I quite often I will only place a trade a couple of days a week; I will take more if I see the setups, but my point is that being out of the market if nothing leaps out at you is the only workable approach. Capital preservation is the name of the game.
There are worse things than being out of the market: you could have followed me into my AUD/USD Short off the 240 and been currently a few pips down:
(Thought I’d try uploading a chart as you seem a little blue, give you some IT incompetence to laugh at lol!)
Here’s a chart I’ve just made up for newbies to have a look at. It’s the last 4 weeks Highs and Lows plotted on a 4 Hr chart. Lines may be a pip or two out, ( at the most ) due to the fact my charting package won’t let me draw a line exactly on the number I want to.
Over the last 4 weeks, as I have mentioned before, I’ve been keeping a note of the individual session highs / lows. ( Sydney, Tokyo, London, New York ) Then I’ve been noting the DAILY highs / Lows. And finally I’ve been noting the WEEKLY highs / Lows.
So this is the WEEKLY highs / lows. This weeks ( 10th - 14th October '11 ) data is NOT on this chart.
If my youngest falls asleep before the wolf reaches the 3rd little pig’s house, I may have time to make up the DAILY high / low chart.
I just thought it would be interesting for other newbies to look at and see how the levels have held as support / resistance.
Probably just riding the FX rollercoaster rather than being blue ST. And as you can see from my chart, I ain’t much better.
If anyone knows how to enlarge an image when uploading it, I would appreciate the advice.
If I’m honest with myself I reckon my biggest frustration is when dealing with such a small account size, and therefore such a small lot size, it takes a lot to see yourself getting further forward. This then leads to impatience and then to taking bigger chances than you, or I should say “I”, should take.
Then when you get a loss on a trade with a bigger risk, it knocks you back a couple of weeks worth of progress, which leads to impatience and then the vicious little circle starts over again.
On the flip side though, I suppose if it is possible to teach yourself this patience by growing a small account into a large account, it’s a great school to base a future career on eh?
Anyway, big bad wolf is in the pot and the youngest is in the land of nod, so i’ll try to do the other chart I was talking about, but if it turns out to just have too many lines to make any sense I’ll post to say so.
Going now because bloomberg has just reported Slovakia should be releasing result of vote any time now so it’s back to the trading platform.
Here’s another quick chart. Took the Euro Dollar short at 1-3658. Original stop at 1-3675. Original target double my stop at 1-3624.
Once trade was + 15 pips ( 1-3643 ) I moved my stop down to 1-3648 to lock in + 10. Then moved my target to 1-3589 as shown by orange line. May be a terrible attitude but I don’t really care if it gets to that target as I am now assured of + 10 pips anyway. Slow and steady gang
As I write this trade is now + 20. Tempted just to take it, but I reckon I’ll let it go. Nothing to lose.
Quick tip that might save you some time HOG… try putting up a 5/10/20 period Donchian Channel (upline and downline only, no middle). It shows the highest high and lowest low of PA. Try it out on the 4h EU… looking back on the chart you can quickly and accurately see areas of S/R.
Two quick things to write about before I head off to work this morning. One them I’ll go into more detail about tonight when I get time.
First one though is that yesterday, ForexAttack put a post on this thread regarding things that affect currency pairs, then I posted a response to that. Also last night I was mucking around adding images to this site and trying to resize them and then deleting them. I’m now beginning to think I’ve deleted ForexAttack’s post by mistake as I can’t see it here now.
I’d just like to apologise to ForexAttack and assure you this was completely unintentional. I’d be delighted if you could repost info as it was worth knowing. Once again, sorry about that.
Second thing is I shorted the Euro Dollar last night at 1-3638 and woke this morning to find price dropped to 2 pips above my target then reversed and I’m 20 pips down right now. How frustrating is that ???
Actually, I’m feeling rather happy about it though because I took the trade using the embryonic stages of my “system”. I’ll try to explain it better tonight but basically it just involves the 4 weekly highs / lows I posted above and 2 EMA’s ( 6 peroid and a 20 period ).
Almost at stop out level now but may well be $3 well spent.
It’s really fickle at the moment - while I see the case for shorting now, recent experience has taught me not to expect too much. Could turn around anywhere between here and 1.39 and I would not be surprised!! Finding it pretty choppy at the moment. Frustrating times!
Agreed… it went a tad higher than we thought a few days ago but scraped a 70 plus point short before it reversed. I’m thinking were on more solid ground here though. I use multi period Donchain Channels for points of S/R and notice that PA reversed to the pip off what once was support at the 100 period DNC (1.3834).
And certainly the current chart is making you look clever! I have never used Donchain Channels, confess I don’t even know what they are lol. Looking good for your trade currently, though, nice work. I’ve been stopped out on one already today, so am just on the outside feeling bruised currently! One of those ‘take a deep breath and another slug of coffee’ moments.
Interestingly, I had 1.3834 on my chart as a soft level of Resistance, but have been ignoring soft levels, recently, as reactions are pretty random. What timeframe are you using your Donchain Channels with, if I can ask (understand if it is a trade secret lol!)?
Shorted at 1-3815 this morning. Just moved my stop down to 1-3755 a few minutes ago to keep some profit. Interested if it would be possible for R Carter to post a view of chart with Donchian channels. I tried to download Donchian channel indicator to my platform and put 3 different time periods on my chart.
Not entirely sure if I’ve done it right though as my chart now resembles a road map of Birmingham.
Thank you, I will have a play around with, always like to understand new things. That could be the title of your autobiography - ‘I Have No Secrets - A Trader’s Story’.
Unfortunately my book, if written today, would be something more along the lines of ‘Don’t Trade While The Kids Are Eating Breakfast At The Same Table, and other trading rules’.
LOL!!! Try having 12 kids ST… 9 are still at home (4yrs- 17yrs). Its a killer time of day (Frankfurt/ London open) to put together a coherent trade and juggle breakfasts and school runs… oh for the good old days when I went out to work!
Ah you have me there HOG… I like you am ‘computer’ly challenged’ and BP I understand have changed the way to upload pics? But I’ll give it a go…
