Hello traders!
Yes, only six pips off the mark… that how close today’s trade got from my final target!
Around noon London time I entered a short entry on GBPNZD upon breaking the low of the Tokyo session in the direction of the intra-week trade. Immediately after, price cruised south beautifully, and within the hour my final target was at my finger prints… but I was not to get lucky today apparently. Indeed, the GBPNZD pulled a U-turn up and as price loomed again over my entry level I decided to manually exit for a scratch trade barely enough to cover the spread cost.
Quite unfortunate really, as it would have been a 90-pip trade had price run just a little bit further.
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Hello everyone,
Today I am one happy trader for two reasons:
1) I took a good entry
2) I took an even better exit
I spotted a clear London Open Breakout type of setup this morning on GBPUSD, which triggered within the first two hours of the London session. The key level for today to keep track of was the very obvious 2.0100 - yesterday’s double top. That’s the level I was waiting to give way before zooming into the shorter time frames searching for an opportunity to jump long on Cable. The entry came in the shape of my beloved breakout-pullback-continuation pattern and therefore I clicked on the “BUY” button. It was a good setup, a valid entry, so I took it.
Now it’s the exit what’s being really crucial today: I was sitting at +40 pips in profit ten minutes before the Unemployment Claims announcement coming from US was scheduled and I decided to manually pull out of my position. My final target was 20 pips away so I was basically risking 40 pips (my current profit at that time) in order to bank 20 more… not worth the risk to hold the trade through the news. So I closed it out and few minutes later, as the news bullet hit the wires, the GBP/USD dropped almost 40 pips within minutes!
Trading relies more on money management, in-trade management and common sense than anything else, and I believe this trade is actually a good proof of it. You can watch it all live here below:
By the way, I am still in the trade I took yesterday on CADCHF which is currently sitting at +60 pips as I type these lines. Seems like we’re forming some sort of double bottom at 0.9700. That’s going to be the key level to watch in the following hours, we’ll see how it goes.
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Hello everyone,
Firstly I apologize for not having uploaded yesterday’s trade yesterday. My firewall was for some reason blocking my internet access to my website so I could not upload the video. I had to disable the Windows firewall, the Kaspersky antivirus and the rest of the package. Does anyone know why would this happened? I run Windows Vista if that matters.
Anyway, let me talk about yesterday’s trade. I took a short entry on GBPCHF based on the breakout of the Tokyo session trading range in the direction of the trend. Moreover, USDCHF was backing up my position since it was also breaking in the same direction, so all in all CHF was showing strength across the board and that spurred me to take that GBPCHF short. It moved nicely to about +70 pips in profits at one point, but late in the day it retraced back to entry levels where I decided to manually exit out at breakeven.
As I mention on my Forex course one of my Golden Rules of Sensible Trading is:
Trade your time frame
That means that if you’re taking an intraday trade, your should be looking to see your target or your stoploss being hit within the day. When none of that happens it’s because you’re riding a momentum-less trade and that’s dangerous, so I simply decided to minimize the risk and exit out at breakeven.
Everything’s explained in the video below:
And now another example of a good-trade-gone-tits-up-mid-way-through: the NZDUSD trade I entered long about 10 days ago. Well, enough is enough: I gave it enough breathing room and I have taken enough heat. After having retested the 0.7900 last Monday I was looking to see the bulls pushing the Kiwi up into new yearly highs - unfortunately, it looks like the bulls are getting ready for their Easter holidays and the Kiwi gave us yesterday another bearish candle on the Daily chart. Well, today I had decided to give it an ultimatum: either we get a bullish day or I am out of this trade… I just cannot take more risk on this position, and indeed I have manually exited out at -76 pips as we pipped below yesterday’s low.
Enough is enough… It sucks because I still believe in the bullish general outlook on this currency pair, but I gotta keep disciplined and limit my loses. Always keep in mind that what annihilate trading accounts are not limited loses here and there but rather those occasional massive hits that went out of control for the lack of discipline.
PS: Forgot to post the total results for February 2008: including this NZDUSD loss, the total score has been -119 pips. Certainly not a good month but losing months here and there are absolutely unavoidable.
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Remember how few days ago I was involved in a trade that would stubbornly remain range-bound for hours on end? well, yesterday I experienced the very same thing all over again… Luckily this time around I had trailed my stop loss to breakeven quick so I wasn’t too worried about the lack of market momentum.
As it happened, I got a rather good entry and price swiftly moved in my direction for about +50 pips, where like I said I moved stop to entry levels. However, from that point on price became flat-lined and got stuck within a channel for the rest of the day. I woke up this morning to find out that I had been knocked out of the trade at +0 pips.
I think from these two last trades we can draw a fairly clear conclusion: market momentum is crucial! Chances are that if you’re running a steam-less position your stop loss will be hit sooner or later, as I unfortunately have experienced twice throughout the last few days.
Note to self: range-bound price action = baaaaaaaad!
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So I was stuck in a position, remember? Well, no more… My stoploss was knocked over-night for a -19 pip loss.
As I hint on the video below, I am not upset because of the loss but actually because I knew that I should have closed the trade much earlier and I didn’t. I mean, as soon as the NY session opened and priced began moving sideways without a clear direction I knew that things were getting ugly and I should have cut down my risk by closing that trade right then and there - but for some reason I hesitated to jump out of the stove in time and eventually I felt the heat under my feet.
GGGRRRRR that’s a newbie mistake Hec, you should know better…
Yes I should indeed. Do you guys see how psychology is the most important factor in trading? technicals are important, but psychology, discipline and cold blood is where the key to success lays.
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