You really haven’t. Pretty subdued over the past couple of days. Went pretty much nowhere today so I’m looking for a short entry. Will be waiting to see how Asian session goes and if the risk rally today in equities carries on into tomorrow. I’m thinking it won’t and that bond yields will climb which will see the Euro take a dip.
Picture of today’s chart backs up what you say about not much going on today. So which of yesterday’s open or close gets breached first?
If I was forced to make a call I’d say south for Asia. But then, I won’t be trading it so I’ll check charts in the morning.
ok, scrub that. Took a short at 1-2752. Put my stop arouns session open ( 1-2780 ) Target at 1-2698. May have to slope off to bed and miss what happens though as I can feel my head nodding as I’m watching the screen (I’m such a light weight these days LOL)
So I guess we’ll see what happens in the morning.
HoG
hey HOG,
you work daytime Gmt was wondering waht time you start as LO is such an important Open for us islanders I dont trade
in Asian just use it as a chart setup time for LO/NY
The way my trading has went since I started last May is that I rarelyget a chance to trade London or biggest part of NY.
I do dayshift in the cab Monday to Thursday, work 8am to 11 pm Friday and then saturday nightshift ( sunday lie about the house like a burst couch until girls come home from ice skating )
So really I need to pick up what I can by staying up a bit late at night. Not ideal I know, but beggars can’t be choosers as they say.
Grand plan would be to get a decent handle on trading this year, put some decent money into my account next year, (all going well progress wise ) and then gradually swap driving the cab for trading.
I do keep an eye on price movement during the day through my iPhone, but not too keen to use it as a trading device. Charting package on the FXCM app is pretty useless so I leave it til I get home. At least by the time I get to sit at a pc, I know where price has been cos I’ve been watching it during the day.
Did toy with the idea of getting one of those internet dongles (ooh Mrs) for my small laptop and taking it to work. But as well as the spread, I would still be charged a mobile charge (which works out the equivalent of 1 pip per lot ) for placing a trade with that.
If I could change it Scratch I would, but you just have to work with what you’ve got sometimes mate !
HoG
I hate to throw up another post which covers a well worn subject, but the topic of trading psychology has been troubling me today.
As I’ve mentioned in my last few posts, by and large, I haven’t been doing much in the way of trading since the week before Christmas. And today I managed to convince Mrs HoG that I really did deserve a day off, since the roofing stuff is now all done.
So I sat at my pc this morning, eager as can be to"get trading". I spotted pretty early on that I fancied the GU for a drop MORE than I fancied the EU.
And this is pretty much how the internal conversation has gone in my head today.
“Right, cable looks as though it’s going to fall. Daily’s looking good for a drop, so is 4 Hour. Have a look at the 1 hour, HHhhmmm, not bad. 15 min looks like a fall. Right, entry point. Resistance is…about 1-55, maybe just below. Supor… oh, there it goes, a little tumble. Right, get in now? No wait , it might pop back up, right, it’s falling. Don’t jump in when it’s falling. Wait til a little pop. Damn, it’s going further down, get in now? No wait, right it’s stopped. Might go back up now. Check the charts. Daily is…oh no, there it’s going down again…”
And to sum the NEXT 4 hours up, I’ve sat and watched and been unable to pull the trigger at all !!
So this leaves me wondering. To all those of you out there who do this either for a living, or at least pretty seriously, do you ever suffer from a lack of confidence after you have been away for a while?
Even if you’ve been on holiday, or whatever, and you haven’t traded for a few weeks, are you a bit hesitant when you get back to it? Or do you just jump straight back in the saddle and push on?
Just wondering. Because I know I have definitely suffered from a lack of self belief today, and I DON’T do this for a living LOL !!
Sounds like a great plan! Have you thought about an iPad? I can’t preted to be an expert, but the Apple revolution finally hit Templar’s stone house on the windy hill over Christmas, so we now have iPhones, and iPod and a docking station. I have been looking at getting an iPad as it would give me a bigger screen for chess on the move and trading, I figure we could get decent charts on there. eSignal (who do my charting) claim to do an ap that suits. Anyway, wondered if you had considered an iPad?
Never apologize for going over the basics, they’re the only really important part, imho!
Personally, and as you know I am full time at this, I absolutely get where you are coming from. This is my first full week back and I am certainly more tentative than normal. I have only placed two trades this week, both intraday as it is a choppy time of year for end of day imho, they both hit TP so I find myself thinking ‘2% is good for week one, let’s hold’ (your internal dialogue thing must be catching lol). So much so that this morning I froze and did not take a classic setup on Euro - and would already have hit TP, was going to go short at 1.2763, TP 1.2705, so would have made nearly 2% on it. This is a longwinded way of saying yes, I still take some time to get my eye back in and definitely trade cautiously early on after a break, particularly the Christmas break which can reset the market somewhat. It doesn’t work out too badly - better than rushing in and starting out on some rash decisions. It’s like boxing - even the world champion should use the first round as a scoping exercise to scout out what’s going on. You can always KO the other guy in round two, after all.
ST
Afternoon Mr Templar
On the iPad issue, the lovely Mrs HoG was indeed the recipient of such a device shortly before Xmas. It’s now known in our house as the facebook pad. I did download FXCM app for it, purely to see what it was like. It’s just the same as the iPone version, only on a bigger screen. And to be honest, I’m not that mental about it.
Anyway, when the family does ever let me get a shot of the iPad, I always find myself playing Angry Birds instead of looking at the FXCM app. Love that game !
You identified the level that you were interested in getting aboard and it didn’t quite pan out. These things happen. Probably better off not chasing it as you’re entering then in a less favourable risk to return trade then as you’ve no way of knowing at that time how much further it’s going to dip (if at all). Every trade is a gamble so plugging for the ones which you can tip as much in your favour as possible is the way to go.
I’d been on the lookout for an E/U short but missed the entry too. I’d been holding out for a higher test past 1.28. It never materialised and I missed the shot so left it alone. No worries - move on to the next setup. I’ve only had 2 trades pan out decently this week but that’s good enough for a 3% gain so waiting for your setups to materialise is worth it. I don’t think you were lacking self-belief too much today but rather didn’t have the belief in chasing the trade which isn’t a bad trading trait to have. If the move is going to continue there’ll be a chance to short a rally later.
Hey HoG, I’m glad to be able to read your “fun” posts again :).
Regarding your mobile app problem I would check out tradeinterceptor if I were you. It does pretty much everything and is super fast not to mention that it is compatible with fxcm live trading. I don’t use any of the brokers that are eligible with it, but for me it’s a much better way to at least keep an eye on stuff than with what my broker has to offer.
I agree with teb I use tradeinterceptor and love it. I highly recomend them for charting if nothing else. However I am not sure you can trade with fxcm through tradeinterceptor unless you have a standard account. Thats one of my biggest issues with fxcm is unless you have a standard account with them they pretty much treat you like scum of the earth. But deffently check out the app its free so worth the investment in my book
Hey teb, How you doin?
I’ll check the app you mentioned later tonight. The Hogettes are upstairs fighting over the iPad right now,(best not to interrupt 3 women in the midst of a ‘disagreement’ if you get me). Thanks for the info
Just took a short EU 1-2675. Not risking much in the way of my stop (15 pips) If we break 1-2665 it may be worth the risk. Looking for 1-26 to start with.
Anyway you cut it up, I reckon it’s worth 15 pips.
Sitting at the sidelines if unsure what to do is NEVER EVER a bad idea, HoG. Not to trade has an advantage over trading: Even if you would just make nothing and have a chance to bail out, you save the risk and commission. You protect your money and that is, before making money, first priority of a pro trader! If I’d get all the money what traders spend while trading recless and just for the sake of action, I’d probably become a trillionaire in a week, lol. If in (slightest) doubt, stay out! 
We are currently in a ranging environment imho. Still not back to the same liquidity as usual. 14 day atr is still at ~ 100ish.
Not to say it couldn’t tank more til 125ish around, but pullbacks are always possible and I guess it would likely test the 129ish resistance first. Those quick moves without big news are imho more or less stop hunting actions together with book tuning. Shakeout of both long and short traders.
well, lost the 15 pips above, but then made it back up on the drop back down to original entry again. So no better or no worse off.
I appreciate the comments about sitting on the sidelines, however, the problem today wasn’t just wanting to trade for tradings sake. The problem was I saw the set up I should have traded, but for some reason was very hesitant about hitting the button.
Not worried in any way about it though, don’t really have any sense of the market this year so far and little trades today were made from short term charts looking at short term trades.
I will get it together again for the start of next week, as I said, been a little out of step with things last few days. Good thing about it all, as you all know, is that trades will always be there, they ain’t going away any time soon.
So just as a little update for now, acc balance sitting $207.91, which is up ever so slightly from the year’s start.
Great the year is still young plenty of time to grow that into a million by the end of the year lol
Only 1 million?? I’m beginning to wonder if this whole Forex thing is worth all the effort LOL!
Yep, I had the same dream last night…Then woke up and realised I missed LO lol
Hmm bad day to sleep in lol. It ok I miss LO everyday it is on my bucket list though to trade LO before I die. Not off to a good start on that goal
Two days ago, I had never heard of Angry Birds.
Now, I have downloaded it to my iPhone and am addicted.
Apologies in advance if Mrs Templar sends you a letter mentioning legal action regarding loss of earnings lol.
ST