BA,
Don’t beat yourself up over it. This type of trade will present itself 10,000 more times in your trading career, and you will get plenty more chances to profit from these setups. My rule for the non-farm payroll is that I only avoid USD trades. That is generally my rule for any major news reports, I will avoid trading the currency that it is directly reporting on. You should feel good that you were able to identify a good quality intra day setup. This is just 1 proof that you are on the right track in your ability to find high quality PA setups.
Regarding what a trader should consider a good profit, I think if you can produce results better than the stock market you are in good shape. Most “safe” investment vehicles are going to give you 1-5% interest, investing in the market could get you 20-30%. If you are outdoing the overall market you are basically outdoing all of the major investment vehicles that exist out their.
I read an article where Warren Buffet was displeased that he had made 25% profit that year. The reason was because the overall market had made 30%. While he did made 25% profit which is great, he would have made more just putting all of his money in the S&P and letting it grow all year. During the 09’ crash, the average hedge fund profits were -5%, any hedge fund producing better than -5% were outdoing the overall market. I know everyone has dreams on buying an island with 10,000% yearly profits, but realistically if you are outperforming most investment vehicles that exist you are doing fantastic. That may be 30-40% a year. But if you do that on a consistent basis and compound your profits, that’s all it will take to quick accumulate a large some of money.
[QUOTE=“krugman25;575498”]
BA,
Don’t beat yourself up over it. This type of trade will present itself 10,000 more times in your trading career, and you will get plenty more chances to profit from these setups. My rule for the non-farm payroll is that I only avoid USD trades. That is generally my rule for any major news reports, I will avoid trading the currency that it is directly reporting on. You should feel good that you were able to identify a good quality intra day setup. This is just 1 proof that you are on the right track in your ability to find high quality PA setups.[/QUOTE]
Thanks again Aaron, when I read your post that was one thing that I thought, that I must be on the right path! And that I am at least identifying correct trades. I am going to tighten the trades I take from next week but want to make sure that I don’t trade so tightly that I miss great opportunities like this. Thanks again for the encouragement! Next week is another week.
Holy…
I took this one, but I got kicked out too early because of my shortened SL. I really need to update my trade journal then. This one is the case where shortened SL will fail. Either you take the break entry with SL at the other extreme, or retrace entry with SL st the other extreme.
And for small consolation, I do get a little profit from NFP this week. 
[QUOTE=“wm247;575563”]
Holy…
I took this one, but I got kicked out too early because of my shortened SL. I really need to update my trade journal then. This one is the case where shortened SL will fail. Either you take the break entry with SL at the other extreme, or retrace entry with SL st the other extreme.
And for small consolation, I do get a little profit from NFP this week. :)[/QUOTE]
Haha good for you Willy. Me too actually, I took about 17 pips from trading the news spike itself on the AUDUSD. I’m still experimenting with my news trading strategy and I couldn’t resist today, I was hoping for more pips than that but my rule of thumb is as soon as the spike begins retracting, get out!
Hey, everybody
I noticed this huge BEEB on USD/ZAR at the top of the range, the price has also made triple-top, and I really, really like it. In my opinion, it has a high chance to reach the support level @10.15200. The recent trend is bullish if we look at a smaller picture.
USD/ZAR D1
Comments are very welcome!
Richard
I love shorting USDZAR. The swap is positive and huge! The longer you hold your short, the more your broker pay you for doing nothing. 
And you are right, Rick. That pingulfing is the biggest meanest baddest candle in the chart recently, that you must be insane not to notice it.
You are right, I didn’t notice the swap at first, wow!!! Sounds like a great deal! 
Here is my thought on this trade. Sidenote: I do not trade this pair and this assessment is based off of your chart posted.
You mention a triple top. That is a reversal signal. You should have a clear trend prior to the triple top. Otherwise, what are you reversing? There is no clear trend prior to what you are calling a triple top.
Second: I do not even consider that a triple top. The area with blue is an uptrend if anything, and I don’t consider this to be a very good uptrend. Either way, I would not be shorting an uptrend. I would wait for retracement.
Finally: If this was an uptrend with a triple top that was signaling a reversal and an opportunity to go short, you should wait for CONFIRMATION on this setup.
What is confirmation? Waiting for price to break through the neck of the triple top. As you can see, there really is no neck on the chart posted and I don’t see this as a triple top at all. And I definitely would not enter at this moment and time.
So, in conclusion, I would not short this.
If there is a trend, its an uptrend and I don’t trade against the trend.
This is not a valid reversal pattern (triple top) and even if it was, you need to wait for confirmation (price breaks through the neck) before you short it.
Interesting POV.
IMHO, I don’t see it as triple top at all. What I see that is simply a strong bearish pingulfing that has rejected a very clear resistance at around 10.44 or 10.45. This is still against the recent uptrend, so I will consider it a CT setup. May include a runner if I take this, but I’m not that optimistic. I just want to squeeze that huge positive swap till the end of the trade.
I also took the 4h pin on the nzd/jpy on a retrace for a 1:2 rr.
I hve to admit though, I wasnt all that confident in the 4h setup.
I only really took it becaue i hadnt taken a trade all week and my risk was very small.
Thanks for your criticism and wm247 comment. I guess I’m not familiar with triple-top and I don’t really trade them, but thanks for your explanation. I just wanted to say that price has reached the strong resistance line third time, so sorry for that. Anyways, that’s not a signal or anything else which I would base my decision on.
Can you please elaborate why don’t you consider this a good uptrend? It has made perfect higher highs and higher lows breaking a lot of resistances in its way, so I don’t agree with your statement. If you don’t trade them - fair enough.
As for triple-top confirmation, then I’m not going to argue about that for now, because as I mentioned, then I haven’t read about them and I just used this term in a wrong context. For this pair my confirmation would be the break of the BEEB’s low.
It’s an uptrend, but if you zoom out a little bit more, then you can clearly see that pair has been ranging for last +/- 6 months.
USD/ZAR D1
Richard
Hey. I hope my comments did not come off as rude. I was just giving constructive criticsm.
For me (and everyone has different requirements for the trade), I would consider the pair ranging because I try to determine whether or not there is a trend based off of the last few months. But yes, if you just look back at the area you have in blue, i would consider that an uptrend. But again, I would only buy on an uptrend
Now there could be a case for shorting due to the multiple times it has seemed to hit resistance there. But I would want to see if that area has held as S/R before in previous years.
I am by far no expert and these are just my opinions. I would not trade at this time. Because I consider this to be overall a ranging trade and I do not trade ranges at this time. But depending on trading strategy, there could be a case made for…
- going short if you believe this is a very strong level of resistance
- If you want to consider this an uptrend, using a Fibonacci retracement technique and seeing if the pair retraces to atleast the .5 level and forms a price action signal to go long. But due to the resistance recently, I would question this going higher.
I would overall be indecisive on this one, leading me to the smart decision of staying away
Again, I dont see a triple top here. It just looks like recently that resistance has held many many times.
USDZAR
Hi Richard - I had a look at this, wondering to take it as well because the BEEB is very large and obvious but in the end I have decided against it. Here’s my analysis. Ultimately, is of course upto you whether you take it.
My view on this potential trade off daily charts: 2.5/5 - more cons than pros - marginal trade
PROS
huge and obvious BEEB
formed at key weekly and daily resistance level
CONS
counter trend (hence lower probability, I don’t trade counter trend myself and I don’t see this as being in a range…yet)
insufficient RR unless you use a 50% retrace entry
unlikely break below 10.12 support level - low of the BEEB could even be the swing point for the next leg up in the uptrend (see minor daily resistance at 10.30)
Cheers.
Thanks.
I trade all types of trades either it’s with, against trend or ranging. I’m more strict when it comes to playing against trend or ranging trades, then I like to see huge momentum on my side formed at important level which has in this case.
And as I mentioned then I was probably wrong about the triple top, but it may still form double top altho that’s not what I’m looking for or trading.
It seems like lately I have been seeing a lot of charts getting crazy with Fib levels. Remember Fib levels and others alike should be drawn from “daily” swings, and only drawn on charts that have textbook trends in play. Using those strict guidelines you ensure you are playing from truly solid levels. If you are drawing fibs on intra day swings or on ranging pairs, you will be attempting to trade from levels that are sub part quality and strength.
I had some questions about volume a few days back. I was wanting to answer them this weekend but I can’t seem to find them. If you had asked a question about volume on the charts and I haven’t answered yet, please post me a link to your original question.
I also notice volume being called an indicator a lot. I want to make sure it isn’t put in the indicator category. You won’t even find volume under the list of indicators on FXCM. Indicators are numbers that are derived from some base set of numbers. Like the many indicators derived from price. Volume isn’t derived from another number, but is a base value in itself like price. There are volume indicators like volume EMAs, but volume itself is a base value like price. I want everyone to understand that in case someone tells you not to use volume because its an indicator.
The fib tool you can see on the chart I posted at post number 2174 are not fibs, I have reset the levels to show RR levels, so basically you can measure the range of the relevant PA signal to see what price you’d have to reach to get 1R, 2R etc. I was trying to demonstrate how the RR on the usdzar setup mentioned would not have sufficient RR without using a retrace entry. Unfortunately, my trading platform doesn’t allow me to adjust the fib labels so it reads -100%, -200%, which looks a bit odd, instead of 1r, 2r etc…I thought it was obvious but I should have explained it to make myself clear. Thanks.
After all, this trade actually worked out really well for me. Closed it on friday for a 1:4 profit!
Now the question is if i actually spotted a good trade or if i was just lucky. 
I am really getting good profits by trading the AUD/CAD downtrend right now on many time frames.
Price has now come back to the daily trend line again for a retest and we have a bearish pin-bar on the 6 hour chart. I have no idea though what i shall make of the gigantic bullish pin bar. Clearly the bears where shot and put in the trunk by the bulls during the NFP and the question is if this only was temporary due to the news and the market wanted a retest of the trend line of if we actually may see a change in the trend. :33:
Taking a retracement sell-entry could make for a good r:r though…
Hey all wanted to share a trade. I played this not on an exact signal as you will see but by reading the PA story and a gut feeling.
So the GBPNZD had been trying to break past a VBRN of 2.0000 for several days and each day rejected. This had me interested. So i placed a entry but unfortunately got stopped out soon after. So I then placed a pending but at a retracement point to get a better R:R
So this is what I saw…
Anyway this trade is really going well for the time being and feel confident it will hit my TP. Have already adjusted SL past entry but given enough wiggle room for it to continue down.
This is is how it looks at the mo…
Anyway just wanted to share, and all opinions are more than welcome.
Darth