just a quick wee update on my trade before I go to bed. I’m currently making 19 pips profit, $1.90 ( price at 1-43469 ) and to be honest I am itching to hit the “close trade” button. I have since moved my stop up to 1-4330 and my TP to 1-4375 so at the very least I will make 2.1 pips.
I suppose though this is another lesson that has to be learned. Once you have made a trade have the will to see it through, even though it is tempting to book the 19 pips.
Anyway, goodnight all.
HoG
hog,
ride it to the end if that’s what you planned. No emotions! Better a loss with proud because you followed your plan, than panic. There were reasons for the plan, right? Think of those reasons. Only exception would be, if those reasons have changed in time.
Regarding your question. This 1.4450 is a key resistance, because it was one before. Price bounced there already. Maybe some other reasons, too. But I see that as key reason.
Hi HoG,
1.4450-1.4460 area is a strong resistance because is the first pullback from the downfall at 1.4940 and the 50% fibo of 1.4940-1.3970
The fibo you drew on the 1H is fine. the most important levels to watch are 38.2% and 50%…
1.4270 MIGHT BE a good entry for a long trade in order to grab some pips: is the 38.2% fibo, 4H down trendline and may 31 daily low.
But you have to do your own analysis and determine your risk/reward
Oh Buckscoder, if only I had the commitment you speak of. As I wrote yesterday I bought at 1-43279. Set my initial stop at 1-4310 and my TP at 1-44. But then before I went to sleep, as the price was at that time trading at 1-4349, I decide to move my stop up to 1-4330. Sure enough the price dipped to the 1-4324 are before heading North again and the last I looked was at 1-4408 this morning.
If I had left my original trade untouched I would be sitting with a healthy 72 pip profit just now instead of a 2.1 pip profit.
Funny thing is people search the web for information on how to learn to trade. How the technicals work and the charts etc. And there is plenty of info out there, some good some bad, that mewbies swallow in there quest to strike it rich. But what they don’t know at that time is the psychological skills that are also involved in trading which are probably every bit as important as the technical skills.
The psychological info probably is out there, but is overlooked by too many people as they probably don’t believe that is necessary. But at the end of the day we ARE human and as such need to learn to master the emotional side of trading as well as the technical stuff.
However, that said, positives to taken from that trade are this:
Silly thing is that I let the trade run in my demo account and DID make the 72 pips.
HoG
hog,
at least I made some pips, lol. 1xx range something like that, lol.
Well don’t let psycho stuff brainwashing your head. You have to have a plan and then executing that plan to the pip. Leave your mind out of the game as long as you execute the plan. Use your brain just to make up that plan. If the order is running, until it hit sl, leave it as it is. If you have a fixed tp even better. No second guessing. I don’t use always a fixed tp, though. So, if I let a trade breath, I must watch for bouncing signs.
Anyways. Congrats to your 2 pips. Better safe than sorry! You minimized risk. Which is not a bad, but a good thing. Anyhow. Trailers and all that stuff doesn’t work in the long run if you have far targets. Because prices move in steps. 2 steps forward, 1 step backward, and so forth. So, high risk to get hit by a retrace. If you place you stop higher/lower, look for a reason WHERE to put that.
Happy pipping!
Hello HoG!
I am totaly agree about the fact that we are all humans 
Sure, we can and what even more, I think that we have to feel and know our feelings and emotions. If you know yourself and your emotions, feeling, how they affect you, then you become stronger as you can prdict in what situations it could affect your mind and decisions. When emotions affect on our mind, then we should wait for losses. It’s just impossible to analyse market and it’s movement in this case.
I have drew my plan, to improve not only my knowledge of trading, but my own temper as well. You know…the fight on all fronts and never give up. step by step, as all of us. One more thing that I have learn, is the following (though, it would be the well known fact, I suppose). When the price is going up (for example) on the 1 or 5 min frame, but on the 15 min frame the price goes down, then it’s quite dangerous to by in this case, as the market mor eprobably go down in this case. The small thing is a part of bigger. That was my next small, but it is worth my time
p.s. Thanx yunny1 for the link !
Micro Accounts is an illusion. If you daytrade it’s fees or spreads are huge in proportion to standard account for most brokers. There are only 2 brokers I would advice if you have a small account: Oanda or Marketiva, these 2 have same rate fees that your account is big or small.
Hello All
Well the start of trading is only a short time away for this week. Last week my account went up by $2. Not a massive amount of money by any means, ( haven’t ordered the private jet just yet ) but considering it is the first week my account has gone up instead of down since I started FX, it is a boost nevertheless.
Account standing at just over $65 just now so still very firmly in survival mode ( I suppose we all are ). So the goal for this week, would be to take the balance over $70. Since I am dealing in micro account and each pip is approx. 10 cents, this would require me to show at least a 50 pip profit for the week
However, with properly planned trades instead of gambling, I believe this is achievable for me. Still working my way through the school of pipsology. Printed a load of the lessons off so I could read them while I was at work.
Interesting point to note for me is that one of the the CNBC Money In Motion TV programmes recommended trades this week was to BUY AUD/USD and the analyst web site I get with my trading platform is calling a SELL. Not normally my pair as i’m not up to speed with commodity related currencies but I’m going to watch how it goes.
They have also recommended BUYING EUR/GBP which is another trade I fancy this week, maybe even from the open, however they did say you might be advised to wait to see if it dips back down to around the 0-8850 level
Good luck to all this week
HoG
Just a quick note before I wander off to bed. First trade of the week was closed for a 5.6 pip profit. Only 44.4 pips now needed to achieve this week’s target of 50 pip total. Never took the AUD/USD trade, wish I had at 1-0720, currently around the 1-0760 area.
New criteria is not to leave a trade running while I’m in bed, not until I get better at this anyway, so got bored watching ranging EUR/USD and took my 5.6.
Off to bed now gang, goodnight
HoG
EU is in the high end Asian range, likewise AU. Might want to look for a short off London as both are at the upper range on the daily TF.
Hello HoG!
My congratulations about your trade!
I have tried to trade on a flat market today (on 1 and 5 min frames) and I think, I will never trade like this ever. I have been watching the price going up and down without any visible success. I think, that flat market is a kind of indicator that there will be something great soon. I should check it more
Quick question for those who know. I understand there is no direct correlation between any one entity and a currency, however, in general, if the S&P 500 drops, is it fair to expect the dollar to strengthen? And then in turn, if equities drop or rise, is it fair to expect the dollar to have the opposite course? Or is there no link at all between equities and currency?
HoG
I am still learning myself and there are others here who are experts on this subject, but as a newbie I believe there is a correlation between the stock market and forex, or currency. Anytime you exchange currency you are effecting the markets, whether it be in buying equities, real estate or products, as long as there is an exchange you effect the economy in some areas to a lesser or more degree, depending on the extremity of the exchange. My two cents!
Hi Pingback
It is interesting your use of the word ‘EXPERTS’. I have no doubt there are people here with more knowledge than you and I, but I am becoming more and more frustrated with certain so-called EXPERTS. I’ll tell you why
The pair I trade most is the EUR/USD. And the analyst site I read has been touting the demise of the EUR for several weeks now. Sure enough on Thursday the EUR jumped off a cliff and the ‘EXPERTS’ were quick to tell the world how they had predicted this.
One said in one of his broadcasts that “True to form, as we predicted, the EUR/USD reached the 61.8% retracement from the 2009 high o the 2010 low, and then tanked.” Tanked wasn’t his choice of words, that was me cutting his speech short.
Anyway, said analyst seemed very pleased with himself for predicting this event, but the 2 problems I have with this are as follows:.
Sure, historically the charts of the event will show that the price did indeed reach the 61.8% Fib figure and then continue down. But what those charts WON’T show is the speech a certain mister TRICHET made on Thursday that CAUSED the price to fall. They didn’t fall just because they hit 61.8%. And there’s no way on earth any analyst predicted that especially when you consider he used his ’ strong vigilance’ hint which usually makes the price go up, yet it still went down because of what else was contained in the speech.
If I predict that my dog is going to die long enough, at some point I am going to get it right. But does that then give me the right to proclaim myself as the new Nostradamus?
I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that there is no ‘Holy Grail’ in FX. There is no one single answer that us newbies so desperately search for. It’s merely a matter of waiting til a price movement happens and then joining in to catch some of it. Trying to pre-empt a move more times than not will lead to getting your fingers burned.
Like the ‘EXPERT’ I wrote about last week who, on the CNBC Money in Motion TV programme, tipped the AUS/USD to reach the 1-09 area from around 1-072ish. She showed you all her charts and analysis and all was well in her world. But just look at where that pair is right now and I bet she’s using those charts as toilet tissue right now.
My account is now down at $44-86 because of what is probably a classic newbie mistake. I’m very much on life support right now and to be honest even I’ll be surprised if I don’t bottom out. I wrote about the mistake on my fx diary blog. Again I’m treating it as a lesson learned, probably the best lesson I’ve learned so far, but at some point soon these lessons had better start paying off because there ain’t much left in the tank right now.
HoG
It sounds to me like you do your homework. I still can’t make a lot out of Forex right now. Still learning, I was doing some intense study but I have refrained to make it a Hobby until I am sure I can make money. And money is the reason. You can call it a pip or what ever, but it’s still money and you either profit or you don’t. Most of the experts or long term traders I have read about are rich anyway, or they at least have a decent account like thousands of dollars, so they can risk more. Gain more in the long run. I have always learned in the real world and especially economics (and it doesn’t take a Forex expert to know this) that everything is tied in one way or another to every other thing that you are dealing with. If it’s stock or equities, we all know that Fundamentals plus Technological ideals are used to make money, as well as the profit potential of the company itself. There is also the Chaos theory which I reckon it to Murphy s law. So what I am trying to say, I guess is that, like you said, there is no magical formula to anything, including Forex or Stock trading. The only thing, in my opinion we can do is learn, practice, make our own predictions and hope we can profit. After all that’s part of why we learn is to be able at some point to make our own decisions, and with a little or a lot of practice and a few hard knocks then maybe it will come together like an arrow out of the sky, then maybe we can call it magic. My two Pips worth.
Just lifted this from my diary as a lesson to all other newbies. Better to learn from other people’s mistakes than try to make the ALL yourself :
" Last week, rather than make my intended 50 pip profit, I ended up with just over a 200 pip loss. Balance went from $67 area to $43 area before I made a few pips back to finish the week at $44-86. So what went wrong ??
Probably a classic beginner’s mistake I would imagine, or at least, a couple of beginners mistakes.
Big news event for the Euro last week was Jean Claude Trichet’s speech on Thursday lunchtime GMT. I would imagine that the experienced trader would wait for the speech to end, gauge the reaction and trade accordingly. But oh no, that would be far too simple for a beginner like me. I need to get involved BEFORE the speech.
And to be fair, it almost worked, had I not decided to get too fancy and just left things alone, I would have been fine. Let me explain.
On the evening of Wednesday 8th of june, (the night before the speech ), I decided to SELL the EUR/USD at 1-4590 ish. I put my stop at 1-4655 but put no TP as I thought that in the event of things going my way I would just let it ride.
Up until an hour before the speech, that trade was losing roughly 30 pips, trading around the 1-4620 area, however I was still in a positive mood about the whole thing as I thought the debt crisis Europe finds itself dealing with right now would not allow the price of the Euro to go a helluva lot higher. So, as I said, up until an hour before the speech, I was doing fine.
But that is when inexperience raised it’s ugly head and I began to second guess myself. I decided that I would get a bit fancy and catch any jump in price right at the start. So this is what I did.
For some bizarre reason I decided to lower my stop on my first trade to 1-4650. Then I placed a BUY order at 1-4650, so that I could catch the price as it shot up through the roof. Yes, those of you who know what happened must be shaking your heads right now. For those of you who don’t, here’s what happened.
As the price bobbed along during the speech at around 1-4620, Mr Trichet used his ‘Strong Vigilance’ phrase which has become ECB code for, “Listen gang, us guys here at the ECB are going to raise interest rates next month.” And with this, the EUR/USD price spiked in less than a heartbeat to 1-4651.
This cancelled my first SELL trade, locking in a 60 pip loss, and at the same time opened my BUY trade at 1-4650.
Incidentally, where was I while this account busting action was taking place? Was I sat in front of the PC watching every move? Was I glued to the TV listening to every syllabel coming out of Mr Trichet’s mouth?
Eh…No! I was in the garden spraying weedkiller on the back pathway. ( That was probably the biggest mistake now that I see it wrote in black and white !! )
It was then that Mr Trichet decided to change the tone of the outlook and just as quickly as the price spiked, it then promptly fell off a cliff and by the time I caught it, I had made a further 156 pip loss.
So at $44-86 I’m definitely on life support. It’ll take a monster effort to ressurect this account but hey, what else ya gonna do ??"
Hope this helps other beginner’s out there.
HoG
Hey Pingback
To be honest with you, I’m not entirely sure that it’s doing my homework that’s getting me into trouble in the first place. From your comment above it sounds like you have some sort of background in economics. But I do not have such training. And it is maybe that fact that I try to make sense of such issues that causes my problems.
You see, I’m still having a very difficult time trying to work out the difference from my Demo account to my Live account. I do well in my Demo because I give my trades more room to breathe. But all I do analysis wise on my demo is simply follow trends on charts.
In my live account I try to pay attention to world events, that quite frankly, at this stage, I struggle to understand.
So maybe it would simply be better for me to trade from a sort of voyeur’s perspective. ie simply watch the trend and trade in that direction without getting too bogged down in the analysis of it all. With that in mind I’ll tell you my plan for this week and we’ll both see how it works out.
At approx. 07.30 GMT, on the morning of JC Trichet’s speech last week. ( Thurs. 9 th June 2011 ) the EUR/USD was trading at roughly 1-4640. Discount the spike in price during the speech and what you have is a drop to a low of around 1-4320 ( 1-4325 as I write this ). However, the pair had been in a decline since about the 4 th May 20011 when the price was roughly 1-4935. So we shall assume we are in a downtrend.
Back to the morning of the speech, granted the price may well continue lower, but if we were to take the 1-4640 on the morning of June 9th, and draw a Fib to the low of 1-4320, we would find the following retracements:
23.6% 1-4397
32.8% 1-4445
50% 1-4482
So I would imagine the price will bounce at some point and then I do believe it will continue lower. So here is my plan. It may work, it may be nonsense in the eyes of people with greater knowledge, but hey, it’s my plan.
If the price DOES bounce from here, I think I will look to SELL somewhere in between the 23.6% and the 32.8% ( I would think if the price rose back up to 1-4430 / 35 level I would enter.
So the 32.8% extension of that move is around the 1-4195 level and that is where I would look to put my initial TP. Stop loss would be put at just above the 50% at around 1-4490, maybe 1-45.
Last major support level I can see is around the 1-3960 / 75 area so if things are going the right way I’ll lower the stop and the TP. I won’t need to let you know how I get on because it will be out there for all to see, but I will tell you when I have entered the trade.
Of course, if the price continues to fall I’ll just wait til it finds a temp bottom and work things out from there.
HoG
Hi HOG
I’ve been following along with interest. In the garden spraying weeds. LOL!!!
I’ve been at this more than a few years and can tell you three things for sure. 1. I’m never in a trade when possible high impact news is about to be released. 2. I figure aside from the above and the discovery of a comet heading for earth the fundamentals and sentiment are already factored into the charts… daily and up. 3. I would never take a trade on any set up unless I see confirmation at that level, whatever it might be… S/R, fibs, Stochs, etc doesn’t matter… look to PA at the point your thinking of entering at and look see what its doing, no second guessing or crystal balls and you’ll be fine.
Free practice accounts are the best way to learn. No loss. Most good online brokers have free practice accounts.
I agree with RCarter’s post, but to add my own thoughts: I would never trade the news; if this is to be a long-term career then I don’t need to be trading anything that is that unpredictable. Secondly, I would never use second-hand analysis. I would strongly recommend only placing trades based on your own, direct analysis of both the technical and fundamental pictures. Even good analysts often disagree with one another on the detail. Given that we are only retail traders, those small grey areas can make the difference between a winning trade and a losing trade. Thirdly, as RCarter said, I would only enter a trade if I get a valid setup according to my strategy. A generic belief that a pair will fall is not specific enough to make consistent money from, as you are discovering. So apologies if this sounds preachy, but I am trying to help: do your own analysis, always understand in detail why you are in a trade and why you want to stay in that trade, and do not place yourself in front of key news announcements, those would be my three pieces of advice.
Hope that helps. The fact that you are recognizing where you went wrong strongly suggests that you will make this work.
And I would not worry about spraying the weeds while you trade: one of the joys of Forex trading is that once you are confidence in your strategy you can go and get on with life once you have placed a trade and let them play out. I washed the car while netting some pips this morning. So personally, I don’t think that getting on with chores was the mistake you made - sitting hunched over the screen can help you learn, but can also draw you into fiddling with your trades, or overtrading. For me, it sounds as though you made two mistakes: trading the news (particularly without a clear setup), and tightening your Stop for no real reason once you had entered a trade.
ST
