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.)
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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