I took partial profit on half my EURGBP position just now. Moved to BE and going to see how far we may travel south.
The two other pending orders were triggered today so we’ll see where they go.
CHFJPY and NZDJPY have both reached potential trouble areas so I’ve taken partial profit on both and tightened stop slightly.
Not much solid to trade on. It’s been a good day for the four trades I’m already in.
With four active trades I’m not longing to take another trade.
Took final profit on CHFJPY at 91.30 and EURGBP got stopped at BE on Oanda and for about 40 pips profit on IBFX.
I’ve moved stop to BE on NZDJPY so the only risk exposure for me now is AUDNZD which I’m still holding. Even though it hasn’t gone anywhere really I still want to be in the trade. I guess next week will show if that’s a good choice.
I haven’t had time to post anything of interest but i hope to do something about that during this weekend.
I’ll try to do a thorough weekend chart check and maybe post a bit on some other stuff. If time permits.
I’ve had a problem for a while. Haven’t been able to find any really good solution either. Until now that is.
I’ve had a difficult time to say the least trying to find one broker that offers complete history on all the pairs I watch. I’ve searched high and low but to no avail.
Today, just by chance I happened to read a post elsewhere with a knowledgeable trader saying he used a fxpro demo for his charting.
I downloaded their MT4 demo and voila! I now have complete history on all pairs that I watch + gold and silver. I’m very happy. Not only that, but they also offer a bunch of stock and indexes CFDs. Lot’s of charts to watch and also nice to be able to easily check what the DOW is doing.
It’s definitely the best MT4 demo charting I’ve found.
I understand your confusion, it can be hard trying to decide which trend is the one that’s valid right now.
Well, here’s my thinking - the major trend on weekly is still down. That trendline starts back in July 2007 and is still valid.
From Jan 2009 there was an uptrend that was broken in late Aug, so I’d say that short doesn’t sound all that bad. Let’s see what price decides to do around that 150 level.
I’m staying out for now since price closed the week spot on 150. A failed upmove might be a nice signal for a short position. For confirmation we might wait for price to break below last weeks low by, say, 10 pips. That still gives us some room for the trade to run. Around 141-ish might be a possible target.
I’m currently in two positions, AUDNZD short and NZDJPY long. SL is at BE on the JPY trade, so there’s only exposure in the AUDNZD position.
Having looked over the charts tonight I see that there are possible setups coming, but right now the only tempting trades are three GBP pairs;
GBPCAD, GBPCHF and GBPNZD. I’m sure you can guess long or short…
Out of them I think GBPCAD looks the prettiest, so I’m putting half my risk on that pair and the other half is split even between the other two.
Entry 15-25 pips below last weeks lows. Let’s see what happens.
edit: no GBPNZD order since Oanda doesn’t have that pair…
Well, my pending orders were triggered so currently I’m in these positions:
AUDNZD short
NZDJPY long
GBPCAD short
GBPCHF short
The pound pairs are in quite a drawdown which at first made me beat myself up a bit until I recognized that if I had seen the same setups again, I would have taken them again. They weren’t A+, but they weren’t bad either. With the trend and everything.
There seems to be a dividing line between traders who will second guess themselves and close out losing trades long before their SL gets hit, and then there are traders who will either be stopped put or go into profit. Both styles obviously work, one isn’t right and the other wrong even if it may sound like I think so.
I think that I belong to the second group. I can’t quite understand what the point would be of placing a SL at a level that you never intend to allow your trade to go to.
My view is that the SL should be set in a location where you say: if price gets here, then I was wrong and then I no longer want to be in this trade. From that goes then that until the SL does get hit, the trade is still one that I want to be in.
So even though the GBP pairs are 220 and 340 pips in the red, I will stay in the trades and either see them turn, or see them hit my SL telling me I was wrong and taking me out of the misery. Something to take away from this is the importance of your SL placement. You need to find that place where you can say: if price goes here then I want out. That’s where the SL should be placed IMHO.
This is turning out to be a nice setup.
The chart doesn’t show it, but this is actually the third rejection of this same PPZ. First one was in June and the second in August.
We all know what they say about triple tops. Plus the 4H trendline was broken through.
I’m going to place a pending order at 136.65 with the SL at 138.65.
Let’s see what happens.
Nothing wrong with that idea. I’m just a bit mindful that there’s been so much traffic in this 1.61-1.67 zone and the huge Friday candle has brought price close to the lower PPZ.
Like I’ve said before, and also read other experienced people saying, don’t listen to others too much or you’ll hear/find reasons not to take any trade ever.
Normally I guess 2.5, but with the trades I’ve already got going it’s going to be 1%
Making money is nice, but I’m still in a learning phase and I want to prove to myself that I can do this. While doing that I’m keeping my risk lower and focusing on the trades instead.
When I feel confident in a couple of months (hopefully), I’ll start trading with 2-2.5% per trade.
Yeah, I have 136.81 as Monday’s low
I have it at 1.6150, but looking closer suggests that of late something like 1.6115 is the best fit. I try to keep them at 00 or 50 levels though for simplicity.
Just a quick post before bedtime.
EURCAD looks quite nice. In a downtrend and Tuesday’s candle gives us a reversal back into the downtrend.
I’ve decided to place a pending order at 1.5715 with the stop at 1.5955.
EURJPY is active and currently in profit, let’s hope that continues. The GBP trades… let’s discuss that another time. Not stopped out yet though. AUDNZD is all over the place, going to keep holding and see what happens. I’m hoping the greater trend will help me with that trade.
That’s it for tonight.
Over and out.
Yes we do!
And when we screw up we (read I) start to doubt ourselves and the eyes start wandering toward other methods etc. Bad bad! That’s what I did tonight - second guessed myself because of the GBP trades. Thinking and tinkering. Did finally come to my senses and decided that J16 is as good as it gets - if I can’t learn to trade with that method, then I’m a lost cause.
Psychology - all the time!
I can certainly understand why traders will hold on to losers and cut winners short. What we need to do is decide: was the GBP setups bad or would I have taken them again. If the answer is again, then it’s just a business loss and we need to move on.
Let’s see if EURCAD will boost or further shatter my confidence 
Haven’t moved to BE yet, but if it reaches 100+ I will. On iBFX I tightened the SL a bit.
Just to clarify, are you on daily pinbars reversals?
how do you place your orders if the pinbar candle has not yet close?
I trade a few different setups, two bar reversals, pin bars and some others.
I try to wait for the candle to close, but if I can’t do that I’ll place my order as if the candle had closed.
Is that what you wanted to know?
Actually I just closed it out as well. Not on IBFX though, I’ll let it run there.
I closed it out on my real account to bring the balance back to where it was before my two GBP failures along with the AUDNZD which just got stopped out.
I know I shouldn’t kill a winner but I simply couldn’t help it. I will look over the past trades and analyze them now that I’m flat and without bias.
Luckily I never got triggered on the EURCAD trade. These little adventures has ended with my balance just a few cents above where it was before these trades.
I kind of feel ouch as well. I have a feeling that I should be in the green instead if I had been more picky. Some thinking to do here.
I’ve only been able to hold my nose above water for a few months, equity-wise.
In percent terms it isn’t much to brag with, literally, but I’m happy anyway. I can sort of see the light in the end of the tunnel. For a while I was starting to think that I was possibly going to fail, but the turn came with two things: I somehow (don’t really know how) gained control over my emotions and second, I rediscovered the J16 thread.
I don’t care if I’ll never be able to do better than single digit returns per month, even that will amount to quite something over time.
I think you’re moving in that same direction Matt. I’m convinced that we will both “make it”.
Oh, on the spread issue: since we never know if or when a pending order will get hit, we never know what the spread will be either, so I’ve ignored that more or less. You’re right though - 20 pips is expensive. More to think about!
It’s better than extracting the wrong tooth for the orthodontist 
(Which I’ve never done thank God, but it does happen…)
Joke aside, that’s annoying of course, but it would have been more annoying really if your mistaken order would have shown a profit… Slipups like that are just a part of life.
Be pleased instead that the trade you should have placed would have been a winner.