Paper trade: USD/CAD all out @ 1.0872 (+196.6 pips) and 1.0821 (+145.6 pips)

USD/CAD made a quick run to 1.10 and retraced back down to 1.08. Since my entry at 1.06754 almost two weeks ago, there’s been both run-down and run-up as I have noted. Although this trade turned out well with an average paper gain of 171.1 pips (see stats below), one thing that I’d definitely need to work on is not giving back the profit.

For the first half of my position, USD/CAD topped at 1.0948 and I existed at 1.0872, which is 0.71% of unrealized profit left on the table. For the second half, USD/CAD topped at 1.0992 and I exited at 1.0821, which is a dismal 1.6% left on the table. I could have doubled my gain if I can take my chips off the table at a better time.

Obviously, I still need a lot of work to do in sharpening my stops. For that, I started to keep track of my trades using a detailed spreadsheet that have custom macros to calculate my performance statistics. Some of these numbers are displayed below. I will now focus on the quality of a trade rather than just on the net outcome of a trade while I’m working on improving my trading. I’ll cover this topic another time once the spreadsheet is done. I am still tweaking the formulas and format as I record more trades in it.

Entry: 1.06754, 5000 units

Exit 1: 1.0872, 2500 units

Exit 2: 1.0821, 2500 units

Net: +196.6 pips and +145.6 pips

Time held: 159:27:00 and 256:14:00

Max. Drawdown %: 0.12% (a very good number)

% from Max. Gain: 0.71% and 1.60% (not so good numbers)

Related posts:

1. Paper trade: USD/CAD long 1.07426, stopped out 1.06999 (-42.7 pips)
2. Paper trade: USD/CHF out at 1.03998 (+50 pips) and 1.03798 (+30 pips)
3. Paper trade: Stopped USDCAD short @ 1.0540 for +131 pips
4. Paper trade: NZD/USD shorted 1/6 size @ 0.73967, stopped out 0.7406 (-9.3 pips)
5. Paper trade: Long USD/CHF @ 1.009, out 1.0245 (+155 pips)