is that I was able to lose almost 80% of my trades but really not lose any money.

Here is a graph of the equity curve of the 1st Quarter of 2013.  This graph only shows closed trades, not open equity, which is why it varies slightly from the information above.  I have also removed the cash value on the Y axis for privacy reasons.  The numbers on the X axis are the number of trades executed completely (opened and closed).  As you can see from comparing this equity curve to the information above, there are 5 profitable trades open being carried into the 2nd Quarter of 2013:

That's it for this post... I will post the results of the second quarter of 2013 in the next post.

For more information about Forex Profit Monster (and my daytrading system Forex Day Monster) vist my website at www.forexprofitmonster.com.  Or you can visit my eBay page where I list one or two systems per week at a discount from the website pricing: http://www.ebay.com/usr/jimsgr8stuff4less.

Thanks for reading and best of luck in your trading!

Jim

www.forexprofitmonster.com

2013 Retrospective (and results)... Yes, I am still trading Forex Profit Monster :-)

As I sit behind my computer at 6 AM on Christmas morning having just put a turkey in the oven for Christmas dinner, the rest of my family is still sleeping and I actually have a few spare minutes to jot out a post on the FPM blog. My apologies to everyone who reads this blog for not updating it regularly during 2013... especially those who have contacted me personally through email over the past several months.

Although I think everyone who emailed me received a personal reply, I probably indicated that I would soon be posting results again... and since the first emails starting coming in back in April or May I obviously didn't begin posting again anytime soon. As I don't want this blog to become like so many other trading related blogs littering the internet where one day the posts just stop and everyone is left wondering why (my guess is usually because the person found out how tough trading really is and gives up), I'd like to explain exactly why I've been MIA for the past 11 months.

The reason for my inability to continue posting the results as I did in the past are two fold. First, if you read some of the posts immediately before this one you know that I began a mentorship with a very well known and respected commodities trader in 2012 (as mentioned before I don't use his identity here out of respect for him and his privacy). I have followed this trader for a long time and am a fan of not only his teachings but the philosophy of the person who mentored him (Ed Seykota). The year 2012 was a critical year for me; it was the first time I accepted guidance from anyone but myself regarding my trading education, and what I learned was invaluable! Mainly during the mentoring I've reaffirmed that I'm definitely on the right path and that the methods and systems that I've developed on my own (Forex Profit Monster in particular) are where my focus needs to be as far as my trading is concerned. I've also learned that the psychological/emotional work I've done on my own is "spot on" and that I just need to maintain that forward progress.  Not only did I "come to peace" with my own development over the past decade as a trader through this mentorship, the insights, feedback and knowledge gained during my mentoring afforded me more professional opportunities in regards to trading that were time consuming... and unfortunately this blog paid the price.

The second reason I've been unable to keep up with posting here was probably the most exciting event for me over the past year... I was able to start my own fund.

Starting in January 2013 I began managing a small fund that included mostly my personal money... but also some money from friends and family. This fund that I've begun is a mix of systems across different markets (not just Forex), but one of the backbones of the fund is basically Forex Profit Monster being traded across 8 currency pairs as it has been for the past 7 years with one slight change. To provide a better balance and correlation between currency pairs, I've replaced the GBP/JPY with the GBP/CHF. (While this change made sense from a portfolio standpoint, it probably cost me some money this year LOL).

Anyway, the reason I bring all of this up (besides explaining why I've been absent from posting) is that I plan to continue posting the results for FPM from the results of my fund. There will be some slight changes... instead of tracking pip by pip results for each currency pair which would require me to track my results differently than I do now (and would likely cause me to fall behind reporting results again), I will be posting the quarterly results BY PERCENTAGE OF EQUITY GAINED. This number will reflect ONLY the results of Forex Profit Monster as it was traded on the 8 currency pairs and NOT the results of the fund overall. I will wait until trading concludes for the year at the end of the week to post the 2013 results, but as it stands right now FPM has delivered a +33.43% return for 2013 with a maximal drawdown of 17.84%. (FPM was at an equity high for the year of 39.4% just a couple of weeks ago before the year end volatility caused by traders/hedge funds closing out for 2013 and repositioning for 2014 kicked in.)

Obviously I think that no matter what happens over the next few days I can be assured of another great year of performance from this system... and I will post final results with more details within the next week or two.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Happy Holidays and all the best to you and your family for 2014 and beyond... and of course, best of luck to you in your trading!

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

December 2012 Results & 2012 Year End Results for Forex Profit Monster

It's the start of a new year, that means it's time for my end of the year results post for Forex Profit Monster.  As you can see from the equity graph above it was another profitable year!  But before I break down the results for the year, I need to post the results for the month of December.  And before I do that, I'd like to take some time to reflect back on my trading in 2012.

This past year was the 6th year in a row that I've seen a profitable year trading with Forex Profit Monster.  The system that I designed and coded back in 2006-2007 has performed very well heading into its 7th year by showing me about 65,000 pips of profit overall. It's been grinding out nice profits during most months/years and also capitalized on the chaos that was 2008, netting me about a 300% profit for that year while most people were losing.  While I've enjoyed the success I've had with Forex Profit Monster, I've also continued to grow as a trader.  If you've followed this blog at all (or at least read some of the early posts) you've seen some of that growth... from the time frames I've traded to my metamorphosis to being a trend follower exclusively (I only trend follow now, I don't trade ranges or other mean reversion strategies anymore).

In the past few years I've watched my account grow in value to the point where it's almost time for me to take trading to the next level... by diversifying and trading more than just the Forex market.  The next logical step for me as a trend follower is to move into the Futures markets... trading commodities and other futures contracts.  To prepare for this I entered into a mentoring program in 2012 with one of the top commodity traders in the United States.  I won't mention his name as I haven't cleared doing so with him, but if you've been trading for any amount of time you would probably recognize him from his market related media appearances and his book written in 2011.  I've learned a lot from this trader, and continue to do so.  In fact, things have gone so well I will be working as an assistant to him in 2013 which will allow me to learn even more about trading futures as well as the trading business in general.  I have a lot to be grateful and thankful for as I look back at 2012, and am even more excited about 2013 and beyond!

On to results... here's what happened with my trading with Forex Profit Monster in December...

December was a great follow-up to November as I saw not only some nice winning trades during the month, but also some gains from trades that opened in November that closed out during December.  Once again the trends were nice and smooth on many pairs which kept the number of trades down and the profits up.  It was a rare month in that I had a 68% win rate... you don't see many months like that in a trend following system where the average win rate is usually more in the 30-35% range.  However the average risk/reward ratio was also lower... 1.74 to 1 instead of the 3 to 1  or 4 to 1 ratio where it usually is during winning months.  I had a profit of 657 pips in December, and here's how the rest of the monthly results played out:

19 trades total
13 wins:  892 pips
 6 losses: 235 pips

Total: +657 pips

68% win rate
Avg win:  68 pips
Avg loss:  39 pips
Avg risk/reward ratio:  1.74 to 1

Here are the results by currency pair:

EUR/USD  2W, 0L  +352
GBP/USD  3W, 1L  +166
USD/CHF  2W, 1L  +158
USD/CAD  2W, 1L   +38
AUD/USD  1W, 1L   +19
GBP/JPY    1W, 0L   +15
EUR/JPY    1W, 1L  (-41)
USD/JPY   1W, 1L  (-50)

Since it's the end of the year, that means it's the end of the 4th Quarter.  With October's 220 pip loss and the gain of 657 pips in both November and December, I showed a profit of 1,094 pips in the 4th quarter.  Here's the updated equity graph:

And here are the final results for 2012:


January: +891
February: +206
March: +1,667
April: (-293)
May:  +1,640
June:  +2,209
July:  (-343)
August: (-699)
September +1,103
October (-220)
November +657
December +657

That's a total of 7,475 pips, or an average of 622 pips per month.

There were 8 winning months in 2012 with 9,030 pips gained, and 4 losing months with 1,555 pips lost.  That gives me a monthly win rate of 66.6%, an average win of 1,128 pips, and an average loss of 388 pips, which calculates to an average risk/reward ratio of  2.9 to 1.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Best of luck in your trading...

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results - November 2012

November was one of those nice months where almost every pair ended up a winner, the trends were long enough that there weren't a lot of trades, and there were some trades that carried into December with nice open equity.  It's always nice to end a month with a good profit and head into the next month with a head start on more profits!

Looking back after the fact it was the Yen that carried the month.  With the changing leadership in Japan and the announcement about the government not being so concerned about keeping the Yen weak (which removes the threat of government intervention, at least for now) we've seen some nice moves to the upside as the Dollar gains strength, along with the other major currencies.  This is ironic as you'd think you would have seen the opposite happen since the Bank of Japan has spent more than the past two years trying to keep the Yen from getting any stronger by intervening in the market.  The government says it doesn't care about making the Yen weak and the Yen becomes weaker...  this is why you can't trade your opinion on fundamentals successfully, you have to have a trading plan and follow it systematically.  If you were trading a fundamental opinion you probably would have been expecting the Yen to gain more strength and would have missed the several hundred pips of profit available to you from the Yen pair moves in November.

Here are the November results on the 8 pair I trade on the 4 Hour chart:

27 trades total

11 wins:  1,293 pips

16 losses:  636 pips

Total: +657 pips

40.7% win rate

Avg win:  117

Avg loss:   39

Avg risk reward ratio:  3.0 to 1

Results by currency pair:

EUR/JPY  2W, 1L  +292

GBP/JPY  2W, 1L  +274

USD/JPY 1W, 2L  +132

USD/CAD 1W, 2L  +81

EUR/USD  1W, 2L  +64

GBP/USD  1W, 1L  +49

USD/CHF 1W, 2L  (-67)

AUD/USD 2W, 5L (-168)

The results for 2012 so far:

January: +891

February: +206

March: +1,667

April: (-293)

May:  +1,640

June:  +2,209

July:  (-343)

August: (-699)

September +1,103

October (-220)

November +657

That's a total of 6,818 pips, or an average of 619 pips per month.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Best of luck in your trading...

Jim

www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results - October 2012

My apologies to those of you who follow this blog and to those who check in on results before purchasing for taking so long to post these results.  I became extremely busy in 2012, taking on some new things that I'll write about in a separate post... (it has a lot to do with furthering my abilities as a trader and trading system designer).  I've considered reducing these posts to Quarterly results only to save me some time, but know that there are a lot of people who want to see the month by month data.

On to the October 2012 results for the 8 pair I trade on the 4 Hour chart...

39 trades
14 wins:    845 pips
25 losses: 1065 pips

Total:  (-220)

35.8% win rate
Avg win:  60
Avg loss:  42
Avg risk/reward ratio:  1.42 to 1

Results by currency pair:

EUR/JPY  3W, 2L  +103
GBP/JPY  1W, 3L  +102
USD/JPY  2W, 2L   +77
EUR/USD 4W, 1L   +60
USD/CHF 1W, 2L  (-47)
AUD/USD 2W, 3L  (-66)
USD/CAD 1W, 4L  (-116)
GBP/USD 0W, 7L   (-333)


The results for 2012 so far:

January: +891
February: +206
March: +1,667
April: (-293)
May:  +1,640
June:  +2,209
July:  (-343)
August: (-699)
September +1,103
October (-220)

That's a total of 6,161 pips, or an average of 616 pips per month.


For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Best of luck in your trading...

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results - September 2012 and 3rd Quarter

The September results are in, and once again there is a recurring lesson to be learned.  After two losing months in July and August, September is not only a winning month but wipes out the past two losing months and then some.  With September's win of 1,103 pips, that gives me a total of +62 pips for the 3rd quarter of 2012.

Some would read that last sentence and say, "Big deal, you mean you traded 4 Hour charts for 3 months and all you won was 62 pips... why bother???".  

If you find yourself thinking this way then you have A LOT of work to do as a trader.  The point isn't that I made 62 pips across 3 months, the point is I WAS PROFITABLE AT ALL.  To be honest, at this stage of my trading I don't really even think about how much I win or lose anymore.  I focus on my process (following my predetermined trading plan including my exit signal) and let the profits accumulate as they may.  I know from testing my system (and also trading it live for several years now) what to expect over the long term and I don't let any minor setbacks derail my thinking or my actions.  

As a trader this is the stage that you need to advance to if you want to become profitable for the long run.  There are going to be losing periods and you can't let these periods shake you out of your process.  Even if you're trading a system that will give you a "perfect" 45 degree equity curve, there are still going to be drawdowns.  If you backtest a system and see a 45 degree equity curve over several hundred trades, that doesn't mean there aren't negative portions of that curve.  If you look at the equity curve with the same inputs in a Monte Carlo simulator for a smaller number of trades (say 20 or 30 trades instead of several hundred) you could even see equity curves that look like mirror images of your "perfect" 45 degree curve that you would never want to trade because they look like they're making you go broke.  When this is happening in real time "live" trading you have to remember that these times won't last and if your system is robust and you are seeing the same types of forward results you saw in your backtesting then you just have to keep focusing on your process until the losing period ends and you catch the wins that will pull you out of your drawdown.  I believe I've shown this fact in "real time" over the past 5 years on this blog... and I've also seen the profit accumulation in my trading account... that's what keeps me going during losing times.

On to the details about September's results...  let's start with the equity graph updated for the 3rd quarter:

As you can see, not much positive gain for the 3rd Quarter, but no drawdown either.  Since I've started graphing the equity curve by quarter instead of by month there have been fewer drawdowns showing in the curve and I've recovered from them more quickly.  That's another lesson to remember... the higher the time frame, the less volatility that will show in your trading.  This is true in both the time frame you trade and the way you track your results... you need to ride out the small losing periods and stick to your game plan!

Here are the results for September on the 4 Hour chart across the 8 pairs I trade with Forex Profit Monster:

27 trades total

13 wins:  1,890 pips

14 losses:  787 pips

Total: + 1,103 pips

Win rate:  48% 

Avg win:  145 pips

Avg loss:  56 pips

Avg risk/reward:  2.58 to 1

And the results by currency pair for September:

EUR/USD  2W, 0L  +520

USD/CHF  3W, 0L  +349

EUR/JPY  1W, 2L  +160

GBP/JPY  1W, 1L  +145

GBP/USD  1W, 2L  +142

USD/CAD  2W, 2L  (-70)

USD/JPY  1W, 3L  (-70)

AUD/USD  2W, 4L  (-73)

The results for 2012 so far:

January: +891

February: +206

March: +1,667

April: (-293)

May:  +1,640

June:  +2,209

July:  (-343)

August: (-699)

September +1,103

That's a total of 6,381 pips, or an average of 709 pips per month.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Best of luck in your trading...

Jim

www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results - August 2012

It's not very often that I see 2 losing months back-to-back, but that's what August brought to me.  The bad news is that I closed out the month of August losing 699 pips, but the good news is that I caught some great trends toward the end of the month and carried about 1,900 pips of profit in open equity into September.  As long as there aren't any large spikes in volatility this should be enough to wipe out the drawdown that I entered into at the end of June and should keep me from showing a loss for the 3rd quarter of 2012.  Of course I won't know until the month of September is closed out and the pips (and money) are "realized".

Here are the results for the 4 Hour chart in August:

27 trades
  6 wins:    517 pips
21 losses: 1,216 pips

Total:  (-699) pips

22% win rate
Avg win:  86 pips
Avg loss:  58 pips
Avg risk/reward:  1.48 to 1

And the results by currency pair:

GBP/JPY  1W, 1L  +79
USD/CAD 1W, 2L  +62
AUD/USD 2W, 1L  +58
EUR/JPY  1W, 2L  (-40)
GBP/USD 1W, 2L  (-93)
USD/JPY  0W, 5L  (-151)
USD/CHF 0W, 4L  (-289)
EUR/USD 0W, 4L  (-325)


The yearly results so far in 2012:

January: +891
February: +206
March: +1,667
April: (-293)
May:  +1,640
June:  +2,209
July:  (-343)
August: (-699)


That's a total of 5,278 pips, or an average of 659 pips per month.

In a couple of weeks I'll post the September results and of course the end of September means the end of the 3rd quarter, so I'll have an updated chart of the overall equity.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Best of luck in your trading...

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results - July 2012

There's nothing like a vacation to get you to clean up all the work you're behind... and since I'm leaving for the beach tomorrow morning for a vacation I wanted to get the results blog up to date.

After a big winning month there's always a time for some ranging before price establishes direction again, and July was no exception.  It was a small losing month, which I've come to expect after those large 2,000+ pip wins like I saw in June.

Here are the July results on the 4 Hour chart for the 8 pairs I trade:

35 trades
12 wins:   1,056 pips
23 losses: 1,399 pips

Total: (-343) pips

34% win rate
Avg win:  88 pips
Avg loss: 60 pips
Avg risk/reward:  1.46 to 1

And the results by currency pair:

EUR/JPY  2W, 1L  +251
EUR/USD 1W, 3L    +58
USD/JPY  1W, 2L    +46
USD/CHF 1W, 3L     +1
USD/CAD 2W, 3L  (-66)
AUD/USD 2W, 3L  (-81)
GBP/JPY  2W, 4L  (-195)
GBP/USD 1W, 4L  (-357)

The yearly results so far in 2012:

January: +891
February: +206
March: +1,667
April: (-293)
May:  +1,640
June:  +2,209
July:  (-343)

That's a total of 5,977 pips, or an average of 853 pips per month.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Best of luck in your trading...

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster - June Results - 2nd Quarter Results

As you can see from the updated graph above, it's time for the 2nd Quarter results for 2012 (and of course the June results) for Forex Profit Monster.  (Actually the results are overdue, but I've been so busy that I haven't had time to update the blog).

The one thing you'll notice about the equity curve pictured above is how much smoother it is since I've started tracking it quarterly instead of monthly.  This is a lesson for those of you who are impatient... while I've changed nothing at all about the trading system or the way I trade it, the drawdowns now look almost nonexistent.  Just by spreading the data out over time the equity curve smooths itself out.  Something to think about if you find yourself getting upset and angry after a losing month (or even a losing trade)!  If you are trading a system with an edge if you are consistent and patient over time you will profit.

Here are the results for June:

31 trades
10 wins:  3,105 pips
21 losses:  806 pips

Total profit: + 2,209 pips

32% win rate
Avg win:  301
Avg loss:  38
Avg risk/reward:  7.92 to 1

And the results by currency pair as traded on the 4 Hour chart:

EUR/JPY   2W, 2L  +777
GBP/USD  1W, 2L  +687
GBP/JPY   1W, 3L  +605
USD/CAD  1W, 3L  +333
AUD/USD  2W, 1L   +68
USD/JPY  3W, 2L   (-47)
USD/CHF  0W, 4L  (-105)
EUR/USD  0W, 4L  (-109)


The yearly results and total so far:

January: +891
February: +206
March: +1,667
April: (-293)
May:  +1,640
June:  2,209


As for the 2nd Quarter of 2012, it was a good one!  A total of 3,556 pips were added during the months of April, May and June.  That brings the total for 2012 to 6,320 pips and the all-time total to 63,190 pips since I started trading the system in the Fall of 2007.

That's it for now... I'll post the totals for July in the next few days.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Best of luck in your trading...

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results - May 2012

I've been trading long enough now that I've become very comfortable with Forex Profit Monster.  I designed this system in 2006 and started trading it live with real money in 2007.  In the past 5 years I've seen the cycles that the market and this system goes through... but the month of May showed me another "first" for this system... I had some pairs that I didn't take a single trade on for the entire month.  The reason for this is that trades opened in April carried all the way through the month of May and into June with positive open equity and no exit signal.  While this may be a common occurrence for trading a Daily chart, it's the first time I've seen it happen on the 4 Hour chart.  I also consider it a "harbinger" of things to come... if you study markets and believe in fractals and wave theory then a move like this is most likely setting up for the higher time frames (Daily and Weekly).  I'm currently carrying close to 3,000 pips of open equity into June, so it looks like another good month of trading with FPM next month as well!

Here are the results for May 2012 on the 4 Hour chart:

8 total trades
4 wins: 1,890 pips
4 losses:  250 pips

Total:  +1,640 pips

50% win rate
Avg win:  472 pips
Avg loss:   62 pips
Avg risk/reward:  7.61 to 1

And the results by currency pair (I've listed the open equity on the pairs that didn't have any trades in May, this amount was not included in the profits for May but is being carried forward from April into June):

EUR/USD  1W, 0L  +732
AUD/USD  1W, 0L  +541
USD/CHF  1W, 0L  +533
USD/CAD  0W, 1L  (-58) (plus +450 in open equity)
USD/JPY  1W, 3L   (-108)
GBP/JPY  No Trades (+800 open equity)
EUR/JPY  No Trades (+800 open equity)
GBP/USD No Trades (+700 open equity)


The yearly results and total so far:

January: +891
February: +206
March: +1,667
April: (-293)
May:  +1,640

That's a total of 4,111 pips for 2012 so far, with an average of 822 pips per month.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com

Forex Profit Monster Results - April 2012

April 2012 was a "ranging" month, to be expected after the nice start to the year.  Some small wins, some small losses... all adding up to a small losing month, the first losing month of the year.  The nice thing is that during the month of May several large trends began on a few of the pairs and I'm currently carrying an equity profit of over 1,500 pips which is almost a guarantee of a very profitable May (as long as the trades close out in the next week or so)!

Here are the results for April:

36 total trades
12 wins for 1,172 pips
24 losses for 1,465 pips

Total for April (-293)

33% win rate
Avg win: 97
Avg loss: 61
Avg risk/reward: 1.59 to 1

And the results by currency pair as traded on the 4 Hour chart:

GBP/JPY  2W, 0L  +259
EUR/JPY  2W, 1L  +143
GBP/USD 1W, 3L   +36
EUR/USD 2W, 2L  (-21)
USD/JPY 1W, 3L  (-98)
USD/CHF 2W, 3L (-143)
AUD/USD 1W, 5L (-188)
USD/CAD 1W, 7L (-282)

The yearly results and total so far:

January: +891
February: +206
March: +1,667
April: (-293)

That's a total of +2,471 pips and an average of +617 pips per month.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my day trading system Forex Day Monster), please visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

I got a question this month through the blog about the MT4 platform slowing down and freezing while using FPM and FDM.  Unfortunately the MT4 platform is a "memory hog" and this is almost always a RAM issue with the computer being used.  The lower the time frame you are trading the more of an issue this becomes.  The only remedies are:

1.  Use fewer active charts on your platform.  You can always use one chart and "drag" the new currency pair you'd like to see into the chart from the navigator window instead of running several charts at once.

2. Trade a higher time frame that requires less of your computer's memory resources (combined with fewer charts this is even more effective).

3.  Upgrade to higher RAM for your computer.

Thanks for visiting the results blog and best of luck in your trading!

Jim
www.forexprofitmonster.com
http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less

Forex Profit Monster Results - March 2012

Time for the March results (and quarterly update) for Forex Profit Monster. March was a great month with over 1,600 pips of profit realized, mostly from Yen pairs that had entered into sustained trends in February.

Here are the results:

33 total trades taken

14 winning trades: 2,752 pips

19 losing trades: 1,085 pips

Total profit: + 1,667 pips

42% win rate

Avg win: 196

Avg loss: 57

Avg risk/reward: 3.43 to 1

Here are the results by currency pair as traded on the 4 Hour chart:

GBP/JPY 2W, 1L +726

EUR/JPY 3W, 2L +620

USD/JPY 2W, 1L +461

EUR/USD 2W, 1L +67

USD/CHF 2W, 1L +60

GBP/USD 2W, 1L +28

AUD/USD 1W, 4L (-73)

USD/CAD 0W, 6L (-222)

The month of March ends the first quarter of results for FPM, and all three months were positive; with January posting an 891 pip gain, February added 206 pips, and March 1,667. That's a total of 2,764 pips for the first quarter of 2012, and a grand total of 59,634 pips since I started trading Forex Profit Monster live in the 2nd quarter of 2007. (You can see a graph on the performance since 2007 at the top of this post.)

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my daytrading system Forex Day Monster), visit www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Thanks for reading the results blog for Forex Profit Monster, and best of luck in your trading!

Jim

www.forexprofitmonster.com

http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less

Forex Profit Monster Results - February 2012

February was a fantastic month for trading with Forex Profit Monster! Not only was February a winning month again with a profit of over 200 pips, but the great news is there were 3 trades caught in the beginning of the month on Yen pairs that stayed open throughout February and carried into March with a total of more than 1,800 pips in open equity! That virtually guarantees a profitable March, which means all 3 months in the first quarter of 2012 will have been winners. A much better way to start 2012 than 2011 when the year started with back to back losing months.

Here are the details for February on the 4 Hour chart:

20 total trades

8 winning trades: 864 pips

12 losing trades: 658 pips

Total profit: +206 pips

40% win rate

Avg win: 108

Avg loss: 54

Avg risk/reward ratio: 2.0 to 1

And the details by currency pair:

EUR/USD 3W, 1L +347

AUD/USD 1W, 3L +267

USD/CHF 2W, 0L +140

GBP/USD 1W, 4L +109

USD/JPY 1W, 0L +1

GBP/JPY 0W, 0L (0) (1 trade taken, not closed in Feb)

EUR/JPY 0W, 1L (-72)

USD/CAD 0W, 3L (-109)

Here are the yearly results so far:

January +891

February +206

That's a total of 1,097 pips so far in 2012, and an average of 548 pips per month.

With next month's post of the March results I will include a new graph of the overall performance of FPM since I began trading it live in 2007.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my daytrading system Forex Day Monster), visit www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Thanks for reading the results blog for Forex Profit Monster, and best of luck in your trading!

Jim

www.forexprofitmonster.com

http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less

Forex Profit Monster Results - January 2012

Finding the time to transcribe my FPM trading results lately has been tough. It's not that I've been losing (which we'll get to in a minute... a special "hello" to those of you who continue to email me hoping that I'm not still seeing success trading with FPM), but that I've been extremely busy. I've been busy day trading, which has been offering up a lot of great opportunities lately, even though I've had to actually manage some of the trades for more than a day. I've also been busy working on a new trading course that goes more in depth into the areas that traders need to work on to become successful... more on this as it becomes available.

Because I know it's important I've forced myself to sit down on a beautiful 70 degree Saturday to update the past couple months of results as I just don't get much time during the trading week anymore.

The month of January was an "above average" month for FPM, showing me a total win of 891 pips. This was a great way to start 2012, and some equity from open trades from January carrying into the next month gave me a good start to a profitable month for February as well. Here are the results for January:

25 total trades

12 winning trades: 1,802 pips

13 losing trades: 911 pips

Total profit: +891 pips

48% win rate

Avg win: 150 pips

Avg loss: 70 pips

Avg risk/reward ratio: 2.14 to 1

Here are the January results by currency pairs traded on the 4 Hour chart:

EUR/JPY 2W, 0L +532

GBP/JPY 2W, 1L +311

EUR/USD 1W, 0L +162

USD/JPY 2W, 2L +50

USD/CAD 1W, 3L +19

USD/CHF 2W, 4L (-5)

AUD/USD 1W, 1L (-7)

GBP/USD 1W, 2L (-171)

Of course this being the first results of 2012, they're also the yearly totals... +891 pips.

Remember that I'm also only updating the overall pip totals now once per quarter. A new graph will be posted with the March results.

For more information regarding purchasing Forex Profit Monster (or my daytrading system Forex Day Monster), visit www.forexprofitmonster.com or my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Thanks for reading the results blog for Forex Profit Monster, and best of luck in your trading!

Jim

www.forexprofitmonster.com

http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less

Forex Profit Monster Results - December 2011

Here it is... the new equity curve for Forex Profit Monster. As mentioned in previous posts, the software that I use to plot the equity curve has a limitation of the number of data points you can use, and as of a couple of months ago that limit was reached. I decided to recompute the curve on a quarterly plot instead of monthly so that I can continue to post the curve on the results blog using the same software.

The funny thing is, the difference in the equity curve can teach a lesson as far as trading discipline is concerned. Look at the graph above and compare it to the last monthly graph:

Do you see how the drawdowns are more noticeable in the monthly graph than the quarterly graph? While technically the information is exactly the same, it shows that seen over a longer time frame the same results seem less volatile. While many small drawdowns can be seen in the monthly graph (every time there is a losing month there is a drawdown in the graph)... there are hardly any visible in the quarterly graph. The only one of any relevance at all is in Q3 of 2010... and even that is extremely small and lasts for only that quarter. Want to take it to the "next level"? Here's a graph of the yearly results:

See how there are NO drawdowns in the yearly results at all?

So what lesson is to be learned here as a trader? With a viable trading method that has a positive expectancy, you CAN'T allow the results of single trades (or even single weeks or months worth of trades) to cause you to lose your focus. If you become undisciplined because you have a losing streak or enter a drawdown, you may miss out on the profits that will help you to overcome the losses. You must keep focused on the "big picture"... or making money over time. Days, weeks, or even a couple of months of losses in a row don't mean anything over the long haul.

With that covered, here are the results for December:

29 trades total

11 wins: 1,251 pips

18 losses: 1,158 pips

Total pips: +93

37% win rate

Avg win: 113

Avg loss: 64

Avg risk/reward ratio: 1.76 to 1

Here are the results by currency pair on the 4 Hour chart:

AUD/USD 2W, 1L +268

EUR/USD 2W, 1L +239

EUR/JPY 1W, 0L +195

USD/CAD 2W, 1L +137

USD/CHF 1W, 2L +42

USD/JPY 0W, 5L (-118)

GBP/JPY 2W, 3L (-126)

GBP/USD 1W, 5L (-544)

And the totals for 2011:
January (-35)
February (-334)
March +869
April +2,168
May +503
June (-811)
July +225
August +221
September +2,227
October +2,634

November +1,286

December +93

That's a total of 9,046 pips in 2011, and an average per month of +753 pips. For more information about Forex Profit Monster (and my day trading system Forex Day Monster), visit the website at www.forexprofitmonster.com.

To purchase either system (or both) at a discount, visit my eBay page at http://myworld.ebay.com/jimsgr8stuff4less where I list one or two items per week at a discount.

Best of luck in your trading!

Jim

www.forexprofitmonster.com