My hobby is forex trading and I'd like to post my signals daily on a blog. I have a system that is mechanical and is automated, so I was thinking of posting my trading results in some kind of log, together with what my current position is (long or short).

The trading bot I've written could easily update a website every time a trade occurs.

The idea being to develop a "following" of people who get a kick out of seeing me either win or lose, trade for trade.

Thumbs up or down for the idea or is it already done to death?

Bluebeard:

who know.  post your application or the results.  Would be interesting.

how cares about a complete stranger's money?

now, if it were Paris Hilton's positions ....

Google forex.  It seems to be a very popular topic, especially for ads.

Lots of ads = competition for high placement = high paying adsense

You'd probably make a fortune with Adsense, if your site is big-time popular.

I'm not sure what the FTC would say about this -- concievably, if enough people read your blog, you might sway the market.  Or use the blog for "pump and dump" activities.

Otherwise, it sounds fascinating.

+1 STH, sounds interesting.

" concievably, if enough people read your blog, you might sway the market."

Oh to have such power hehe. Forex is a multi-trillion dollar daily market and retail traders like myself make up a paltry 2% of the market so an individual could not sway things, probably not even Bill Gates himself.

I would read it.

"I would read it."

Only if you promise not to laugh at my bum trades :D

Do it. There are people with "systems" who make subscribers pay a lot of money for their "signals".

Not sure why I am "quoting" so "much".

"
Only if you promise not to laugh at my bum trades :D"

Well, then what's the point.  Kinda like watching NASCAR and not being allowed to see the cars crash.

"Bluebeard"

So you actually trade real money and potentially mak money?

Forex trading a hobby? Instead of online poker, or playing the lottery? Kinky man, kinky.

Do you use Oanda.com?

people will pay for a 'value add', ie, a trader with name brand recognition (ie, success) or personal hooks/stories of woe and joy. they won't pay for an anonymous stream of buys/sells disconnected to anything.

add an emoticon to every trade, at least. :)

"So you actually trade real money and potentially mak money?"

Yes, the account I'll share with people will be trading full lot trades using real cash.

1 lot = 10 dollars per "pip".

A pip, for those not familiar with this racket, is a 0.0001 move between two currency pairs.

So for instance in a currency pair like EURO/DOLLAR let's say I go "long" (I hold my money in Euros with the expectation of the Dollar weakening).

I open the trade at an imaginary 1.3782 position. The market moves 3 pips in my favour, but I must reach 1.3785 to cover the market maker's spread, usually 3 pips on this currency pair.

The market coninues in my favour and goes up to 1.3810. At that point I take profit for 25 pips or $250. This can happen in a matter of 2 hours depending on how volatile the market is.

If the opposite happens, I close the trade with a pre-determined stop loss so that I don't bleed too many dollars.

Forex is insanely leveraged at up to 400:1, meaning that to trade a theoretical $100 000, the market maker leverages me 400:1 so that I only put $250 into "margin".

Is there a newbie guide for this stuff and what is a good entry point?

$1000 for just messing around?

Do you use Oanda.com?

No I use CMS because their trading platform has an API for automating trades with my own indicators.

I've written it in C# and it runs pretty much all the time except for the 1.5 days on the weekend when FX trading stops.

http://www.cmsfx.com

Is there a newbie guide for this stuff and what is a good entry point?

There are many newbie guides. I used to have many links to them but alas I no longer have them bookmarked.

http://www.forexfactory.com is a fun place to start but be warned that 90% of the crowd there are hacks looking to make a quick buck from any "holy grail" system anyone is prepared to share online.

The rake's progress in Forex trading is usually along these lines though:

Phase 1.

Hey... look Ma.. I can make money easy with this here forex... LOOK.. I just made an easy $500...on ONE trade

Phase 2.

Oh noes... i lost my $500 the next day..the market hates me...waaaaaaaah!

Phase 3. (if the rake persists)

I will read and learn charts! *studies candlesticks, heads and shoulders, trend lines etc*

This is called discretionary trading, that is, reading meaning into patterns on historical data.

Phase 4. (if the rake is still not disillusioned)

Bah. I'm still losing money. Indicators are what I need!*searches for the holy grain indicator combination that will lead to boundless wealth*

Phase 5.

Indicators suck! I will backtest my system now so that I know my trades will make money in the future...

Phase 6.

Blah... backtesting sucks because it makes money in the past but not in the future. Why does my winning system fail when I trade it in real time?

Phase 7. (if not completely disgusted with the whole racket)

My backtesting must be statistically testable to see what the probability is of it making money in the future...

*tries neural networks, genetic optimisation, entry/exit systems*

Phase 8

Finally, with careful optimization and a well matched indicator/instrument I'm starting to make a bit of money.

Was it worth the effort? Only time will tell....

As long as you keep those stop-loss boys in place, sounds like a fun way to gamble.

Just don't ever kid yourself that anything you do is ever anything but blink luck.

Bluebeard:

What is a newbie starting point, in terms of money.  I really want to do this.

"What is a newbie starting point, in terms of money.  I really want to do this."

Bot:

http://www.cmsfx.com/en/my-account/open-free-practice-account/

Open up a paper trading account (a simulated account) using an imaginary $1000.

You'll trade the real market using imaginary dollars.

Make it $1000 because in all likeliness you'll trade mini-lots ($1 per pip) before trading full lots ($10 per pip) if you were trading real money.

Download the trading platform and try it out.

If you don't like http://www.cmsfx.com for whatever reason try http://www.oanda.com or http://www.gftforex.com ...all 3 are fairly well-known market makers...

"Just don't ever kid yourself that anything you do is ever anything but blink luck."

Never a truer word said ;-)

If you did this with explanation as to why you did stuff (and a few witty comments), you could make a killing on adsense. I'd be in like a shot.

The neat thing about forex trading, apart from making a bit of tom, is that programming skills are a MAJOR advantage over non-programming traders.

The ability to write systems and backtest them, the in-depth knowledge you gain from *really* understanding how a trading system works gives you a major advantage over the "trader" types who just do "gut feel" trading or who backtest using 3rd party tools only.

I use a combination of my own hand-cobbled backtester and this product of whose praises I cant' sing enough...

http://www.tradingsolutions.com

Start the blog!

I'll subscribe to the RSS and tell my friends.

Yea, cool idea, plus we can make comments.

tradingsolutions.com provides the historic data for your backtest?

Yeah, for those reasons, Bluebeard, I had a great interest.

I explored some of the oss platforms for building your own backtesting software.  I found currencies a lot less interesting than options and derivatives, however. 

I have some great books on how to apply the various design patterns to financial derivatives. 

Of course, I can't maintain an interest in anything more than 3-6 months.  Right now I'm back to reverse engineering.  Maybe someday I'll get back to trading software.