FAPTS Trading Journal - Pip Cop

**rsmereka** · 2009-01-27, 12:29 PM

Since Pipcop has been gracious enough to provide us with the ability to create trading journals, this thread replaces the FAPTS thread that I started in the general forum.

I started trading the FAPTS EA from fapwinner.com on a live account on January 14, 2009. I posted my first live account statement here which consists of the period January 14-23, 2009.

Each week (after trading stops), I will post my live account statement along with the week's ROI, the ROI to date and monthly ROI at the end of each month.

**rsmereka** · 2009-01-30, 07:33 PM

It was a good month trading with the FAPTS EA.

Here are the stats:
Week: 8.23% ROI
Month: 25.09% ROI

Keep in mind that I started live trading this EA on January 14th so these values only represent 13 trading days instead of a full month.

Interesting things about this week's trading:
1. The trade on Wednesday lasted almost 12 hours and had me worried for a while before it closed.
2. I had my first loss with this EA on Thursday morning (5 pips).

Rick

**rsmereka** · 2009-02-07, 11:34 AM

A trade started early Mon morning (Feb 2) and is still in progress. At one point

, the trade was 300 pips in loss

but gradually moved in my favour. On Friday the EURUSD made a huge bull move again and I am now sitting with about 215 pip loss.

**rsmereka** · 2009-02-14, 01:11 PM

Well, the short

trade entered on Mon Feb 2nd is still active. Since the EURUSD has been trading in a wide range

, the trade is still open. The price has been peaking down but it bounces off the support level and back up again. Right now, this trade is just shy of 200 pips from my entry. Meanwhile, the trade is accumulating lots of negative rollover

fees since I am short

.

I have been thinking that lot size I should be trading with the recommended 500 pip stop should be a lot smaller to keep my risk in line. If I was to trade a lot size in line with that wide stop, the profit from each trade would be so small that it would hardly pay for the FAPTS membership.

Rick

**rsmereka** · 2009-02-21, 01:49 PM

It was a wild week that proved I still have not learned some lessons.

At the start of the week, I still had an open short

trade (into the third week). Although the EURUSD had made some short

moves, there was a danger that the trend

would change to long. In addition Charles on fapwinner emphasized that a bull move was a distinct possibility. This scared me and I manually exited the short

trade on Monday for a 67 pip loss plus about $69 in rollover

fees. Roughly eight hours later the EURUSD price dipped to my TP

point

. I was laughing at the irony of this. It was that or cry.

After that trade, I concluded that the recommended FAPTS lot size was way too large given the risk and I scaled back the lot size to 2.5% of equity (balance * 2.5% / risk). The recommended risk is 500 pips. I plan to leave the lot size this way until the trading system proves to me that the probability of a 500 pip loss is insignificant.

Rick

matchett · 2009-02-22, 05:48 PM

Hi Rick,

Look's good so far. I have this System as well. Trying to follow it exactly as stated. I messed it up the first couple trades and it almost killed my account but so far it is coming back slowly. I had my lot size wrong and had a mragin call. The price truned around and took profit but I wasn't there!!!! Darn!!!. Second I had fear on a drawdown

and closed the trade early just like you did...only to see it reverse and take profit. Darn again!!!! Third and I hope last, I didn't look at Charles notes on Sunday as they tell you to do. I was Long and Short

on my setting when it should have been only Short

. Of course It went long and had a SL

.
So I really can't say the program is bad or good. All I can say for sure is that I didn't pay close enough attention....maybe I spread

myself too thin?
Luckily it's still running and I will follow the rules this time.

I will keep watching you. Hope you do well!!!!

Mike

Oh by the way. I am starting my combo of EA's set to my most aggressive setting. 10K Alpari account. See what happens by the end of the week!
Should be wild!

matchett · 2009-02-22, 05:51 PM

Oops again Rick,

That Alpari account is not 10K it is 5K
Broke down like this
3K for the FAP EA's (3 pair)
2K for the OTKAT EA's (4 pair)

**rsmereka** · 2009-02-23, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Oh by the way. I am starting my combo of EA's set to my most aggressive setting. 10K Alpari account. See what happens by the end of the week!
Should be wild!

So what do you consider the 'most aggressive' setting in terms of FAPT?

I took a look at your settings from the 'set' files you provided and they are pretty darn aggressive IMHO. I am actually scared of running them but I decided that on a demo account, the worst that can happen is the account gets blown.

I am in the middle of changing brokers (always fun

) but I plan to keep FAPTS in play on the new broker

but I still don't trust it and I will gradually increase the lot size as time goes on when my confidence in this EA builds.

Rick

matchett · 2009-02-23, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsmereka

So what do you consider the 'most aggressive' setting in terms of FAPT?

I took a look at your settings from the 'set' files you provided and they are pretty darn aggressive IMHO. I am actually scared of running them but I decided that on a demo account, the worst that can happen is the account gets blown.

I am in the middle of changing brokers (always fun

) but I plan to keep FAPTS in play on the new broker

but I still don't trust it and I will gradually increase the lot size as time goes on when my confidence in this EA builds.

Rick

Hey Rick!

Yes these settings are extremely aggressive and push the FAP Turbo to the limit. Right to the edge but always made it through the worst times. I find the most extreme periods the market is in and run backtests looking for when the EA is having the hardest time profitting. Then I run another test and start just before the worst down period. If it doesnt make it I back off on the risk and keep trying until I find it. This would be the most extreme situation.
Try it on demo only. Please dont put this on a live account until you have fully tested it forward of course.

Let me know!

Mike

PS I think I am not very good with the FAPTS system. The account almost closed due to another big loss.

**rsmereka** · 2009-02-24, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Try it on demo only. Please dont put this on a live account until you have fully tested it forward of course.

I have your 'set' files running on an Alpari demo account since Sunday. I put $5,000 into the account. Last night was a little scary. One trade took forever to close. At one point

, it was down $1,200. I could not wait and went to bed. I looked at the account this morning and that trade was a $120 loser which is pretty good considering. Account is up over 10% at the end of the first day.

Quote:

PS I think I am not very good with the FAPTS system. The account almost closed due to another big loss.

Sorry to hear that. I am not trading anything live right now. I am waiting for my Alpari account to open so that I can fund it. Once this account is active, I will start trading small lots using FAPTS. There is another issue with the EURUSD in that many people believe that a trend

change upward is iniment.

Rick