This week’s results: 

Cable Glider — 0 win , 0 losses

Euro Ranger — 0 wins, 1 losses

This week, the account had a net loss.

This month, the Cable Glider is showing a net gain.

This month, the Euro Ranger is showing a net loss.

This month, Cable Glider has been more profitable.

Gaps filled, and then some!

In the last post, I mentioned the large upside gaps in the Euro and Pound charts that occurred as a result of the US Treasury department taking control of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  It just so happens that I’ve been studying gaps in the forex markets lately, and it made me quite reluctant to take a position.  The rationalization for this is that I employ a set of event filters designed to filter out “known unknowns” (economic reports released at regular intervals).  Shouldn’t I also step aside when an “unknown unknown” occurs (unscheduled Fed action, etc…).  This has served me well in the past, so I employed it again this week.

However, the results this week were much worse than they could have been.

Mistakes made:

1)  Had I left Cable Glider on, it would have captured a gain on Sunday night prior to the gap fill occurring.  

2) I missed a profitable trade in the Euro Sunday night into Monday morning due to a coding error in the Euro Ranger!  Well, that problem has been corrected, but it was embarrassingly stupid.

I then caught the one “correct” trade in the Euro Ranger, which happened to close out for a large loss.  Finally, I discovered that if I had rolled forward to trading the December contract rather than the September contract which expires next week, that one loss would have been two gains!  A small gain on the long side, followed by a sizable gain on the short side!  I can’t really call that a mistake, but it is a frustration.  The Euro Ranger is sometimes psychologically difficult for me to trade because every loss that it ever takes seems like it could have been two wins if the parameters were set slightly differently….

Anyway, I’ve determined that I’m having problems with consistent execution.  My mistakes, second guessing, and coding errors over the last two weeks have left me with a 5% loss in the account.  If I had executed consistently and correctly, the account would be showing a slight gain over that period.