A Loss.....

The GBP.CHF trade was a loser. This was another repeat episode of me trying to catch a falling knife.

Time to wipe the blood off my fingers....

A win....

Took profit on the USD.CHF trade. It did what was expected.

Love Them Swiss!

I just can't get enough of them (Rolex, anyone?)! Got into another trade, this time GBP.CHF. Setup is similar to my USD.CHF trade.

Swissy

Took a new trade on USD.CHF pair. Nice pinbar off daily PPZ with RSI Divergence. Take Profit area also properly defined.

Let's see if she wants to go there...

Getting out when things are not working as planned

Got out of the EUR.USD trade at BE. The pair stalled at the 1st area of trouble, which I only realized after I was already in the trade.

Obviously the momentum was not enough to push thru this minor resistance points, so I made a decision to get out with my initial capital still intact.

Note that the rejection was almost to the pip at the bar lows. If I had simply target the lows as my Take Profit place, my order may still not get filled due to spread.

This would be especially true for those exotic pairs that have wild spread, and tis could be costly to me.

I have now made some changes to my spreadsheet column to include this considerations when calculating TP points.

Watching.....

As I was about to shut my PC down, I noticed this obscure pair that hasa nice potential setup. Nice PA (BEOB), off 61.8% Fib. off daily PPZ, some space for it to run.....what's there not to like?

Ok, Ok.....now I'll shut down my PC and head off to the gym.!

Euro Ride

New trade. Nice support at 1.40, 61.8% Fib confluence off daily chart (not shown). Take profit zone near the bar lows hanging at the above daily PPZ.

Shutting down my PC now.....gonna pump some irons at the gym. Will see how this trade unfolds when I get back.

Loss due to greed

Lost this trade. What makes this loss felt bitter in the mouth was due to the fact that I had already anticipated the "trouble area" - but I chose to ignore it.

Why? Because it's my old friend Mr. Greed wrecking havoc in my head!

Luckily my stop was there to bail me out.

I will lick my wounds and learn from this episode. Hopefully I don't make too many of these "avoidable" mistakes again in the future!

A trade that I'm currently in...

Just got in - let's see if she has plenty of gas!

Waking up to the smell of pips

It's nice to wake up in the morning and see that your position had already reached your profit target.

This was the case with my EUR.GBP trade. I set a Take Profit order just before I went to bed.

In a way, this is a good example of "set-and-forget" type of trade arrangement, in which I am slowly getting comfortable with.

OK, time to crawl back to my cave and wait for the next trade!

Hourly Chart

Here's another new trade that I took, based on 1 hour chart. The trigger was the bearish engulfing bar off the 8700 PPZ area. And.......oh.......there's also a nice divergence on the RSI as well.

Another Loss

Well, what can I say? Although I was correct in pointing out the initial trouble area, I guess my greed got the better of me! I had expected that the pair would resume its downward trend.

Of course, there's no such thing as a sure thing in this business - and I accept this loss.

In looking back, I did not act when the pair ran into problems. Perhaps the tell-tale sign that the bulish momentum was still strong was the size of the double pin PA - it's pretty small when compared to the bullish bar that preceded the PA.

If the PA had bigger size, then perhaps it may be able to power thru the resistance areas, so this is something that I need to learn and bear in my mind.

So, this trade was NOT a failure. It did what we had expected it to do. I was simply expecting too much from this trade.

Heading into the weekend

It's not often that I carry my intra-day trades into the weekend. However, the cad.jpy trade that I'm currently in (based on 4-hr chart above) may very well continue until next week.

Currently price is stuck in a consolidation phase. In the past, I would have simply cashed in the chips. This time however, my trading plan is to give this pair a bit of room to move about.

Why?

Take a look at the daily chart below. The dominant trend is down. The pair is in retracement, which means that there is a strong likelihood that it would continue the prevailing trend, which is heading south.

And I plan to ride along, at least until the 80-ish level.

It could be a bumpy ride.

Fasten your seatbelt!

New trade

I've decided to jumped into the CAD.JPY pair that I was eyeing in my previous post. I let the USD.SGD pair go, simply because I do not have sufficient capital in my brokerage account. Somehow my spreadsheet calculation for the capital required is not correct.

If OANDA (my brokerage account) had a higher leverage instead of 50:1, this would not have been a problem. I'll have to shovel in more cash into my account so that I do not miss out on similar opportunities again.

Still, it no big deal, as there are always other trades waiting for me once I've closed out my CAD.JPY position. I like the way the price pattern is shaping up. Heck, I might even ride this out a bit longer, as this pair does appear to be with the trend.

Watching.....

Here's another pair that has caught my eyes. The 61.8% Fib off from the Daily is lining up nicely with the big round number of 85.

Well, let's see!

On my radar screen

A pair that I'm watching now. Nice location, nice divergence. Let's see....

Intraday trading using daily chart

Closed my EUR.AUD trade today for a small profit, as price had already reached my target zone.

New Trade

A trade that I'm currently in. This is probably not a sell-and-hold type of trade, as there's a bit of consolidation ahead.

Definitely not the type of trade to go for, if the focus is on getting good r/r.....

.....however, sometimes I just have to take what the market wants to give me, if at all.

This is off a daily chart, so we'll see how this baby goes in the next couple of days.

Getting paid while I slept

Nothing can be more exhilirating than waking up in the morning and finding out that you've netted some pips!

That's what happened on the USD.SGD pair that I had eyed in my previous post.

As mentioned before, I liked the setup. Since it was already late a night, I simply put in my sell order, along with my stop loss & take profit order........and I promptly went to bed.

Both the sell and take profit orders were triggered while I was chasing my own sweet dreams.

Next trade, please!

Taking aim at the wabbit!

Watching this pair......nice PA at daily PPZ, nice divergence....my rifle is loaded and ready to be triggered........waiting.......

Scared Money

I'm now reducing my max % risk per trade from 2% to 1%.

The reason for this change is simple. There were times when I felt really, really uncomfortable about the amount of money that I'm leaving on the table, after taking a trade.

And this feeling of unease is NEVER a good thing, as this could potentially goad me to really screw up on my trade management.

I had thought that having a 2% risk was something that I could live with.

I guess I was wrong.

So let's see how my psychological reaction would be, now that I have slashed my risk.

Bat out of hell

Well, I did not like the way this eur.usd trade is acting! The market has started to flash yellow lights, so I got out at BE+1, all within the space of an hour.

Why is it behaving this way? The "why" is not important - what I'm more concerned about is how I would manage it when it is not doing what I had expected it to do.

Let's move on.......

On another note, I am now thinking of adding stocks into the mix as well. Although this is essentially a FOREX blog, I will also add some of my future stock trades here. The instrument may be different, but my trading approach of relying mostly on price actions will still be applicable as well.

As they say, the more the merrier!

Change of Approach, and a New Trade!

As a trader, I am always analyzing and refining my trading approach. I am constantly evolving as I learn & experience new twists in my trading framework.

I have decided to replace my usual MACD with RSI as Divergence indicator.

I have also started to look at hourly charts, since I do have a lot of time to kill. In fact, here's my 1st trade using the hourly chart. Nice location, with RSI divergence to boot as well.

With the hourly chart, I will need to manage the trade a little bit closer. Let's see where it goes.

Post Mortem on NZD.USD Failed Trade

As usual, I like to analyzed my failed trades. These are great case studies, and one can learn a lot from them.

Before I enter any new trades, I would try to see if there are any "problem areas" that could potentially derail my trades. I obviously did not find any on the 4 hr chart.

When I zoomed down to hourly chart however, I saw that the 6300 level is an important level in this timeframe. Before the trade was taken, this area had been tested 3 times - making this a pretty important area.

And so, it's not really a surprise to see my position got bounced off again (for the 4th time!) from the 6300 area.

In the end, a lower TF S&R, if it has confluence with a round number, is certainly capable to be a show-stopper!

This was indeed, an interesting observation. I will take note of this in my future trades.

Another Loss

Yep, I lost this trade! This trade was based on Daily PPZ bounce.

It happens. I'll need to do some analysis on this one - perhaps I was trading into some traffic or somethin'....

And yes, it's time to move on to another trade.

New trade

New trade for this week. Currently in drawdown...boo....hoo....!

4th of July

When I was a student in the US back in the late eighties, I used to look forward to the fireworks display everytime on the eve of the US Independance Day.

I had fond memories during my 5 1/2 years stay there, in Akron, Ohio. One of the great things about the American people is that they keep coming up with cool new technologies. America is such a conducive environment that really foster this spirit of innovativeness. They're not afraid to lose - they would get up and do it again.

In a way, trading is quite similar. In order to gain, you need to risk a bit of your capital. There's no such thing as a "surefire way to make money" in this business.

Because there's always risk involved in this business, it is therefore, imperative that one learns how to manage the risk properly, before you start thinking about the potential profits.

Managing risk is part of money management. Do this well, and the profits will take care of itself.

Another Road Kill!

I've decided to kill my EUR.USD Long trade (at BE+1, of course!), as there was clearly a lack of momentum.

Which is really not totally unexepected, due to the US having a 3 day weekend (4th of July fell on Friday). It means that there won't be many players, resulting in low volatility.

Sometimes, we do need to make slight changes in our trading plan, if the trade did not turn out to be as expected. This was one such case.

Still, I'm quite pleased that I did not lose any money on this trade - which is always a good thing!

Another ride on the Euro Dollar train!

New trade on the EUR.USD, this time from Long position.

Batting up the window

I've decided to close my CHF.JPY trade for a small profit. Normally I would have held on, but NFP was just 30 minutes away.

Knowing the impact that NFP is capable of on the currency market, I feel that it's better to take what the market is offering now.

As they say, nobody goes broke taking profit! Great way to start the ball rolling in July!

NFP

Now I know why the NFP is today rather than the usual 1st Friday of a new month. The reason is because tomorrow is the US Independance day, it's a public holiday for the folks over there.

That means it's likely gonna be a slow day tomorrow.

Here's something that I saw in the local paper today that caught my interest. Good to stretch your brain a bit, every once in a while, no?

"Aoccdrnig to a rseearch sduty at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

Well, it wasn't that hard, was it? Now let's get back to trading!

CHF.JPY Trade

Have now moved my stop to BE+1. Yes, I have one eye on the NFP....that's the reason for moving my stop quickly.

Now it's a free trade.

Yep, free is always good!

I reserve the right to change my mind!

I did mention that I was eyeing the CHF.JPY pair. I also mentioned that I don't plan to enter any new trades today, due to the upcoming NFP news.

Well, the CHF.JPY broke to the downside, and I promptly went on-board! I like the setup, and I think there may be enough move to the downside to at least give me a chance to reduce my risk as the trade progresses.

Let's see how she goes!

Big News Day

Not much action today on all the pairs that I'm watching. Probably because of the looming NFP news later in the evening.

The NFP used to be on the 1st Friday of a new month. Don't know why it's on Thursday this time around.

Because of this, I probably won't enter any new trades today.

Waiting in the bush

I'm watching this pair now.....rifle in place.......

Come here, wabbitt!

"Hope" has NO business in this business

Almost all businesses have some kind of business plans. It keeps everyone focused on what need to be one to achieve the business objectives.

My approach to trading is also business-like. I normally have a plan on how I would manage the trade that I'm about to enter. There is some flexibility involved as the trade progresses (such as trailing my stops), but the main framework remains unchanged thruout the duration of the trade.

Sometimes however, I do jump off the wagon. When this happens, the market usually punishes me when I do not follow my own plans.

This happened on my recent EUR.YEN trade a couple of post ago. I had my reasons, but the market couldn't care less.

As I said before, I ignored my own plans. Once this happened, price took a different course from the ones that I had analyzed prior to taking the trade.

As a result, I became a headless chicken - not knowing what I should be doing next. At this stage, I was trading based on hope.

I usually learnt a lot more from failed trades than the ones that banked in the money.

A trade that I passed

Some of the FOREX old-timers had said that if you need to think hard when you want to enter a trade, then it's probably nt worth it. The good ones are those that really stand out, screaming "trade me!"

Well, I hemmed and hawed on this GBP.CAD pair. Heck, I even went as far as actually placing a Sell order, before yanking the pending order off.

Although I like the shape of the pinbar and its location, I was a bit concerned about the potential roadblock at 1.9000. I felt that I'm risking too much just to eke out a few pips.

Besides, this pair has been trending upwards so strongly that I really don't want to stand in front of a speeding freight train!

Next train, please!