I am a reasonably ancient gimmer living in the ‘yuk’ and have studied many trading strategies, read a lot of books and dabbled over the last few years, oh and also lost a chunk of money to boot. Sound familiar?
I have recently been trying to find out which style of trading suits me and have cobbled together my method from lots of different people here on BP and am using this as my log to see if I can make it to become a Totally Independent Trader.
I am basing my trading in the vein of the technical templates threads of Tess, Jocelyn and Tonymand et al (I hope I can learn to live up to their standards) with a sprinkling of others you may recognise along the way.
I feel I am a concessionary trader, rather than a mechanical one, that is I look at price action (yawn!) and attempt to follow it’s gyrations along the way. I am also only following Cable, why bother with loads of currency pairs which are all bobbing up and down?
The chart below shows the current daily chart with price bouncing strongly off the 79% retracement level, this is often a good entry point for a counter trend trade with a sl below the low.
I will be looking to buy my ticket to the show next week, whether it be a buy or continue with the selling.
What I will be looking for to convince me to buy is the higher high and higher low pattern being exhibited as price is bounced back and forth by the institutional players. I will be taking particular attention to price action against the resistance and support levels shown on the 15m chart.
Heads up for next week, we have nfp day on friday, but little else to worry about on the news front so far.
Bias is decidedly bearish so we are initially looking to get short at either the near term resistance of 1.5213 or the higher tf resistance of 1.523, but on the lookout for evidence of the bulls taking charge and attempting to push price further northwards.
On the other hand, we need to take out last weeks’ low of 1.5164, and preferably closing below on the daily. The other scenario is that we see a day or so of consolidation as control is changed over from bearish to bullish for a significant ride north of here. I have highlighted my area where this may take place with the purple lines, but nothing is written in stone! It’s at times like this when we must obey our rule of “If in doubt-stay out”
I will wait until London open before making a play if I see a suitable entry.
Just placed my first trade as price negotiated near the 79% retracement of friday’s high. SL tucked nicely above the consolidation area, minimum lot size taken, purely speculative at this point. Expecting turbulence around 1.5180.
Looking rather bullish now, I suppose I will have to let the market prove me wrong this time, but price appears to be marching northwards. If I get stopped out, I will be looking to get long on a pullback possible at this resistance of 1.52300.
Well looking back at my short trade, I probably should have been sidelined all day as price is simply going sideways with a hint of bullishness (probably going to be another up day or so to come) will look at London open for another chance tomorrow.
Well what a difference a day makes! just when I was beginning to think the bulls had it in the bag, the bears decide to drag price right back down again.
Looking at the daily we have made a 79% retrace of the last upswing and y’day made a rather weak looking bullish IB. For me today’s trading will largely depend on whether the bears can drag price below y’days low of 1.51825 or whether the bulls can make it past the high of 1.52479 not to mention Friday’s high & low.
Another play may be to sell the highs to the lows and buy the lows to the highs for the day if the mood takes you. However price is making higher lows, so one half of the bullish jigsaw is in place. Maybe a punt of a buy breakout above the high of 1.52479 with a corresponding sell b’out below 1.51825 with limit orders would give you an each way bet!
The only news today is Halifax house prices which may cause a little waver of price but other than that I would expect nothing major to upset the applecart.
No Trade for me today, wasn’t sure of direction so I stayed out.
Here’s a couple of entries that would have worked had I been confident in selling into the higher trend, but at these deep retracements there’s more chance of being stopped out on more than one occasion. Better to preserve capital if doubtful as there’s always another day.
Entry 1 is pullback of 79% retracement of y’day high to prior low. TP1 is prior day’s low, TP2 is prior week/month low, TP3 is round number & H4 support with about 90 pips on the table
Yesterday closed solidly in the low part of the move yesterday showing the bears are still pretty much in charge at the moment. We have now broken the 79% retracement of the last upswing and are targeting the 89% level @ 1.50890 and below that is the actual swing low of 1.50072 on the 29th May, if this is pierced we are in for much lower prices. We have to see if the bulls can or wish to make an appearance in the next few days or it’s just another day at the office for the bears.
Today we have Halifax house prices @ 8:00 am and in the US ISM non manufacturing @ 3:00pm to worry about, either could provide a spike to events, so mark them on your charts. Other than that I’ve got my shorts on but watching for the bulls to make an appearance.
Stopped out, is this the bulls making an appearance? we’ll have to see, sidelined for now. This is what you expect when you don’t wait for the correct trigger candle formation!
My trade was completely blown away, I didn’t have a chance of saving anything from it, but I played it as I saw it.
Lookin at the M15 chart below it looks like it also blew out a lot of other bears too as price has made a good bullish engulfing candle (so far) of the last two day’s total movement. Waiting for retracement.
Yesterday’s bull run appears to me to simply have been a cheap trick to make some extra cash by the institutional players who move the markets. Myself (and many other traders I presume) was misguided in thinking the bulls were finally coming out to play and the super run up the ladder was the first signs of recovery of an ailing currency pair. Today there was little movement in price all day, each move higher resulted in a similar move down and vice versa for moves down, as if it was being ‘held in suspension’ until, that is, the news release of the new governor of the BOE’s first speech.
Wham! Price simply rocketed downwards as if someone had pressed the button on a nuclear bomb, down she went like a lead balloon right back where we were yesterday morning with no bull in sight afterwards.
What a good trick, getting the herd in a buy frenzy one day, holding them there until a pre-defined time to gather all their aspirational bets and simply wipe all stops off the table. Well Done sir. Who says large institutional players don’t trade the news? Glad I was sidelined.
Now that the smoke cleared some, i am in long on gpb/usd @ 1.5077. If am up 20 pips or more before the news, i will pull the trigger and wait for the guns to go off. if not i will :17:.
Hi tonyro44, thanks for popping in, I am waiting to go long on cable myself, but I choose to wait until the method I am trying gives me a confirmation price is going to go up, so far I’m not convinced but watching. Tomorrow is nfp day, often you will see a similar situation develop just before the news as today. Just watch if you can and you decide.
Hi kymberly2000, I’ve noticed this behaviour in the markets before around news times and even played the news myself, the trouble is you have to guess which direction the markets will go, which often times is opposite to what you would expect. In my opinion it’s not the news that moves the markets, it’s the big players who use the news to bury their mis-deeds in. After all the news recorders will always say the news drives the markets, just my opinion.
If you can watch the nfp tomorrow, see if a similar pattern of events happens again.
Looking at my M5 chart we see strength coming into the market by the high volume on the down moves (the ticks) and the cros signals a no supply. Also inverted head & shoulders.
Initial buy in place ahead of nfp, let’s see if it holds.
if not i will :17:.