I keep great trading records. And you probably should too. It’s something Dr. Alexander Elder drummed into me from very early on in my trading career. He says something like
“show me a trader with great records and I’ll show you a great trader”
So just after the New Year I sat down to check through my trading records of 2015 with a fine-toothed comb. It’s very easy to see my trading performance for the year but I also wanted to compare my own records with statements from brokers and work out commissions etc.
A quick sort on the spreadsheets and it’s very easy to see the most profitable trades.
This year, as expected the single most profitable FOREX trade came from a trade I took trying to catch a medium to long term downtrend. It actually only lasted 16 trading days so I’d say fairly medium term for me.
I sold short (looking to profit from a decline in price) GBP/USD on New Year’s Eve! I had previously entered the same trade a few days before but prices didn’t drop so I exited quickly for a very small loss. But this 2nd entry proved to be good one.
Exiting on 22nd January 2016 because the downtrend was slowing down, I took profits of 7.13R. That means the profit was 7.13 times larger than the money I risked or what I would’ve lost had the trade gone against me. A 7.13:1 Reward to Risk ratio as some of you like to express it.
I have created a video to show you where I entered and exited on the chart.
Below the video I have included a chart which shows prices a week after I exited. You can see a red arrow for day of entry and a green arrow for day of exit. For now, I was right to get out when I did; the trend has stalled and prices are just moving sideways. However if I see more bearish action then I shall quite happily get back into the trade and short it again.
