Looks like a potential 5th bar forming for a low in Fiber. Am a little nervous with the indecision candles the last couple of days. If I had to guess, I would think that going in to LO, we’ll see a drop in to 1.33-1.3320, followed by a bullish move for the day, that might have some kick due to the German announcements. Poor Commerzbank will have a lower bones pool, boo hoo. Thanks for the link Longechoes, I need to get back in to reading BBC News.
I would not be surprised to see at least a retracement of the Cable in the next couple of days, but that is just speculation. Now that we’ve reached these levels I’m thinking that 1.5375 will be taken out at least before there is a direction change. Stochastic fans notice the oversold on the daily. Sitting on my hands tonight.
Ok… I’ve really tried to minimize the jokes here, and I see that people are reading this, unless my wife, or one of my kind friends on BP is forcing the number of views up. It would be nice to get some other thoughts (I know a couple of people have commented and hope that continues) regarding people’s thoughts about the pairs, or if they agree with my perspective, etc. I wish this thread had a “Seriously…?” button, so at least I knew that people were taking the time to disagree. Even typing the word ‘wrong’ or ‘duh’ conveys a message.
My last couple of posts regardng bias seem to be correct, which makes me think I might be getting back on track, but bias is only half of getting in to a trade. Since the week has started with very little activity and not much range has been achieved, it seems like the money will be watching the announcements the next couple of days. Based on the Euro weekly, I’m leaning bearish at the moment, and if I can find confluence, I will be entering a trade later. Still have to check the dollar index.
Hope you don’t mind a wee bit of constructive criticism. Just an observation: You sound like you are trying to talk yourself into a trade that isn’t there.
You are “leaning bearish.” There is no definitive, “Yep, looks like this thing is going South. Next stop Antarctica!”
“if I can find confluence…” It should be jumping off the charts at you – even if your analysis is completely wrong you should at least enter a trade on conviction. If you are entering on “leanings” and “ifs” (even though every trade is a big “if”) it may be time to just sit on your hands.
Your posts just seem to lack that “ummph” factor, that lack of conviction you should have in your analysis. To me, it seems like the conditions are being set for over-trading and constant second guessing. Trading just to trade because things kinda, sorta, almost look maybe okay.
Of course, if you listen to me you will sit on your hands and then miss the trade of the century and put me on your ignore list…
I totally do appreicate criticism, and am happy for all that I can get. Re-reading my own comment, you’re right, I sound (and am) uncertain. The truth is that I do have trouble finding entry points frequently. On the one hand I’m trying to ‘serious’ up my comments a tiny little bit, as I do want to seriously discuss analysis, but also I think there is a tendency for me to want to keep it interesting, by trying to force trades (like you said) which will not result in good things. I made one trade last week, and it was a really bad one. I agree that doing the right things will ultimately have good results.
I am very dubious about trading Cable at the moment, but there is a little voice I’m trying to muffle that’s saying ‘go long dude, you the man’ because what I have is all hunch based, and by my own rules, I want to at least see a decent intermediate term high taken out to prove there is bullish momentum, before I start even looking for long opportunities. Until then, no more Cable trades for me, unless the floor falls out, or a great five bar set up comes along. Part of it is that At work I use Netdania, and my lunch hour seems to fly by, so I rushed a comment a bit. I’ll be able to analyze more thoroughly tonight at home.
The first reason I need to (begin) building a bias with Fiber is based on the bearish structure of the market and the weekly candle formation favors bearishness. Fiber right now is sitting at 1.3386, which I like, as if it’s a horse in a 1 1/16 race that is sitting third by three lengths, coming around the turn. I’d like it better at 1.3375, because I often see Fiber and cable at xx30 in Asia work down before going up, and xx70 work up before going down. To me it’s like the big (XXXX) fig gives a natural S/R zone at London Open. I’d still need more to trade this, like divergence of some kind / support from the dollar index and a solid entry idea. I should use the T market, but to be honest I don’t have a good way of looking at overlays, because I dont really like Bloomberg.
I like your style John, you’re not getting on my ignore list. If I do take this trade and the reasons I list look silly, regardless of what happens, I hope you will criticize them. Critique makes us better, and I know you’re coming from a place of wanting to help me get better.
I see GBP/USD as being in a big mess of a huge, directionless range for the past year and half or so. It may be coming up on a zone where it will once again reverse or possibly bust through and go into complete freefall mode.
I am watching to see what it does once it gets into that zone (if it continues down, of course). Until then, it is not sitting a pretty 3rd around the turn – it is deep in the pack with Calvin Borel on board needing room to move. When it moves (up or down) it should definitley move with a vengeance. I just have no way of knowing which way yet and I don’t have a coin to flip. My best guestimate is it will reverse to the 1.5700 vicinity.
I’ve thought about it, but I do keep a log and for the sake of my own challenge, I can prove any claims using broker reports. I’m not that familiar with MYfxbook, so my concern would be that the distractions it could cause me outweigh any benefit.
If you have any thoughts about what there is for me to gain from doing it, I’ll definitely consider it.
I basically agree with both thoughts (which should concern you.) I see the Euro making a small retracement down, befoer heading back up. I’ve also asked Yunny this. Is your primary approach based on S/D zones. It is a very logical way to trade, and I do find it tempting at times.
Earlier this afternoon, I had fairly bearish sentiments regarding the Fiber. This afternoon, market structute on the four hour has changed to bullish, and I’m a little uncertain. I can see on the Slow Stochastic, there is a very nice bearish divergence on the 1H vs price. I don’t see the divergence that I want to see on the USDX. On the 1H I see bullish MS on the dollar index, with a key Fib retracement setting up (79%). It looks like a move up is being set up for the dollar index, which would result in the bear move in Fiber I spoke of earlier. I’m going to hold off, because I do not like where Fiber price is. Apologies if anyone finds this a little dull, but the sooner I feel consistently in sync, the better my trading will be. I’m expecting bearish action at LO, but I’m the least certain I’ve been in three days. This afternoones bullish move messed me up a bit.
Look for Fiber price to be pushed up to 1.3430 -1.3465, and then come down at LO on Wed, perhaps looking to take out lows below 1.3350. I’m OK missing this, as I want to make sure I’m dusting off my thought processes a little more.
I think I’ve alluded a bit to the methods I’ve used for several years in other threads. It was a correlation-centric method that also used price action, pivot points and divergence. I say “was” for a few reasons.
I can handle losing a trade. It comes with the territory. Losing week? Sure. Bad month? Okay. Losing quarters? Well, I have had negative quarters and let me tell you, if that doesn’t give you a gut check I don’t know what does. I occasionally caught a few runaway trades with spectacular gains that made up for the big losing streaks. At the end of the year I could divide my gains by 12 and my average monthly gain was a very modest 2 or sometimes 3% per month. Certainly not the greatest method in the world but at the end of the year I could at least take out the gains, buy a few Christmas presents and start the process all over.
It took a lot of chart watching, wasn’t all that profitable, had long losing streaks (which, in retrospect, may just have been broken by luck) and finally, when some key historic correlations went out window so did my method. I decided to move on and try out some other ways of looking at the squiggly lines and bars on charts.
I am fascinated by VSA. Over the last three months I’ve placed 8 trades on what appeared to be textbook-perfect VSA setups. The end result was 4 wins, 2 break evens and 2 losses. Not bad. I have a tough time spotting the setups though, it requires a lot of chart watching and the trade frequency is a bit low. I still follow the VSA thread(s). It all makes perfect sense to me (in theory, anyway). Spotting them on the right side of the chart is still a bit of a struggle.
S/D is the other style I am looking at (charts I posted). It’s about as straightforward as you can get. Not a lot of check this, look at that, makes sure this lines up with that other stuff and that these say this… You just mark out zones, check the bias and place a trade when it’s time to. Maybe throw in some candle formations for good measure. At least the problem of over analyzing is solved to some extent. Will it be profitable? No idea.
It’s still a new way of trading for me and, like anything else you want to become proficient in, it will require practice, practice, practice.
In the end, price either goes up or down. I just want to figure out where price is more likely to go up than down or it is more likely to go down than up – just like everyone else. Hopefully, it can be done in as simple and logical a manner as possible.
I know you are using that three letter guy’s stuff. If you want to keep your thread to those methods only let me know. There are just too many disparate things to consider in that style of analysis for my liking.
First, I’m not in this trade. I’ve been working on getting my thought process where it needs to be, and I feel like it’s going in the right direction. Truth is that I’ve made three really bad trades this year (at least), that were more speculative, but they’ve affected my confidence a little. Another great reason not to make gamble type trades is that if you lose, they affect your overall confidence, and if you win, they set you up for much worse. The divergence last night between Stochastic showing hh, and price not making hh is one important tool I use in combination with others. I’m happy watching today, but I do need to get back up on the horse fairly soon, when the right opportunities present themselves.
This is not a big guys methods only thread. It’s for anyone to discuss trading ideas and methods, in a friendly setting. I’ve said thank you, and made comments on other threads aimed at that. Now it’s time for me to be a trader. I want to understand how all of the various types of traders are thinking. If I spot a good set-up with S/D zones, etc, I’m going to trade it. I’ve also been checking out VSA, but I don’t know nearly enough to trade it yet. As long as one can avoid confusion, i think knowledge is always a good thing.
I’ve stated that I will double my balance in two years. I doubt anyone is following that statement or cares, but based on where I expect myself to be as a trader, if I can’t meet that challenge, it will tell me something about my methods, self discipline, etc.
All criticism and thoughts are welcome. If there ever reaches a point where I can help someone else (keeping in mind that my boss at work seems proud and surprised that I can find my way back to my office building most days) I will gladly do whatever I can to help. I’m learning a lot from many and am happy to give back.
I get where you coming from. I know it is hard sometimes to pull that trigger even if you see the “opportunity” right in front of you because you are unsure if that trade will be good or bad…
Don’t take this personally but I think you are thinking too much…lol. and it just confuses your thought process. I know you are analytical type of guy (base on what you laid out here so far). Over analyzing is not good sometimes. Why not step back and go back and think about what simple tools and strategy you know so far that it worked for you before? Then stick to those. I know there are so many good traders around who are sharing their ideas/strategy but it might not work for you right now…maybe later when you have time to test them on DEMO but not when your real money on the line (I am assuming your 5K is real money).
Take it easy… if you need to take a break for a few days or weeks to get your head straighten out then so be it. No one is forcing you to trade everyday/every week. It is already a lot of pressure to double your money in 2 years. If I am in your shoes, I will shoot for consistency first with lower expectation maybe 50-100 pips a month or lesser then moved up a little bit after that…
Just a friendly advice… I and everyone else here would like to see you succeed too
Really good suggestions. I will print out that comment PNR as soon as I get home later. Your critique that I overthink things is right on; I’ve been told that all my life. Trading is funny in that there are moutains and valleys, and sometimes it’s like I have to relearn things, which makes your point all the more, about going back, reading what worked in the past, not overanalyzing and just doing it.
Last night I started looking at charts around 8pm, and noticed that there had been some strong bullish activity later in the afternoon, which I let scare me away from enterting a trade. Right now JL is feeling badly, and he should not, because I did like the bear move, and saw the very nice Slow Stochastic divergence, but I overly considered the bullish retracement due my own poor thinking at the time. Keep the ideas coming JL and everyone.
Last week, my idea was: pin-bar, COT report, jump. This week I’m looking at better things and the trading will get better. I feel much better about missing a trade that I had a good overall idea about, then saying ‘where did that move come from?’ For the most part I’m staying away from the more toxic threads, as my train rides home are made for things like Nikita’s thread, HoG’s thread (thank you for the note back last night Yunny and HoG, I will go back and read), etc. I like the overall direction things are moving in, and with my job having three very busy weeks every three months, I have about one more month until things get very hectic at work and I go easy on the trading / posting for a few weeks.
Btw PNR, I really appreciated you saying that everyone wants me to succeed at this. If this challenge is successfull, and I hope that along the way everyone is getting what they want from their trading, I also hope it shows that on a place like Babypips where we all have differing approaches, the knowledge is here in various forms for us to be able to take, share with each other, combine, and utilize.
This is everyones thread… Let’s help eachother become better traders. I’m happy for all the help I can get.
Well, I hope you have learned a very valuable lesson, Brian. If you listen to anything I say then you are listening to the ravings of a mad man! I planned to wait until the GBP got into my oh so cleverly drawn zone to see how it reacted before trading it.
The GBP’s response was, of course, “Zone? Zone??? What zone? Oh, that cute box thingie you drew waaaaayyyyy back there?”
No problem Hogarste….Ha! You’ve been told that you are over thinking all your life? How about that…I didn’t know…don’t have a clue… It was just a wild guess ;)…lol.
I tend to really speak out what’s on my mind. I sometimes holding it back but sometimes I just couldn’t help it. I’m glad that you didn’t take it as offensive. I too not perfect myself…I am also a “developing trader” but sometimes there are things that you don’t see that I see or vice versa so putting it out here your thought process does help for you too. I just don’t want you or anybody here who is reading this to put sooo much pressure to trade were your mind is not so clear, confuse, or undecided. There is nothing wrong to step a little back to look at things in a different way maybe then you can see it clearly. Trading should be nooo pressure if possible :).
The main goal of a trader is to be consistently profitable. However, I have not seen any thread (so far) aiming just to be consistent. We always see that “ turn $1,000 to $10,000 in 36 months” as an example but then does he/she already bringing in consistent win every month even if it is only 50, 100, 200, etc. pip or any positive ROI month after month ? I think that if we can focus on consistency each month, you will have a better idea if you can double your money in a X amount of months/years.
In my view, when it is proven that we are consistent hauling those pips/ ROI then profitability should come easily because you already proven that your method works, it shows in your consistent win , then the end result is your profitability…I know it might sound so simple but why complicate things especially in a very complex environment like trading the Market.
Sorry, my thought process is going again 100 miles per min…LOL…
You don’t have to agree with me. I am just putting it out there.
