January Trade Results—Up 3,116 pips

Since I began posting the results of the trades I actually blog about and show when I take them, the results have been:

Jan 2010—up 3116 pips
Dec 2009—up 2,092 pips
Nov 2009—up 2,054 pips
Oct 2009—up 1,994 pips

The past several months have been very good trading months because of many opportunities and market action that suits my trading style. I like sideways markets and I like faltering trends. What helps me the most, though, is my hard work and discipline. I don’t get into a pair unless it is at an entry level I deem reasonable. I know it’s a reasonable level because I spend many hours analyzing my charts. While I take partial profits on trades, I also have the discipline to let profits run. Finally, I keep my stops tight. Those are the keys—much more important than any given approach or technique. Even with this, some months are going to be duds. You’ll see them when they happen because I post about most trades as soon as I take them or in advance of them if I see a particularly promising set up. I don’t report after the fact when the results are known, an all-too-common characteristic of the so-called “gurus” and “experts.” Sometimes a trade moves too quickly to get it out—the GBPJPY is notorious for this. For the most part though, you see them as I make them.

As usual, I didn’t have an excessive number of trades and the gains are more spread out than they usually are across several pairs.However, big earners were USDCAD with 1,000 pips, most of that taken in partial profits. Next was GBPJPY with 657 pips.

In some of the trades, I took partial profits. I’m still unsure about the best way to report those so I just lump them together, e.g. if I closed out half at 50 and the rest at 100, I count 150. If anyone has a better idea for how to report these, please post a comment. I also had some trades I blogged about that stopped at breakeven. I don’t count these in the trades I list.

Here’s the detail of the January trades. Each of them was blogged about when it took place and you could see them on the charts I posted.

Currency pair, total net gain or loss in pips, and the detailed trades

AUDUSD +70 total; (1 trade at +70)
EURCHF +100 total; (1 trade at +100)
EURGBP (+50 total; (1 trade at +50)
EURJPY +284 total; (+70, +244, -30)
EURUSD +380 total; (+5, +25, +300, +50)
GBPCHF +418 total; (+223, +113, +77, +5)
GBPJPY +657 total; (+60, +25, +3. +95, +204, +70, +120, +80)
GBPUSD +157 total; (+92, +60, +5)
USDJPY (0 total; (+70, -70)
USDCAD +1000 total; (+5, +220, +400, +375)