Managed Forex Accounts

Forex Accounts update

2008-08-14T01:56:00.000-07:00

All the accounts are experiencing drawdown to some extent lately.

Devrim gave back most of the recovery gains since the big drawdown, with sizable open positions.

WON is down about 5% month to date, with open positions.

ROV is off 3.4% MTD. It has no open positions as it is a short term day trading strategy. The test account is still up 7.5% since May 11 start.

FSR is down 15% since starting a month ago.

QFXMA is down 0.8% with light trading.

July Forex Accounts Summary

2008-08-04T01:35:00.000-07:00

Devrim had a bunch of good trades last week and the account recovered quite a bit, about 12% in 2X account, but still down about 20% from end of May equity level. The account will probably recover given more time. However, given the fact that the 2X account was down well over 50% at one point, it is too high risk because there is a saying something like "the largest drawdown is always the one that is yet to come". The base 1X account might be ok as part of diversified portfolio, although the risk/reward is a lot less favorable than we once thought.

WON finished July with 1.89% profit. It had about 4.2% realized profit and 2.3% floating loss on July 31.

ROV was up 2.09% in July. It was up more in the first half of the month and gave back some gains towards the end. Very good program as far as risk management goes.

QFXMA had a down month, with a loss of 1.75% in the base account, 5.25% in 3X account. Hope to see some good results from the new automated currency basket trading soon.

We started live tracking of a new automated day trading system FSR, which seems promising. Our test account is up about 2% since starting mid July. More on it later.

We no longer have 007 live tracking account after May drawdown. Heard it was flat in July.

Forex accounts

2008-07-28T00:51:00.000-07:00

Devrim recovered a bit , with only small positions open currently. Up 2.4% for the month in my 2X account, but still down over 30% from end of May level.

QFXMA had no new trades for the past 10 days or so, as the trader has been working on automating the strategy at PFG. That work is now done, I was told, and the accounts will be traded live using the new setup later this week after some initial testing using our own account. More currencies pairs will be traded to spread out the risk.

WON currently up 3.5% on the month. The volatility in the account has been pretty low this month, due to low leverage.

ROV is a day trading program with excellent risk management. The accounts are up 2.1% for July as of this writing.

Managed forex accounts performance update

2008-07-21T01:02:00.000-07:00

DEV ended June with 14.9% drawdown in base account, almost 30% for 2X accounts. And it got worse in July, down more currently. My 2X account is down 41% from end of May equity level as of last Friday, and more right now based on current market price. I really don't feel comfortable about the fact that Devrim is holding onto basically the same trade for so long. I will likely stop my personal account soon.

WON finised June with 3.1% profit. It has closed almost 4% profit in July. Trading will be more conservative till the end of the month to preserve realized gains and as a result, the new open positions are small and currently have 0.2% open trade drawdown. I particularly appreciate the low leverage/volatility of this account after the big drawdown in DEV.

QFXMA was up 1.6% for June in base account, 4.8% in 3X account. It realized some losses last week, down 1.5% in base accounts, 4.4% in 3X account for July.

Added ROV to our site. I have live tested this account for two months and am very pleased with the results as well as risk management.

Mixed results in forex accounts

2008-06-27T02:20:00.000-07:00

Devrim down more, 30-40% again in 2X accounts for June if he still holds the same position overnight, as the market continues to go against the positions. Hate to think that Friday is another news day and more volatility is expected in the account. Really don't like seeing so much risk in a trade. Maybe it is time to stop loss for me. This account should not be leveraged. At 1X, the risk is ok, but the reward is a bit low relative to risk.

Only another small profitable trade in QFXMA since last update.

WON trades came back into profit, up about 3% at this time. We will see if it ends the month with a profit or loss with two more trading days. It will probably be moderate either way.

Forex traders

2008-06-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

Devrim dropped more, with base leverage account down 12.5%, and 25% in 2X account for June. This is an ugly month for sure.

WON is down about 4.5% with positions still open. The trader still feels confident in his long term position.

QFXMA only had a small trade since last update and it was a tiny loss. Up 1.86% month to date in the base account.

Forex accounts

2008-06-18T23:30:00.003-07:00

Devrim off some today, back to 20% down in 2X account.

QFXMA closed the trade with a nice profit. Up 1.92% for the month in the base account, 5.76% in 3X account. He sometimes holds the trade after New York session close, but the trade rarely lasts more than 24 hours. The trader assured us that he will continue to strive for low drawdown.

WON is still holding, down 2.1% in June including open positions.

Managed forex accounts update

2008-06-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

Devrim recovered quite a bit from his worst drawdown. The 2X accounts are still down about 17% in June (including a few percent floating loss in current open position), still a long way from full recovery but far better than 40%+ drawdown. The base account without additional leverage is more tolerable in its volatility, as we are looking at 20-25% historical maximum drawdown (the current one), with about the same range of potential net annual returns.

QFXMA had some trades in the past week. Down about 1% so far this month with a trade open right now.

WON is still holding his positions, floating down about 4.2% for June at the moment, it was down a few percent more at some point last week. I have talked to the trader to add more short term trades in the future, as I am not a big fan of long term trades, :)

Devrim account...ouch

2008-06-07T21:59:00.000-07:00

I thought Devrim might take some time off first this month after eking out a small profit in May, but he jumped right back into the market. By the end of Friday, the account got into an unprecedented drawdown, 40% in the 2X DEV account. I really don't like this particular trade, holding a hefty position over the NFP announcement and then over the weekend. This really makes me nervous. Have to see how this resolves next week. With these big drawdowns, the risk/reward looks a lot worse now than it did before last November. It probably makes more sense for most people not leveraging this account from now on. The 2X account should be regarded as high risk.

This drawdown makes me appreciate the low leverage in WON account particularly. We work with the trader closely and actually hold LPOA over this managed account, so we have direct input on risk management and leverage usage. The positions went against us by a few hundred pips earlier in the week, and yet we were only floating down a few percent, thanks to the low leverage. We are now up 2.5% for June with the market swinging in our favor by the end of the week, with the positions still open.

QFXMA (previously QFX) had no trades this week.

May performance of managed forex accounts

2008-06-01T00:54:00.002-07:00

Devrim did end the month with a small profit at PFG. 2X DEV account is up 0.91%. The account balance is actually slightly lower than that of last month end, simply because the April performance fee taken out is more than the profit this month. Nonetheless, it is another positive month, his twentieth in a row. I should mention that he was a bit more conservative at his own firm this month in terms of intra-month volatility and position size, and actually is carrying about 5% loss into June in the medium risk group. So depending on how you look at it (which broker), his winning streak can be considered ended too.

QFX trader came back from vacation and made a trade on Friday, a 1% loss in the base account. The base leverage account ended the month up 5.8%. We started 2X and 3X live tracking accounts on May 14, and they are up 2.55% and 3.82% respectively.

WON only traded lightly in the latter part of May because he moved to a new place. Trading activity should pick up some starting next week. The account made 14.52% profit in May, an exceptional month given the low leverage used. The target return is about 5% monthly. Holding couple of small open positions currently, down 0.6% on them.

I revoked POA on 007 after it had a good trade on Wednesday. What made me gave up on it is not the absolute magnitude of drawdown, but the fact that I don't see an upward trend of the equity curve (Jan 23 - May 29).

Quite a few traders on the radar screen, will see how things develop.

More recovery in DEV account

2008-05-27T22:29:00.001-07:00

DEV 2X managed account is now down less than 1% at the end of today. With three more days to go in May, I sure hope it can end the month in positive territory again.

Sentiment has been sitting near low point in drawdown for a long time. Will remove it from portfolio soon. It was not a disaster as far as drawdown goes, but it lasted too long and time is money.

No trade in QFX. Getting the web page ready for it.

WON up fraction of a percent. The trader will trade small $1K test accounts for up to 3 months before the $5K minimum kicks in.

007 hitting new lows for a few days in a row. Lost over 2% today. Peak-to-valley drawdown reached 18.7%, down 15.54% in May, and lost 12.39% overall since Jan 23, the start of the program at current broker. It was touted as low risk, low drawdown managed account, but it looks like we can slowly bleed to death this way. Ready to abandon ship with my test account.

Devrim has done it again...almost

2008-05-23T17:13:00.000-07:00

Devrim has recovered most of the losses. 2X DEV account is still off about 3.3% for the month. The positions are still open so we need to wait till next week to see the final resolution. It gives me hope again that we might end the month with some profit after all. Maybe I should not be surprised after so many times.

QFX managed account up a bit today, over 0.3% in 1X account, 1% in 3X account. Need to work on the web page this long weekend in prepration to offer it at PFG.

WON had no trade. I think he won't trade much for the rest of the month while settling in his new place. He has way exceeded his profit target this month anyway.

007 trader is now off 13.4% in May. Peak-to-valley drawdown swelled to 16.7% now. Overall drawdown since Jan 23 start is 10.2%.

Managed forex accounts update

2008-05-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

Devrim account recovered partially, nice to see the daily report. 2X DEV accounts are down only 6% or so for the month, a bit higher for those who joined while the account was up this month. We are not out of the woods yet, as there are still positions open with unrealized profits.

No trade in QFX and WON. We might need to rename QFX to something else as it might be confused with some existing program.

More loss for 007 managed account today, -2.6%. Peak to valley drawdown reached 14.25%. Down 10.9% in May, and a loss of 7.6% since start of the program on Jan 23. Care to see the daily equity curve? hm... just hit four more stop losses, down 3.8% more.

Forex accounts

2008-05-21T23:57:00.000-07:00

Devrim managed account got hurt more, ouch. DEV account (2X) equity is down about 16% on the month. Although we have been there before, I still get a bit anxious whenever we get into such drawdowns. He was able to recover to profitable month each time in the past, but I am not sure if he can do it this month with 7 trading days left and a lot of loss to make up. The market needs to move in his way big time. In the long term though, I still feel comfortable holding the 2X account.

QFX is up 6.44% this month on base account. We now have 2X and 3X accounts in trade at PFG as well. We observed about 5% drawdown during 3 months of test. Working on a track record page for it.

WON has done amazingly well in May on low leverage. When my test account first started mid-April, I coerced him to do ultra short term, strict day trades. It did not work out particularly well as it deviated a bit from his usual strategy. My account had a few percent drawdown by the end of April, after he did great in his own account for the first half of April. I gave him more freedom and he racked up a lot of pips of profit since then. He is already up 14.7% this month, using only 0.5:1 up to 3:1 of total leverage. I have only seen intra day drawdown less than 2%. He typically hold the trade from a few hours to a few days.

007 had its largest single losing day, down 7%. Peak to valley drawdown has reach 12%. Down 8.5% in May, and down 5.1% since Jan 23. As I said before, I see no up sloping of the equity curve at all. It only zigzagged around break even line for 4 months.

RGM up 2.2% this month. Profit is very moderate, but he is controlling risk very well with only a few percent intra month drawdown. Our goal is to find very safe traders and then leverage up the account a bit if desired.

Managed accounts weekly recap

2008-05-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

Devrim finished the week with a moderate drawdown. Equity is down about 1% on the month including open trades in 2X DEV account. I am not worried yet as he has two full weeks to pull out of it. He has done that many times before, but of course no guarantee he can do it every time. Let's see what next week brings.

WON started trading again. The open position has close to 1% unrealized profit. Test account is now available at Oanda. Contact us for past records and account opening information.

Couple of clients asked me about a new managed account that they read about called SELECT. One look at April trading report, and I am confident it was not from a real managed account.

QFX made some profit last week. It was down 3% in April, up 4.82% this month in the base leverage account. Like its low risk/drawdown. We split our master test account into 3 separate accounts, base account, as well as 2X and 3X accounts. That way, we can track the performance under different leverages separately. We will have account opening information soon.

007 lost all the profit since Jan 23 and more. Down about 1.5% after 3.7 months of trading at current broker. I am ready to pull the plug on the test account if I need it to test another account.

Have been working with a trader RGM for some time. He has been trying to control the loss to 2% for each trade since April 10. So it will be a low risk account as well if it works out. Past test account statement is here. Let's see how he performs in the next couple of months.

Managed forex accounts update

2008-05-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

Devrim to new high today, after closing down 1% yesterday. Up 3.46% in 2X DEV account. Carrying an open position at the end of day that is near even. Have not seen any meaningful drawdown yet this month, hope I did not jinx it by saying so. He is da man.

SEN up 2% in May, but still in the prolonged drawdown overall.

007 account had two losing days, down 1.6% or so on the month.

QFX had no new trade, as the trader has been traveling lately.

No new trades in WON either, as the trader just moved to Singapore. He will need to settle down first before trading again. He does not have internet access yet at the momemnt. Can't wait for him to resume trading.

A good week for managed forex accounts

2008-05-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

Devrim is holding a small position over the weekend. Equity is still up about 1.6% in 2X DEV account. Noticed Thursday that April performance fee was deducted from the accounts. I am going over the client accounts this weekend to make sure there are no obvious errors.

007 managed account had a good week, now up 2% in May. It is up 5.8% overall since Jan 23, much less than its performance prior to that. I think I know why that is the case.

QFX is up 1.3% overall, after one full month at the new broker PFG. Low drawdown as well as low profit so far, will continue testing.

WON had a great week. Working on a web page to put the trading records. Up 6% in a month (test started April 10) with very low leverage, 1.5:1 to 3:1. I wanted the trader to keep the leverage consistently low. Aggressive investors can always leverage it up 2X or 3X in the future to target higher returns, by taking on more risk.

Forex traders

2008-05-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

After a well deserved break, Devrim is trading again for the last two days. Down a little yesterday but closed the position with a nice profit today. 2X accounts are up 1.6%. Contact us to see detailed DEV account statements.

007 is now almost even for May, down only 0.2% after 3 up days.

QFX managed account is up about 1%.

WON is doing well again after going back to his comfort zone. Test account is up over 4% with low leverage. Has a 300pip winner still open.

Performance update on managed accounts

2008-05-03T17:03:00.000-07:00

Devrim finished April with 5.47% at PFG in 2X accounts. His profitable month streak is now at 19. No new trades at PFG since last update. He usually starts trading at his own firm first every month, where he made 1 trade, up 0.5% for medium risk group in May.

April was another down month for SEN, -4.02%. Up 1% this month.

QFX is about break even since April 10 at PFG. Its drawdowns are small,less than 5% in over 2 months of total testing period so far. Will test it longer. Old statement from a $25K account can be found here.

007 finished last month at 1.72% gain. Had two consecutive losing days in May, down 5.6%. Overall, it is down 2.1% since Jan 23, the start of managed account at current broker. Peak to valley drawdown is 9.2%. When I plotted the daily equity curve, it looks like random walk around zero line. Not impressed by the results so far although the drawdown was not excessive.

WON had a moderate drawdown of 5% after my small test account started because the trader changed his strategy to day trading. Now he is reverting to his old style of medium term, low leverage strategy. Test account is still down 2%.

Managed forex account update

2008-04-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

Devrim surprised me again with more trades today, made close to 0.7% in 2X account. So he is up almost 5.5% on the month.

Sentiment Aggressive dropped a bit more, down 5% in April. It is really struggling to get out of the current drawdown.

QFX had no trade. The trader agreed to lower the commission.

WON lost(pun intended, lol). Test account is down 3%.

Another bad day for 007, lost about 3.8%. Down 1.8% in April, up only fraction of a percent since Jan 23.

Volatile week for Devrim managed account

2008-04-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought the storm was over and it would be all smooth sailing for the rest of the month, Devrim got into another drawdown (about 12% in 2X account), but he ended up with a profit at the end of the week yet again. The 2X DEV account is up 4.8% for April. There is a high probability that he might not trade again this month, but I was wrong with such predictions before, so have to wait and see, lol.

QFX has been trading very conservatively, up about 1%. Hardly any drawdown at all, I like it so far. I am a little concerned that the commission might be eating up too much profit, so talking to the trader to lower the commission. Expect to have this one ready in couple of weeks.

007 partly recovered, up 2.2% or so for April. Up 4.2% overall since Jan 23, before 25% annual performance fee.

WON test account is back to even. It is a conservative account, so volatility should be low.

Managed accounts

2008-04-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

Dev is up more today. It is positive now month to date, about 1%. Has a small position on at the end of the day. He is amazing. I admit sometimes I am a bit scared during the drawdowns when the account has a pretty hefty leverage buildup, but it is good to see that he takes losses now more readily than ever.

007 down 3% today, lost all profit from Jan 23 to date.

QFX had a break even day but down a bit after commissions.

The trader forgot to trade my $100 WON account today, only traded his own account, lol. So I missed another 1% gain with low leverage. I do have statement from his account. The problem will be solved tomorrow when his account also goes into the "Fxmanager", Oanda's own incarnation of PAMM software. He traded aggressively in his own account this month, up well over 40% month to date. But he is more comfortable using low leverage trading other accounts.

Managed forex accounts update

2008-04-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

It has become a cliche, but yes, Devrim did it again. Devrim managed account at PFG pulled out of the drawdown and is down less than 1% for the month now. Still has a position on over the weekend with some unrealized profit. It looks like that he will probably continue his winning streak again this month.

SEN is down 2.5% in April.

QFX traded for couple of days, made small profit. Found out that the commission was not applied correctly, working with the broker to set it straight.

007 is up 0.6% month to date. Up 2.6% overall since Jan 23.

My tiny test account at Oanda for the trader I talked about in the last blog started trading. He put on a 150 unit position in a $98 account, up 2.3% in a day with this low leverage catching the drop in gbp/jpy. Most traders call this a 1.5:1 leverage, that is incorrect. In reality, it is 3:1 since 1 GBP is roughly 2 USD. Still thinking of a name for this one, I will call it "WON" for now.

Drawdowns in managed accounts

2008-04-09T22:57:00.000-07:00

Devrim managed account gave back the gains from last couple of days with a 7% loss on closed trades today, now down 9-10% in 2X accounts for April. It never feels good during a drawdown, but I remind myself that he has had larger intra month drawdowns before and came back to profitable months. With three weeks still left in April, I have no reason to doubt that he could do it again, although nothing is guaranteed in trading.

Sentiment is down couple of percent, very low volatility this month so far.

QFX still has no trade in the account yet, but everything is setup and ready.

007 had its largest single day loss today about 5%. Almost flat now for April, only 0.5% profit left.

Have been working with a young trader in Asia for couple of months now, chatting almost daily on YM. He shows a lot of promise, although he has no prior experience as money manager. He told me he has known a few dozen forex traders over the last few years, and he is the only guy surviving the learning curve. His key to survival was low leverage. I have seen 4 months of results from a small account at Oanda. It is not enough to make a final judgment, but I feel quite confident about him. He seems capable of producing consistent returns with low leverage. I setup Fxmanager account at Oanda for him, so that he can trade my small test account along with his own.

Managed accounts update

2008-04-07T23:28:00.000-07:00

Devrim had a rough start in April. The 2X account was down over 8% last week. The drawdown was reduced to 3.5% today on closed trades, but there is a new open position. Let's see how it plays out tomorrow. Noticed that the performance fee for March was deducted today.

There is hardly any movement in the Sentiment account.

QFX will start any time now.

007 finished March with a moderate 2.3% drawdown. It has done very well so far in April, up 5.5%. The overall gain reached 7.7% (gross of 25% annual performance fee) for the first account that started trading on Jan. 23 at the current broker. I like its low daily volatility and strict day trading approach. With its current fee structure, I am expecting 3% a month on average before performance fee. If the trader can achieve more, even better.