XAU/USD & XAG/USD - Gold & Silver Traders Thread

I undoubtably use similar strategy to most traders - pitchforks, SaR, MACD, RSI, Stoch.

A couple of my personal rules:
DISCIPLINE! DISCIPLINE! DISCIPLINE!
Don't look at losing money as a failure, we have to invest in ourselves to better ourselves! Going to University costs money, why shouldn't FOREX. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes, if its emotional reasons that you are losing, you need to stop and train yourself to detatch.
1. Never trade if your upset, angry or not able to apply your time to make a calculated risk.
2. Every trade you open, UNDERSTAND that you will likely have a drawdown before the market moves the way you want it to (nobody can accurately pick a top or bottom, prices often overshoot the mark - have a suitable SL in place to allow for this).
3. ^^ BE WILLING TO KISS THAT MONEY GOODBYE, if markets were predictable, we'd all be rich - heck I want to know the secrets too!
4. Manage your SL appropriately. Monitor PA and adjust SL if required. eg. When I bought 5 lots @ 19.2 on silver, I had a SL at 18.8, give that market some room to move - note SL is below previous low. Similar strategy for shorting a market.
5. I have noticed regardless of time frame, a market will test a price multiple times prior to bouncing or breaching. Don't get too excited and buy the first dip/rally, unless your just going for a quick scalp
6. I do not try scalp markets. All my positions are buy/sell limits. If im triggered I enter, if not I stand aside.
7. I will not enter a position on a breakout to the upside or downside, I will wait for the retracement to the breakout point and watch how it reacts. FAKEouts are probably the number 1 trap for players. BE PATIENT!

LEVERAGE
I trade very high leverage, and put myself at risk but thats the business I guess. As long as you manage your account with SL and learn to detach yourself from the emotional side of it and know when to cut your losses, you will succeed. Most people fall down by not being able to detatch themselfs from the dollars and try ride out a market that has turned on them. She 'the market' is an unforgiving beast, do not fight her

HISTORY
This is my 4th year trading, when I first started I looked to experienced traders such as Xtrade for advice (shoutout! ). The first 2 years I only broke even during the massive bull market.. which wasn't ideal, many traders made a fortune. I needed more time to research and trade demo accounts but I was too itchy to trade.

Since mid 2011 - June 2013 I have traded a very small account at low leverage just to make a slush fund for holidays, video games etc. I spent the majority of my time on demos fine tuning a strategy that worked for me. I highly recommend Pitchfork methods and schooling yourself on babypips.com learning different technical indicators, candlestick chart and what signals to look for. If you can combine multiple techniques you will find better results.

Also, I cannot recommend entering trading competitions enough. Even though you are using fake money, it had the same emotion as trading real funds as you are competing for a prize, you want to win. I treated those accounts as real money and learnt my own way to manage the funds. I'm sure everyone can agree on a demo account you are king and do well, you can open a trade with no remorse or attachment to your trade and that is an attitude you need when trading live.

In closing, I've learnt all I know from coping with losing trades in the past, stepping back and taking the TIME to read and absorb everything I can about markets. I 100% expect to open a losing trade in the future thats part of the game!

Hope some of that info helps
Mitch

if these were the woods/forest ... show me the oak or the teak ...................

.... please ?

Great teaching Sir

However, I guess that these are the questions which all newbies like myself is having difficulties with:

1) How do you manage SL? How do you determine if it is too wide or too tight?
2) Do you use RR to determine your TP and SL? Any formula or guideline? I do not believe in having no SL, it is extremely dangerous without them. Sometimes it is tempted to go without SL, but I always remind myself to "live to fight another day".
3) How do you identify between a breakout or a fakeout (Trap). What TF do you use to identify the reaction of the breakout?
4) Is it safer to place a sell stop order upon failure to break resistance and the same for buy stop order upon failure to break support?
Eg, Illustration purpose - Gold drop below 1187 support line, but break back above that line, you place a buy stop order at 1189 or 1190 hoping to catch the rejection.

Thanks for your guidance.

Pretty sure 2014 is a bull market for gold and silver. Below $1200 in gold and $19 in silver, we see strong buying and minimal sellers. With the new year coming we should see a fresh start on upward trend in gold and silver.

Hi ssm I will try answer these questions in-line with how I trade.

1. I will buy on support lines, with a SL below the previous low, as I said in my previous post. I do not buy on the first dip or rally, I wait for the re-test of that price before entering. You win some, you lose some but the psychology of traders is they want to see a bottom or top before they enter, do NOT try and catch a falling knife. Let it fall, bounce then when it hits the ground again, pick it up

2. I use the same method as mentioned above for my TP. In terms of exposure, if I intended to go long 5 lots on gold, I could open 50 trades at 0.1 lots for a much more manageable account, or go for 5 trades at 1 lot. It's really up to you and how you want to manage your fund. If you have a small account, I would recommend smaller lot sizes. If things go bad you can close half your positions manually etc.

3. Breakouts and fakeouts are not identifiable until after the fact, but once again you manage your money to the best of your ability. 'Stop hunting' is a term used frequently, where high volumes are used to push a price through a resistance of support for the sole purpose of triggering peoples SL's and causing a rapid move and a quick profit. They have caught me out many times where my SL would be triggered then the market reverses and I've been left with my head in my hands. It happens and is part of the game, but I would rather lose a small amount than have no SL and the market continuing its breakout and potentially crippling my account badly.

In-fact if you look at my trading history, it happened to me only a few weeks ago. I was short on silver at $20 or so, and my SL was 20.4, the previous high was 20.31 so naturally my SL was slightly higher. It was triggered by a rally to 20.405!!! ONLY JUST GOT ME, then tanked to 19.1. I was left disappointed to be knocked out by a 0.005 difference. Those particular positions closed for a loss of $7,000AUD. That hurts, but hey.. on my next long positions I made it back and more. Those 3 positions were my only losses in 3months.

4. There is nothing wrong with having an order ready to fill, if you are watching the market I would just manually enter a position dependent on the strength of the bounce. Buying at a proven support can offer low risk and good reward. Same with selling. Do not be disheartened by the market moving sideways after the second/third bounce, we witnessed this last week with silver floating around the 19.15-19.27 level. To me I had no concerns as every dip was being bought and the bounces were healthy, to me that price action is the market rejecting a bear move and building a base. similarly in gold the price action in the 1190's.

Now on the flip side, if gold can not break 1220, and silver does not hold above 20.23, we will drop again as a similar scenario is playing out. We have had a few shots at 1220 and silver struggling to hold the 20 handle. Next week could be interesting to say the least.

Hope I helped somewhat, I am terrible at English and try to explain myself as best as I can

Mitch

Silver should not get over 20.11 for now,market turned again and moving towards 19.60,19.45,both levels mark turning points again if hit exactly it is going up again,but I expect at least 2 down days

about last opened positions, where did you enter and why?

thank you

Just looking back, this comment was nearly on the button. 1196 by Jan I wonder if we will see $1000 this year.

I also will be looking to sell at 1223 or 1233 max, expect 1233 to be max for the moment and if drops will watch how it behaves at 1207.

~1205-1206 I would expect to hold for now, and a jump up to 1212 for a test of resistance.

~19.78 I am watching carefully in silver to hold. if they let go I will exit longs and TP.

Do you think gold can hit 1222 or 1233?

long right now big 1205.50 sl 1202, expecting price tp 1215 next hours.

Current PA has been very bearish and where we go from 1205/1206 is going to determine its next move. If we don't hold we will head back to sub 1200. Otherwise I can see a run at 1220 in US session tonight if we have a decent bounce in the next hour or two.

did you delete your trade explorer?

Watching like a hawk....
I have longs from 1206, target 1222 and 1233

We have just touched the bottom of the short-term uptrend line created by joining the lows. This is where we decide

Finally, it is going to the right direction.

Cash in my shorts @ 1203. Waiting it to go back to 1205-1210 then load some again. Also short pending orders @ 1197-1199 if we see a quick and firm penetration.

No I havn't, I would have liked a more private setting on it so now I just share with my 'buddies' list

Edit: This is the bounce you want to see right before a 1hr candle closes off. a decent wick at the base, could be the end of the bleeding 'for now'. May head up and run into selling again at 19.8

I've opened another long at 19.58 looking for 19.77 in next 1-2hours. Only a very short term trade

Short @ 1205, SL 1207.5

Unfortunately, all indications are leading to one conclusion : We are heading to a new yearly low ... RIP the yearly low support on Gold & Sliver

The original bounce on Gold as a 1200 sup , is not convincing enough to hold a long position. The bounce and rally on August Sliver was decent and could have made a case - but if cold breaks and accerate to the downside , it will drag Sliver and eyes will be on 18.00 Support !