GBPNZD: Short Trade 27.8.12

Now, if you've been following my blog since the beginning you'll know that GBPNZD owes me some money Yo! No hard feelings at all, but I think I might have found a way to get it back.

GBPNZD is in a strong down trend on the daily, and if you look to the weekly for bias you'll see that unlike GBPAUD, GBPNZD has not yet hit the bottom of its range.  I.e. It has room to go before we get a strong bias to the upside.

Check out the below daily chart.  I see a high test bar from Friday, at the monthly pivot, at the 61.8% fib retracement from the July to august leg down.  Talk about confluent factors!!

Better yet, we've got some hidden bearish divergence signalling a continuation from this level.

Trade details:
Short at 1.9453
Stop at 1.9595 (10 pips above yesterday's high test bar)
Target at 1.9010 (Conservative target at previous swing low)

Now if the trade goes in our favour I wouldn't take it all off at 1.9010.  I'd be targeting the bottom of the range at 1.8633 with the remaining 1/3rd of my trade size.

EURJPY Short: Hidden Bearish Divergence 27.8.12

Hi team

Spotted this one today and thought you might be interested.

Short at 98.30
Stop at 99.30
Limit at 95.30
RR: 3 to 1
Risk: 1%
Trade Rationale: Sell at break of consolidation at 61.8% fib level, with hidden bearish continuation divergence to support.

Hidden bearish divergence signals either a continuation or a bearish reversal.  We're in a down-trend here, so it can only be signalling continuation.  It occurs where price action gives a lower high, and the oscillator (in this case the Stochastic) gives a higher high.

Let me know what you think!

Trade update 1 august 2012

Life:
I've been loving the Olympics lately!!! I hope you've been getting involved in it as much as possible - so much great tv.  I love watching the dreams being realised...and it's interesting to see peoples hopes being dashed as well.  It shows how much these athletes care!!

Trading:

NFP week, so I've had a quiet trading week intentionally.  I've got a couple of open trades still:

GBPUSD: I'm 120 pips up, or 1%, on the daily trade that I took earlier in the week.  Inside bars are effective price action entries, and this one has worked out for me.  I've now moved my stop past break even and taken 2/3rds of the trade off. Always pay yourself when the market makes profit available.

EURAUD: I've only got a 3rd of this position left on the table, and I'm trailing my stop loosely behind it on the 4hr lower highs. I'm pretty happy with how this trade turned out.

New Trades:

EURUSD - I've traded this because my entry criteria within a down trend was satisfied.  I'm slightly concerned that it was because of things said in the FOMC that the trade was triggered.  Hopefully there won't be any large action buying the dip.  Rather, I think the fundamentalists were reassured that things are better in the US than in Europe (best of the worst...).

Orders:

NZDUSD - I'm liking the three high test bars we've had on the daily now.  It seems that NZD is struggling to break this resistance level.  My entry is below the low, stop above the high of Monday's bar.  Target is the monthly pivot at 0.8005. Actually, as I write this it looks like I'll be triggered in.

YOU:
How is your trading going?? I'm getting a few hits on here these days, so I assume that some of you are looking at the charts, and going through the same thing as I am! Trading is just one of the big rocks in my Jar of Life...what are the rocks in yours?

30 July 2012 - Trade Ideas

Hi All

I've detailed some of my trade ideas for the next couple of days below.  Remember that it is NFP week this week, with a lot of other news out there as well.  It's good because it can make the market move - but you have to accept that news will either push you closer to your target, or to your stop...that's the way it is.

GBPUSD: Short - Price Action - Inside Bar on daily chart at previous resistance


My entry is below Friday's low, stop is above Friday's high - target is 1.55 for a nice 1.5:1 trade....let's see if  I can't break my duck on non-euro pairs!

NZDUSD: Short - Price Action - Doji at previous resistance

Entry below the low, stop above the high - trailing stop on this one to minimise risk. The spike in volume today demonstrates to me that there is selling pressure in the market here.  If that is true, then the bears were up to the challenge on the day.  I think at least that there will be a pull back there to the weekly pivot, which is why I've targeted that for a 1.2:1 trade.  If this triggers I'll monitor it on the hourly time frame and any sign of a HH or HL I'll close for either a small loss or profit. (Only trade this if it's in your trading plan).

Happy trading!

Monthly Wrap Up - July 2012

Well, my first month of trading cash since I achieved my paper trading goal during the first half of the year.  It has been a month of ups and downs, and I've finished with a (0.25%) loss.  I'm pretty happy with that, mostly because I've been able to secure enough winning trades to cover both my natural losing trades, and the psychological mistakes that I alluded to before.

Here is a summary of my trade performance:

July Stats Number of Trades 19 Number of Wins 8 Number of Losses 10 Number of B/E 1 Average Win 0.88% Average Loss   (0.73%) Month Result   (0.22%)

Open trades at month end:
EURAUD short - currently 5 pips down (thanks to that massive swing after 6pm on friday).

I've been analysing my trade performance this morning and I've revealed some very interesting things about my trading. Being able to do this is one of the key benefits of having a comprehensive trading journal:

1) Apart from one Income Generator on AUDUSD Long, I only made money shorting the EURO this month.  I did so against JPY, AUD, CAD, GBP, NZD.  One learning is that trending strategies are more successful when a very strong trend is in place. 

2) I lost 3% trying to short GBPNZD and 1% shorting GBPAUD on various income generator and price action strategies.  Aside from an error on GBPNZD costing 1%, I followed the rules of my trading strategy on these and I can accept that these are losses within the confines of that strategy.  Finally the market did turn on Wednesday - and is now heading short (GBPNZD). That's the way it goes.

3) Trading in choppy markets is dangerous - look at GBPUSD, USDJPY, NZDUSD, trades.  Those markets have been very choppy recently, without clear direction.  I've traded them and I've been burned.

Strategy Review:

It's interesting - as I conduct this review I am seeing more and more areas where I can cut potential losses from my trading.  For example, the power pivot strategy is not one I'm that strong on, and I probably don't have an edge there.  That's 1% I'd have in my account if I hadn't traded it.  Add that to the 2-3% worth of psychological mistakes I made, and you're looking at a solid performance.  

Month Summary and Key Lessons:

1) The time trading a practice account has helped enormously.  My first month trading cash after I'd done my  K2A "training" resulted in a 20% loss. I'm more focused, I trade more like a sniper, and I'm more confident.

2) Leave the phone at home!! I lost a % this month from trading at work on my cell phone...I'M AN END OF DAY TRADER...why I'm even looking at my trades during the day I don't know.

Most of all:

3) Keep trading - keep working - keep learning - and start winning.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading this - I've enjoyed putting it together, and it's been bloody interesting taking a step back and looking at what I've done.

Goals for August:

1) Achieve a 5% gain for the month

2) Implement my new risk management policy, to never have more than 2% of my account at risk in any week, and (hopefully it doesn't come to this) to switch to paper trading in any month that I'm down 6%.

3) To make sure I don't get caught out trying to pick the top of any EURUSD or related pair rally.  I made money from the EURO in July, let's not give it back in August.

Trading Update - Thursday 26 July 2012

Open Trades:
EURJPY Short: Still sitting in this one, although my unrealised profit is now .6% I've locked in .4% of that with my stop, so there's no real reason to close the trade as if my stop gets hit it won't cost much.  On the other hand, it's a nice hedge against the other trades I discuss below.

EURCAD & EURAUD short: Both of these met my trading plan requirements overnight.  They are in a strong down trend, and showed high test bars within the range of the 5ema and below the twenty ema.  The momentum is to the downside and my entries were at the low of Wednesday's daily bar, stop above the high.    Target is 1.5% on these and I hope to have them closed by the weekend.

AUDUSD Long: Traded AUDUSD long with an entry above the high of Tuesday's hammer bar on the daily.  AUDUSD is looking bullish, and while it is clearly quite volatile, I think the strong bull action on Wednesday will continue until at least the recent higher high from July 20. Target for this trade is those highs.

Happy trading!!

Every day I'm strugg-i-lin (25 July 2012)

Shuff-I-lin would also be appropriate ... but unlike the catchy tune, this type of shuffling ain't so fun.

I seem to be coming up with one or two decent trades each week, and fair being fair I also have a loss or two and that has netted a small gain in the past few weeks. But I'm in the red, one percent...and why!!! Because I also make a psychology mistake each week.

Today I tried to fade a spike on euro, but that isn't in my plan, I don't have an edge there. Why do I do that....impatience I think. 1% a week feels too slow.

But a 50% year would be awesome! I must focus on that.

Trading psychology...do you ever read a trading psychology book and feel like you didn't learn any new theory. I know all this stuff...the issue is in acting upon it.

What do you guys do to keep focussed?