Been a busy week with work but managed to get some time today. After the good German data at 9am I decided to go long with this pair with a position of 2 mini lots. Yesterday had seen the Euro react well to good Eurozone data so I thought the same thing might have happened again. This turned out to be completely wrong. I probably should’ve guessed it wasn’t working as price stalled at my entry point of 1.3928 and was going through some dipping and recovering for a few minutes. Also there seemed to be some USD strength in the market at that time. There was certainly some warning signs that I maybe should have reacted to sooner but didn’t. Price then dropped rapidly and I closed it out manually at 1.3904.
Bit short on time again for trading but was keeping an eye on EUR/USD and momentum seemed to have fallen away from the rise in the pair this afternoon around the 1.4030 mark so went short there. The Dow was well up but this pair had stalled so thought it was worth a small go. Entered with a position of 1 mini lot just in case I was wrong and EUR decided to leap up some more. Stop was placed at 1.4050.
Fortunately for me price dropped quite quickly after entering the trade and I decided to close out the trade once it had hit a rising trendline from the 20th. Price seems to be hovering around this line for the moment so we’ll see if I jumped out too early or not soon enough I guess but I felt like booking some profit to start the week instead of getting stopped out in another EUR/USD choppy turnaround.
A mix of both. I’m busier now in work so don’t have as much screentime these days. With Tymen’s method I found I was getting 10-12 trades per week when I had quite a bit of screentime and was trading off the 1 hour and 4 hour charts. At the moment I seem to be missing the entries with that method from not being around at the right times or just bad luck with timing when I am around. So I’m using price action, momentum, some S+R lines and sometimes some fibonacci levels to try and pick some entries when I can find the time.
Had a limit order at 1.3850 to try and catch the resumption of the downtrend after hitting a short-term falling trendline. Entered with 1 mini lot and stop was placed 20 pips above the entry point for a little breathing room.
Price fell rapidly after I entered the trade and I had higher hopes once it went past the 1.3800 level but it recovered soon after seemed to be pushing back up. Today’s been pretty choppy so figured I’d close out the trade manually and book some profit before the durable goods news coming up in half an hour.
After price had fallen quite heavily yesterday I drew a CBL line from the high of the extreme candle. Was watching the BB bands and once it looked like they were starting to get back to level I entered with a long trade just before I went to bed once price had hit the CBL. I was thinking that the EUR fall had probably run it’s course for now and given how the Dow had recovered late on in the session I thought this would bode well for EUR going into the Asian session. As I wasn’t going to be able to monitor the trade though I went in with just 1 mini lot instead of 2 mini lots as I normally do using the BB DNA method. Stop was placed at 1.3745.
Woke up in the morning to see price had gone my way. It rose up to touch against the Upper BB but there was a bit of expansion visible in the Outer BBs so didn’t close the trade at that point. Had to go through a retracement which was testing my patience for a while before PA recovered and reached my TP of 1.3895 where it closed with a limit order. Was half-monitoring the trade while on a conference call and was tempted to remove the limit order but left it in the end. In retrospect I think I should’ve just let the trade run looking at the momentum of the rise more closely. I can see a rise now back to 1.40 but I’ll take the win. If we get to 1.40 I’ll think about a short maybe.
Entered this trade on Friday afternoon thinking we might get a bit of a pullback once PA had gone past the 1.60 level. Went short at 1.6007 with 1 mini lot. Didn’t get it right as some okay-ish UK data kept it propelling up and I closed out manually on Friday evening after it pulled back a bit. Could have been worse and all in all was a decent week for me. Was +9.40% for the week from 3 trades and I’m a few weeks ahead of where I’d planned to be after 6 weeks live trading.
Been a bit busy to trade all this week due to work really kicking off but I went short the Dow Rolling Daily at 11394 with one mini lot after it appeared to have stalled after the jump after QE2. Was expecting a pullback the following day seeing as no POMOs were involved.
However yesterday night the Dow rallied up further and I ended up having to wait to see if it came back enough for me. Though seeing the VIX fall down was giving me some concerns as it looked like the market wasn’t pricing in much chance of a correction. Guess I was a bit hasty with my entry. Price drifted back down this morning in the futures and I getting near-ish to breakeven for a while before it rallied up again and I decided to close out manually at a bit of a loss. Overall trade idea was sound but entry was badly timed which made this a loser. Hopefully next week will see things get back a little more to normal market-wise.
Went long with this pair yesterday afternoon after price’s decline seemed to be stalling at around the 1.39 level. Entered at 1.3902 with 1 mini lot. Stop was placed at 1.3885.
At the time this was a counter-trend trade so when price had pulled back about 40 pips I probably should have just taken it and closed out but I decided to stay in and look for a potential larger reversal in the Euro. Later that night things didn’t seem to be working out that way and I figured with the Asia session probably going to be down following Wall St’s red close I’d just close out and book a small profit.
Had been watching this on and off a bit this afternoon and thought that if price got up to 1422 again I’d have a go at a little short as I managed to miss the EUR drop with work keeping me occupied. I think that some of the big firms (Goldman) might be trying to protect this level a little but probably won’t hold for too long this week. Went short once with 1 mini lot once I saw USD also gaining against the Euro at 1422.1.
Price dropped down fairly quickly after my entry but stalled out once EUR started to climb against USD a little. Figured that was my cue to get out and I closed out for a quick small profit. Going to be keeping an eye on this one though over the coming week and a bit. In particular the 1440 - 1450 level should see some heavy action I reckon.
My timing to miss great trades has been impeccable recently. Was on my way home from work when gold & silver decided to crash from 1424 down to 1384 over a couple of hours. Argh. Guess the big boys got tired of runaway prices and shook things up. COMEX’s decision to raise margin requirements for silver had a big part to play to. Presumably the announcement came at the big boys behest with JPM getting murdered on it’s silver shorts.
But anyway, this probably just makes for a good time to pick up a long trade again. I went long with 1 mini lot at 1385.5 and took a quick profit a few minutes later at 1388.7. Re-entered a short while ago too as I think that Asian dealers are going to be scooping up the stuff with both hands at these prices. Will keep a tight stop though in case I’m wrong and USD goes on another tear in the Asian session.
Edit to add: Price is +30 pips for me and as I’m leaving this run overnight I’m moving stop to breakeven. Fair chance I’ll be stopped out but I’d prefer to not lose anything. Plenty more trades that can be taken during the rest of the week.
Follow-up to the trade I mentioned in my last post. Had gone long with 1 mini lot in Gold at 1391.0. Luckily hadn’t dipped during the night and stopped me out at breakeven so trade was working out nicely by the time I woke up. Had some meetings to go to this morning so placed a limit order to take profit at 1415 and a stop at 1401 to book a minimum of +100 pips. Unfortunately price took a dive while I was away from the PC and stopped me out.
In retrospect it’s looking like I might have been a little too tight with my stop and wanting to protect my profits but at the same time there’s been some wild swings recently in the PMs market and I’d have been gutted to give a big chunk or all of it back as I’ve had trouble catching decent rides this past week. So I’ll take the win and move on.
And all of a sudden I’m turning into a gold bug. Well… of sorts. So far I haven’t started talking about the death of fiat currencies or storing up my physical gold in my bunker along with a years supply of food and a ton of ammo while I wait for the apocalypse. Anyway, went long again with 1 mini lot once gold price seemed to be holding up around the lower trendline. Stop was placed $3 below the entry price of 1396.4 to give it a bit of breathing room in case it spiked a bit lower.
Price rose up strongly and for a bit it seemed like it might bust it’s way past the upper trendline but the follow through didn’t materialise and it started to fall back. Closed out manually at the upper trendline and I’ll try to keep an eye on it during the day to see if there’s any proper breaks in the offing.
Thanks Malk1th - it’ll be 7 weeks this Friday. Pleased with progress so far and I’m ahead of where I’d planned to be though I know it can all change anytime!
This was one where maybe I should’ve just left it alone but when your luck has been in it’s hard to resist having a roll at the dice. Price had been bumping up against the trend line I’d drawn and I figured I’d have a little go at a quick short. Didn’t plan on holding it for too long as I was thinking that the Asian dealers would probably be pushing it up again overnight some. Entered with the usual of 1 mini lot.
Initially went my way for a few minutes and I was up about 5 pips but price recovered and pushed it’s way on up again. Rather than throw away the work from earlier in the day and let it go to see what happens I decided to close out for a small loss. Probably the last time I look to short gold for a while as the Fed announced it’s POMO schedule and with $100+ billion about to flow in over the next month it’s probably buy, buy, buy time. Think I’ll try to wait for the big boys to try and shake out some of the weaker long hands and buy a dip if it does come about.
Was having a look over news last night before I headed off to bed and saw that Cisco had issued an earnings guidance warning which had the stock plunging 13+% and the Dow futures taking a dive. Once the Dow futures hit -50 I went in with a long of 1 mini lot as I figured this is the kind of dip people like to buy into… especially with the POMOs on the way.
Futures had risen up some more this morning but then it looked like a bit of risk aversion was hitting the markets so I closed out for a small profit which wiped out my mistake of gold trade from last night. I might re-enter this trade though later today depending on how things look.
Decided to re-enter the Dow Rolling Daily trade earlier this afternoon. POMO starts tomorrow with $6-8bn getting pumped and continues all next week. I figured that the drop in the futures might reappear and that I’d enter on a dip to try and position myself for tomorrow. No way of knowing for sure of course what’ll happen tomorrow and next week but with maybe $37bn or more getting pumped in in the next week alone by the Fed to allow PDs to buy up everything in sight there’s a reasonable chance of a continuing rally in my opinion… even if the fundamentals don’t exactly warrant it.
Entered with 1 mini at 11,300 and another at 11252 for an aggregate entry of 11276. Have been sitting in the red for most of the afternoon / evening but it’s climbed up to more or less breakeven. I’m debating closing the in profit half to limit my risk in case things don’t work out as I think they will. Will make up my mind later. PDs often buy up late in the day before a POMO so will see what happens towards the end of the session. The holiday in the US might make this not a runner though.
I basically cut and run late last night on the trade above in my last post for a small profit before I went to bed. Scanning the news I didn’t feel comfortable holding 2 mini lots overnight even if POMO was coming. China was making noise about possible tightening which always seems to throw the markets into a tizzy. Figured I could always join in later if it looked like it was working on the Dow and didn’t need to try and frontrun it for a bigger gain. Woke up a relieved punter this morning after seeing how much Asian markets had creamed the futures though at the time of writing they’ve mostly come back it seems.
