LOL
Its so frustrating… The days i feel like i secured a solid entry, the move i expect to happen, doesnt… In fact price does nothing at all!
Its been a tough month for me personally… Everything seems so much cleaner and obvious in hindesight, but i just cant realise it at the time and moment on the charts
Thank you ever so much for the unsolicited but much appreciated comment. Sometimes I think I talk too much, and am trying to be a little more circumspect, these days, but it is nice to know that something I have said has struck a chord with someone.
This is a very subtle area, in my experience. I agree with the things said between your two posts already, but for what it is worth will add my own view. I exit the majority of my trades via an order - I like using orders to set my ultimate TP as I find that mechanical execution of a proven strategy is the key to consistent profits, and using TP orders helps me stick to my strategy.
However, on all of my end of day trading (and a chunk of my intraday trading) my ‘order’ TP might be set to rely on quite a large move in my favour. So I would feel a fool if I simply left the trade open, was maybe 3-4% up at some point en route to a 5% return TP, only to have Price reverse and take out my original SL for a 1% loss. So on this sort of trade, and every time that I intend to hold a trade overnight, I look for a sensible time to move my Stop up to BE, often after the first retest of my original Entry level. But that’s a slightly different point so will skip over it for this post.
That, however, would just leave me at risk of having trades move with me, then against me, and end up out at BE, with nothing to show for having read the initial move correctly.
So my personal rule is: once my Stop is at BE, I wait for Price to move with me to give me at least 1% profit available, preferably 2% or more. If Price never gets to the 1% profit level, then my Stop will be taken out at BE. If Price gets beyond 1% profit, then I will monitor the trade to look for an serious levels of S/R that Price might hit before my TP. If Price hits one of these and stalls for three or four bars (so that is three or four days if I entered off the Daily chart, 12-16 hours off the 240 etc.), then I will take half the position off the table, effectively giving me 0.5% profit minimum at that point. I prefer Price to be at around 2% profit or more before it hits a strong stall, as that would obviously enable me to take 1%+ off the table. I then leave the remaining half of the trade open, with Stop at BE, and let the orders play out - either it hits my original TP (so if I had targeted 5% originally, and the stall had occurred at the 2% level, then this second half would give me 2.5%, meaning a 3.5% overall profit on the trade when one factors in the 1% I took off at the time of the stall). Obviously this is only for trades that do not move off straight to TP. Apologies, I think that this is pretty badly expressed; what I am saying is, I set a fixed-but-ambitious TP, trail Stop to BE early, and if Price stalls ahead of my TP I take half the trade off the table as long as that half is [I]at least [/I]0.5% return and preferably 1%.
A recent example of this is my AUD/CAD trade, it was a Long triggered off an order overnight on 4th April. Price stalled on 12th April (at the 1.0400 round number), with a high test to boot, I had a decent return on the table so I took half the trade off the table, giving me just under 3% return. Turned out to be a good call, as my BE Stop on the remaining half was taken out yesterday. Which is fine, very happy with the trade.
I have had the same thing today - I went long GBP/JPY on 16th April, and today took half profit as Price is not enjoying the 1.31 level. The TP on the remaining half is 132.95, with the Stop at BE, so I will just leave that to play out.
I am not claiming that I have invented the wheel here, I am not claiming that this always gives me the best result when hindsight is applied, but it does fit with my overall style, and enables me to make consistent profit and conserve my capital. Get those two elements right and the rest just kind of clicks, in my experience.
Sorry to ramble on!!
Interesting that you should think of that so quickly…!! Shame on you!!!
Sorry to be so absentee recently, guys, only had one week back from holiday, and three family birthdays in a row over the weekend/this week so lots going on. And Mrs Templar went away on busines today so I am juggling small children (not literally, yet) with trading etc. But I am around and reading avidly!
ST
I suppose at the end of the day, the subject of when and how to take profit is very much like the rest of trading, everyone has their own preferences. But at least the good thing is that the common theme running through the answers is that everyone knows the first thing to do is take your exposure, or risk, off the table first, as soon as is reasonable. Taking the profit comes after that.
Much like yourself ST a lot going on this end over the next little while. Oldest daughter starts her GCSE’s tomorrow, so doing my best to keep the mood quiet and calm at home, help out where I can with the studying, so may be a little absentee myself here and there over the next couple of weeks.
Funny thing is I still remember her running out of nursery with her latest painting to show me, my how time flies.
I suppose the question now is whether to leave the GU short open through Asian and view it again in the morning or close now for BE. I believe Bernanke is due to open his mouth in public tomorrow and it always goes horribly wrong for me when that happens. Mind you, that is assuming Asian doesn’t take me out first
I’m still net long, I’ve got a few surviving positions, all with stops trailed to 1.6080, looking for .6270/80 hopefully by the end of this week. If not I still end up with a nice profit. Definitely looking at the possibility of reversing my position within the next couple of weeks and will probably take profit on most positions before Friday’s close if any are still open.
If we get a convincing break of the 31/10 high (sorry Scooby… the 10/31 high lol) I’d tend to agree with you that we have a breakout but at 40% probability… I’m until proven otherwise still short… there’s a great deal of air beneath where were at! Scooby snacks all round if your right!
Yay an RC gem, where is this statistic coming from? Or are you just trying to say price stays in a range 60% of the time.
Yep very true, I had only glanced at my charts and see price hasn’t broken this high yet, still, I feel comfortable with where my stops are. I’m looking for Asian/London to move slightly lower and then hopefully break today’s high but we shall see.
I closed out my position today, don’t really like the look of the charts and just want to play this by day…
Personally, i’m swayed to say the break of the high 31/10 could be the fake out in LO… I’ve said that what ive been looking for last few days… Today price is a lot closer to that area… I think the exact reason people think it may be a ‘make or break’ to either be long or short will be the perfect reason to stop raid through it…
If GU break that high, and EU breaks its weekly high 1.3224 (which is also looking a lot closer after today’s action) at LO tomorrow, i think ill be looking for the opportunity to get short…
The large-ish upper wick on today’s daily, plus the one from Thursday says distribution to me, i think we definately need a release before i’ll look to go long…
All positions closed and flat till tomorrow, will post then, Goodnight! :57:
There’s a few red flag news releases on wed the 25th. UK GDP, I think it’s 9:30 am london time and later in the day the Fed FOMC statement. Either of those could effect the recent market sentiment, maybe slow down the GBP red ball express. Or at least a few hour pause for water & coal.
GBP numbers tomorrow morning will probably settle the G/U long / short debate. Posen’s comments a few days ago would seem to indicate that it’s not going to be a good number which might give that sell-off if it materialises. Personally I’d prefer to be flat going into such an important release unless I had some breathing room with my trade and stop to B/E but then I keep tighter stops than some. HoG I think your stops are pretty tight too - could see price just bumbling around these levels until the big release tomorrow morning and the spreads widening out could easily lead you to getting spiked out around the news time. Or you could win big… you pays your money and takes your chances I guess!
I think the big money is all lined up to do what it wants to do, i suspect the news releases tomorrow could be there ‘excuse’ for the movements we’ll see…
Time will tell as always…
Personally I wouldn’t go giving too much credence to the whole “excuse” thing. Always came across to me as a retail traders trying to over-simplify the market like there’s some entity out there gaming the market for themselves. Big money speculators are just one participant in the market and they’re waiting for those numbers as much as the next person.
Retail traders typically aren’t hooked into the market enough though and we don’t have the access to the data / resources that the main players have and this can make market reactions appear strange sometimes to us when there’s actually a pretty logical reason for the move for the main player. Retail traders tend to see just the headline numbers whereas the bigger investors dive deeper into the data and form their own opinions which can lead to pretty divergent opinions with how retail traders see the data.
Edit to add: unless by big money gaming the market we’re referring to the main central banks. We’re all just little balls of cotton being batted around between their paws 
I’m going to let the GU short run PB. I suppose when you put any trade on you place your stop because that is what you are “willing” to lose. Pick your levels, place the trade, expect to lose. Anything else is a bonus !!
Yesterday I covered all my shorts in the GU after the rejection from 1.6077 and ended up with a very very small profit overall… today I reenter 3 short positions at better levels (1.6140 and above) I planning to hold them even if 1.6166 is broken but if the move is too strong I will try to exit at any retest of the new resistance 
Tomorrow we might see another run for shorts:
a lot of SLs above that 6 month high… they are magnets for banks…
Morning everyone
Looking at my charts this morning, i tried to come from a more neutral perspective - putting my bearish bias to one side… The daily and 4H TF show the higher fractals broken indicating we should be looking bullish… Market flow also looks set up for today to be a bullish day…
If in doubt, stay out?
I think a stop raid in LO to the upside will see the break of 6 month high then a push lower
But a stop raid to the downside will see yesterday’s Asian low to be blown out and getting long at the 6100 fig
All in all, im tempted to drop my bearish bias - at least for today anyway
May just sit out to NY
:57:
Sincere apologies if the above comment caused offense ST, it was never ever intended to do so.
HoG
Not at all - actually I thought it was hilarious!
So closed my GU short this morning just after 8am for +11. Too much uncertainty going around in the next hour. Was going to short again when price popped up to .6160ish, but a battle with a 7 year old and some jam and toast put paid to that idea.
Well looks like doubting myself this morning made me miss the boat completly… News obviously gave it the big push down…
If i dont see a decent entry im staying on the sidelines today…
Not going to try and step infront of that run away train lol…