Now that 2013 is behind us, I will review how I did so I know how to improve this year. In this post, I will do a recap of 2013 and show you the good and bad of last year. Then I will tell you my goals for 2014 and let you know what I’m working on to make Trading Heroes one of the best Forex trading resources on the internet.
I would also like to hear about your goals for 2014. At the end of this post, I will also tell you how you can make me your accountability partner for the year, when it comes to trading.
My Trading
2013 was not a great year for my trading. But it wasn’t terrible either. Here are my results from my public Boss account.
As you can see, November was a rough month. The bottom line is that I went on tilt.
I got impatient with the trading system and over traded. The loss should have only been a third to a half of that.
But my backtesting clearly showed that this system will trade in a range for awhile, then have periodic breakouts on the profit graph. So forcing trades only threw off my risk reward and led to a larger than usual loss.
How do I solve this?
I have come to two conclusions. First, this system works, but I’m missing part of the puzzle. I don’t want to tread water for a year to get all of my profits in one or two months.
So I’m going to take it out of live trading and work on it in backtesting. It has already been replaced with another system (more on that in a bit).
Second, I need to set a profit target every month for every trading system that I trade live. This does have its risks, from a psychology point of view, but it also screens systems that I have backtested.
For example, if a system only makes an average of 0.5% a month, it is profitable. But this kind of performance may lead me to trying to push the system beyond its limits, like I did in November.
Therefore, I need to set a higher bar when it comes to my monthly expectations and not just put any system into live trading, just because it is moderately profitable. Another point that I realized is that you can usually dial back the risk/volatility of a highly profitable system, but it is risky to try to push a low return system beyond what it was comfortably designed to do.
One final note on my trading before we move on…my original intention with calling the live public account “The Boss” was to only trade one strategy code named “The Boss” in this account. However, I soon realized that this was unnecessarily restricting and spreading my available trading capital across multiple accounts, would not make sense.
It would also be a pain in the ass to keep opening and closing live accounts and renaming them. Then there is the issue of remembering which account I should execute a trade in.
So have decided to just stick to one live account and just code name separate systems within that account. When I do my trading analysis, I would have to break out the trades and show them manually, but that is OK.
I’m currently trading System 3, Version 1. More on that in later posts…with more imaginative names.
What kind of return am I targeting? Read the Goals section at the end to find out.
The Bubble Trading Course
Creating this course with Rafael has been a great experience. I learned so much about the education business and no matter how many books and blogs you read, the only way to figure this stuff out is to do it yourself.
The initial response was very good and we got someexcellent testimonials from people who liked the course. However, it is not as good as it could be and there were also some people who asked for a refund. I was bummed about that for awhile, especially since we put so much work into it in the beginning of last year.
But I soon realized that it is just like trading. You probably won’t be great at it the first time you do it, but you just have to stick with it and keep improving.
The fact that some people found it helpful and were willing to pay money for it was proof that there was value there, we just have to do a better job of making the course more comprehensive. If you have already purchased the first edition of the course, you will automatically get the upgrade (and any future updates).
I still believe in the value of what he has to teach and we will continue to work to make this course the best it can be.
The Currency Alliance
I was excited to finally get this website off the ground in 2013. We are still in testing and building content for this site, but there are already a few members and I’m working on getting a lot more.
The first system and first pair have been completely tested and we are working on more. The test on the EURUSD has been very promising, but it needs to be tested several times, by different people, to make sure that there are no personal biases that are skewing the results.
As far as I know, there isn’t another website like this out there. So I’m trying to figure out the simplest way to quickly explain the value in a community like this.
The bottom line is that this community isn’t for everyone. But I believe that it can be tremendously valuable to the type of people who are actually willing to put in the work and actually test ideas and contribute to the evolution of trading systems.
Most beginning traders just want to get some signals and make some money. But if you are truly committed to learning how to trade, then you need to figure out what works for yourself.
It has been tough to get this started, but I believe that this could be a legacy project that really makes a difference, so I’m pushing forward. I can already see a couple of possible evolutions of this website already, but I have to get the preliminary stuff off the ground first.
The Trading Lifestyle Podcast
To be honest, I really dropped the ball with the podcastlast year. I only published 3 episodes last year. They were great interviews, but this year, I have set the goal to get back to doing at least one podcast per month, like I did in 2012.
I have already have three guests lined up: Steve W., the well known Blogger/Trader from No Brainer Trades, Entrepreneur/Trader Extraordinaire Rudy Leder from RudyLeder.com and popular Blogger/Trader Casey Stubbs from Winner’s Edge Trading.
If you know of any professional traders that you would like to hear on the podcast, please let me know. I’m primarily looking for independent traders or not so mainstream (CNBC, Bloomberg, etc.) traders.
But anyone with valuable trading experience that they want to share is welcome.
I am also going to be expanding the interviews a little to include interviews with people who are are in related industries like trading psychologists and maybe one or two interviews with people who are experts in other areas that traders are interested in. This could include health/fitness, travel or fun stuff like that.
Let me know what you want to hear about by leaving a comment below.
Goals For 2014
But that is in the past. Now let’s look forward to what I want to achieve in 2014.
- Trading: I have been terrible at setting and sticking to trading goals in the past and that is why my results have been stagnant. So this year, I’m going to set the bar higher and hold myself to it. My goal is to make 10% a month in theBoss trading account. As you may know, setting a percentage target like that does have its inherit risks from a psychology standpoint because it can lead me to force trades to get to 10% or back off to keep my 10%, when there are good opportunities. But I have been thinking this over and have decided that if there is no goal to aim for, then I don’t know which systems to filter when backtesting. So that is my goal, period.
- The Bubble Trading Course: The goal is to get the second edition of this course finished and launched by March 1, 2104. This includes a website redesign and updating the course material.
- The Currency Alliance: This is going to take a little longer to get off the ground, but my goal is to have TCA ready to do a full launch by May 1, 2014. There is still a lot of content to be created for it to be valuable enough to charge the full price for.
- The Trading Lifestyle Podcast: My goal for 2014 is to do at least 1 podcast interview every month. If time permits, I would like to do a second podcast every month, but those would be “bonus” podcasts. Finding guests, scheduling and writing questions takes a lot of time, so my other podcast related goal is to create a process that I can send to any outsourced worker, so they can help me find interviewees without my involvement.
- Trading Software: Rafael and I are also working on some trading software, but that is all I can say for now. The goal is to be able to have a working version ready by June 1, 2014. We are going to launch on Ninja Trader first, but we will also do something for Metatrader and other platforms if that goes well. It is my first foray into software, so it is a little scary and exciting at the same time.
- Learn to Start a Trading Blog: This is something that I have been working on off and on for a few months, but as I have interviewed pro traders over the last two years, it finally struck me late last year that blogging can be a great asset to any trader. It does take time, but there are a lot of inherit benefits that most traders may not have thought about. The short story is: It can help you find a trading peer group (friends/mentors/investors), create an additional income stream and improve your trading…among other things. But those are the highlights. And I happen to have 7 years of experience, so do know something about it. Look for a launch of a test version early next month.
- Other: My goal is to cross off at least 3 items from my Heroic List. I am already working on a couple, but I want to do as many as possible. Stay tuned to find out which ones I complete this year. Whenever possible, I will provide pictures as proof that I completed the goal.
So that is my review and goal list. Now it is your turn…
What are one or two of your top goals for 2014?
Remember, sharing your goals and writing them down make them more tangible and more likely that you will actually achieve them. But a goal is worthless without a plan to achieve it. So also include the next step that you will take to get you closer to reaching your goals.
I’m going to check up on you during the course of the year, so be sure you actually do what you say! I’ve got my eye on you.
Let’s have a great 2014!
via:http://www.tradingheroes.com/reviewing-2013-and-looking-forward-to-2014/
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