This review has been a long time coming, but today I am reviewing Chris Lori’s Pro Trader forex trading course. I heard about this course a couple years ago from a friend and decided to pick it up.
The first thing I noticed was that there are a ton of CDs in this course. Due to my lack of focus at the time, it took me awhile to get me through the first couple of CDs. Just like any other currency trading training, the beginning went over basic forex terms like pips, limit orders and rollover. Needless to say I fell asleep a couple times and had to start the CDs over.
Then around the third CD, things started to get interesting. Chris’ primary method of trading is called
One of my biggest goals in life is to be able to live what is known as the location independent lifestyle. What does this mean?
It means that I can make a living from anywhere in the world and live anywhere I want for any amount of time. Not that I would necessarily want to live a completely nomadic lifestyle, but I just want the option of being able to go anywhere in the world and still make a very good living on my own.
There is so much out there and so little time!
That is one of the primary reasons I have chosen to become a trader. I can trade from almost anywhere in the world with an internet connection and even some places without internet.
As fun and grand as this sounds, there are some very serious practical considerations that must be taken into account before embarking on such a lifestyle. For example, say you live in the US but want to live in the South of France for 6 months. How will you get your mail? How will you access your money? How will you pay your bills? What kind of mobile phone will you need? How will you get internet access?
And the list goes on and on.
I’m not at the point where I need to be worrying about these things too much because I still need to reach my first goal of trading for a living, but it is something that I am keeping in the back of my mind and whenever I have a little free time, I read some articles about things that need to be taken into consideration.
There isn’t too much information out there, but there is enough to start my research and start building a knowledge base that will be ready when the day comes. I will let you know what I find in future posts.
Would you like to be location independent? If so, where are some of the places you would live? Feel free to leave a comment below.
I used to mess around with t-shirt designs when I was in college and it was never for profit, but I enjoyed it as a creative outlet. It is fun and that is all that matters.
Here is a design that I created in about 10 minutes. I wanted to see how Zazzle.com works, so this was my test. It is a great site for creating custom gifts and promotional items.
The process was soooo easy. I just put together a simple design and uploaded it. Seriously, the whole upload process took 5 minutes.
My favorite designable item is the custom postage stamp. Plaster your face all over it and give them out to your friends!
Anyway, this shirt can be purchased by clicking here. 100% of proceeds will be donated to Oceana, one of the non-profit organizations that I support. It is a fun shirt for your favorite forex trader. If I want to keep myself out of bad trades, I might create others. Or not. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.
Hope your trading is going well!
Hugh
P.S. – What is a Cambist? Click here for the answer.
Last week, I did a double stack on the Monday Trade, targeting both the Daily Pivot and the Weekly Pivot. Both of them reached their profit targets.
This week, my double stack wasn’t so fortunate. As you can see from the chart to the left, a couple of my orders got executed then the GBPCHF proceeded to tank.
I should have exited after the pair dropped 20-50 pips, but I let it drop about 200 pips before I finally closed the two positions. This was against the rules of this trade and I paid the price.
The result was a -9.2% loss in the account. I’m not too disappointed about the loss, I just won’t do it next time.
If you noticed however, the result of this drop set up a Counter Trend Trade, so I reloaded and took the trade. I still have my Monday Trade stack to the Weekly Pivot in place, but I canceled all of the Monday Trade open orders that targeted the Daily Pivot. This week is a nail biter, so stay tuned!
What are currency pair correlations? It is simply a measure of how similarly one currency pair moves in comparison to another. Just as an example, let’s say that the EURUSD goes up 500 pips in a month. During that same month, let’s say that the GBPUSD goes up 1,000 pips. We are not too concerned about how many pips the pairs moved but how similar the moves were. If the prices went straight up, then they are highly correlated. If the EURUSD went straight up and the GBPUSD stayed in a range then shot up, they would be less correlated. When they move in the same direction at the same time, up in this case, they are positively correlated.
Negative correlation is when one pair goes up and the other goes down. In this example, if the EURUSD went up at approximately the same time the GBPUSD was going down and to a similar degree, then there would be a high degree of negative correlation.
How does this us help as traders? If there is a high negative or positive correlation, there may be times when one pair moves before the other highly correlated pair and can serve as a forecast or a confirmation of a move in the pair we are trading. In addition, you might want to stay away from taking trades that are two highly correlated because that increases your risk that the same move will affect all your trades in a similar fashion. Here is a great free resource that I found that has up to date correlation numbers.
Of course this information should not be taken as the primary means of entering a trade, but keeping an eye on correlations can be a tremendous secondary indicator that can give you more confidence in a trade.
Here we go with this week’s Monday Trade. This week was extra fun because I decided to do a double Monday Trade. Instead of just targeting 20 pips away from the Weekly Pivot, I also targeted 20 away from the Daily Pivot.
As you can see from the picture to the left, the market was reluctant to hit my targets, but it eventually worked out. This week, I also set the take profit from one of the positions higher than the others in the hopes that I could capture more profit. It did not work out and I actually ended up losing money on that last position. Never again, stick to the plan!
This slight change in plans turned what would have been a killer week into just a pretty good week. These trades put me up +9.8% on the week and I traded 15 lots to the Daily Pivot target and 25 lots to the Weekly Pivot target.
The market action is a little indecisive in the GBPCHF this week, so I am going to wait for a clear break away from the Weekly Pivot to put in another trade.
Today I am reviewing Kathy Lien’s book Day Trading & Swing Trading in the Currency Market. I originally thumbed through the first edition in Borders and though it had some good ideas, but it didn’t appeal to me enough to buy it at the time.
I kept an eye on it and ended up getting it as a gift. I read through it here is my breakdown of the book.
Like most books that are meant to appeal to a wide range of traders, Lien goes into the history of forex, the fundamental factors, market correlations, etc. She does a good job of this, but in my opinion,
One of my goals to own a Les Paul guitar. However, I never knew what an impact he had on music in general. One night while trading was slow, I searched Hulu for a good movie and found this documentary on Les Paul. I was amazed at what he had accomplished in his life, but even more impressive was his way of thinking. He was a genius but he was also an independent thinker and that is why he was able to come up with so many inventions and such beautiful music. Even at 90 years old, he was still up on stage, making jokes and playing jazz.
I think there are some correlations to trading that can be taken away from this movie. Becoming a successful trader really has to do with thinking independently, being willing to try new things and keep up with technology. If your trading is slow, I would highly suggest it. Note: once the actual movie starts (not the commercials) move your mouse over the movie and click the square in the upper right corner to go to full screen.
Like I mentioned in my last Monday Trade post, I was going to try this trade again if the opportunity presented itself. Well, what do you know? The opportunity came around again…and I took it.
Being that this was the first time I was taking a Monday Trade later in the week, I was slightly more conservative on this trade, only trading 22 lots instead of the 24 lots I traded on the last trade. I actually ended up closing the trade a little early this time. That is what happens when I am sitting in front of the computer, I get nervous. Especially with a pair as volatile as the GBPCHF.
In spite of that, the result was similar. This one trade made a 5.2% gain in the live account. At least this helps make up for the losing Monday Trade I had last week.
As you can see in the screenshot above, price made a huge run at the daily pivot then bounced about 30 pips. That is why it is necessary to target 20 pips above the actual Weekly Pivot.
This is a very risky strategy (see disclaimer) and you should backtest it, forwards test it and sidewards test it to see if it is for you before ever risking any real money on it.
Well, I hit the reset button last month on Zen Trading. And no, I didn’t accidentally trip over the power cord or kick the power strip with my foot under the desk. I intentionally closed ALL my Zen Trades and started over.
Here we go again ladies and gents. The Monday Trade in the GBPCHF was live again this week. For a complete explanation of this trade, click here.
Unlike last week, this week ended well. There was a slight scare when all of my limit orders were taken in and price then proceeded to retrace after missing my take profit by a mere 3 pips.
At that point, I should have closed them all out but I was not at the computer when it happened so I had to let it run. As I learned last week, this trade has to be given a chance to become successful so I let it run it overnight and the target was hit.
This trade was done in my swing trading live account and I gained 8.3% on this one trade. It has come to my attention that other traders are trading this strategy more aggressively and are achieving much higher gains, but at this point, this is all the risk I am willing to take on this particular strategy.
One way that I can see to increase gains on this trade is to do the trade back to the weekly pivot multiple times during the week. I will look into this and do some backtesting to see how viable this strategy is.
I would be apprehensive about running out of time if I took a second or third trade later in the week. Maybe targeting the daily pivot would a better way to go. I will have to see how the testing turns out before adding on to this trade.
Hope your trading is going well!
Hugh
P.S. – This is a very risky strategy (see disclaimer) and you should backtest it, forwards test it and sidewards test it to see if it is for you before ever risking any real money on it.
I have not been posting as many of my backtesting results as I should, but I have decided to do a better job because I think it is useful for you and hopefully I can get some feedback on ways to improve. This is the EURUSD Counter Trend Trade, click here for an explanation of this trade.
This trade was tested over 8 years from 2001 to 2009 and 663 trades were executed. Here are the complete results:
I have read and listened to a few of Joe Vitale’s books before and in my opinion, this is the best one. In the previous books, I don’t remember him mentioning his past or where he came from. Those books were also a little too promotional for my taste.
In this new book, he has decided to reveal information about his past. I found it amazing how he was able to overcome homelessness and poverty to become an extremely successful writer and self development speaker. After reading this book, it is almost impossible to have any excuses for not succeeding. There is a ton of good information and he does NOT try to sell you something on every page.
The best part is that this book is free! Click here to check it out, I really enjoyed it.
There was no Monday Trade last week, but this week presented a great opportunity. The GBPCHF started well below the Weekly pivot this Monday (the start of Monday is the first vertical dashed line on the left).
I stacked my entry orders in anticipation of the move and let it rip. As you can see in the picture, price popped up and executed 4 of my orders, then broke sharply to the downside.
I finally decided to close out all orders when price dipped below the support level because it looked like price would continue to the downside.
On this trade, I lost 14.8% on the account. After I closed the trade, I felt good about closing it because the GBPCHF is a freight train and I do not want to be standing in front of it.
However, I realized that there was still an opportunity to stack a new set of orders in anticipation of another move back to the Weekly Pivot. But…
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this. Investimonials.com is a new website from Tim Sykes that reviews all investment related products from brokers to DVDs to Blogs. Users provide honest opinions on products they have used.
If you don’t know who Tim Sykes is, he wrote the book An American Hedge Fund, the story of how he turned $12,000 of his Bar Mitzvah money into an audited pre tax sum of $1.65 million, starting out in his college dorm room.
I think it is a great idea and much needed, given all the hype in the financial markets. I just got listed, so please feel free to rate this blog by clicking here: Rate TradingHeroes.com
Your comments will be used to make this blog more useful to the independent trader.
