This is my performance for the third month ever since I started my trading adventure in early April. The trading style involved here is riskier than usual, so the returns are higher. The return for June’09 was 43.2%.

Are there any magical strategies that lead to such high returns? Again, my answer is always: No, there are no magical strategies in the world. Those who keep trying to find them are going on a wild goose chase, simply because successful trading is not simply about a good trading method. As I’ve said before, part of overall winning is about taking losses, and avoiding doing the “most comfortable thing”.

This is the second month of my trading adventure, which started with a modest USD10,000 in early April. In April, my return was about 46.6%. In May, my return was about 38.7%. As such, my account value as of the end of May is USD20,333, as seen in the attached screenshot of my May’09 trading statement. Quite good so far. Doubled my account in 2 months….

As stated earlier, I recently started a small account of USD10,000, to give myself the challenge of compounding it over a period of 1 year or so. Attached is my first month’s trading results. I generated a return of about 47% of my starting capital in the month of April.

Once in a while, I like to give myself the challenge of starting a relatively small trading account and growing it over time. I truly believe that such a process of allowing a small account to compound manifold builds mental toughness in a trader.

As such, I’m going to start a small account of USD10,000, and grow it over time. Periodically, I’ll post my trading statements here on this blog.

One handy way which can be used to capture upcoming trends is to make use of a long-term EMA together with a shorter-term EMA on a 4-hour chart. A 4-hour chart tends to give less “noise” in the predictability of an upcoming trend. The profit achieved is often in excess of 100 pips; the stop-loss should be placed at about 40-50 pips away. One could confirm the trend by referring also to the 1-hour chart, and a couple of indicators, e.g. Stochastic Oscillator or %R.

Trading using a 4-hour chart involves capturing larger trends, and thus often entails holding the trade for many hours; in many cases the position is held over one or two days.

On 26 Nov I did a long trade that was entered when the 5-period EMA had just crossed above the 50-period EMA. A profit of 96 pips (after factoring in the 4-pip spread) was readily achieved after about 1 day.