It is almost the end of June, half a year has gone by. I think it is a good time to take a look at the results generated by my discretionary trading. That’s what this blog focuses on- trades taken not by following a “system”, but rather compilation of trading strategies with a small dose of a “gut feeling”. Mostly, though, some rules are employed only not as rigidly as they would be if traded in a mechanical, systematic approach. I make the decisions, not a software or robot, hence “discretionary” trading.
In early April I went over my sample results for first quarter of the year. That post focused on not using much leverage and this trend continued. Most of the trades used 1:1 leverage, a few a little more, but almost all were 2:1 or under. In fact, that account only had one trade with 2:1 leverage, and that was the very good GBP-JPY trade from few weeks ago. Other than that, no leverage. I want to remind that these figures apply to individual trades, not total trades in the account at any given time. But even that was modest. I don’t think that effective margin ever exceeded 5:1 level.
Trading environment changed a little from the first quarter of the year. Moves have become smaller, price ranges have gotten more compareble to historical averages, falling from the extreme levels of early 2009. My trades’ objectives were not as ambitious, fewer transactions were made using daily and weekly charts. Also, my funds were spread out across more accounts and sub-accounts, which resulted in less trading in any one account.
I will discuss the same account as in my report before. For details of performance from the start of the year, read the original post, Trading Forex without (much) leverage. In a nutshell account was almost doubled by mid  April, from original 120K to about 234K.

On the 14th I decided this was too much for one account and withdrew/ transferred out most of the funds, bringing this one to a much more reasonable (for me) level. New balance was 73K.

Trade size immediately dropped to be in line with new reality, much smaller than before. Here is what happened over next couple of weeks.

Trades remain mostly at cash value, or the account size, but they get larger as the equity grows. Snapshot from early June. 

As I mentioned before, there had been far fewer trades taken than in previous period. In fact, even the trade I’ve been going on and on lately, long GBP-CHF, is opened in another account. This one is trade-less for the time being.

Current balance is 116K, from 73K two and a half months ago, or under 60%. Close enough. This is less that first quarter, but taking all things into consideration, not bad at all. For one, I’m happy with it and only hope that it can be kept up for the rest of the year. That probably will not happen in this account. It is unlikely new positions will be opened this week, before my vacation, so most of July will see no activity at all, that’s why next quarter is expected to be slower. But one never knows for sure.
This is pretty much representative of all my discretionary accounts for the period. Will check it again at the end of September and see how the third quarter turned out.

Mike K.