How about that, I am accidentally posting my Forex post later in the day. Oops! Oh well, I like to keep people on their toes anyways. Promises of a good start to the week didn’t exactly pan out last night. First thing is that I spent 2 hours on the 401 trying to get home from work. I then had to feed my parents dog as they are out of town. This means that my evening only started at 8pm. Unfortunately that also means I missed the boat on what was a solid trade opportunity. After 8pm it was far too late. The EUR/USD pair was ranging perfectly from 3pm to 7pm. The barriers would have been solid as hell. Then she dropped from 7-8, which was predictable. What wasn’t was the sharp drop below the lower barrier. At 8:15pm the Euro was trading 45 pips below my lower barrier. That’s a pretty big freakin’ dive when you consider my usually safe method of trading. Once the currency did that, I wont enter into a trade. Once my range is broken then my setup is lost. Any trade made after would have just been based on momentum and not my other factors. So, another day where nothing was gained but nothing was lost.

Crap! Another night where things just didn’t feel right. I had some email questions and I am going to try to explain them here. I don’t play breakouts. They just feel too wild for me. Too quick. I prefer when the currency ranges in between my barriers. I can sometimes wait an hour before my currency gets my 5 pips. And I am OK with that. On the flip side, when there isn’t enough movement then I don’t feel confident that the market has enough “oomph” to pick a clear direction. In these cases there are a lot of people who will make money. I wont be one of them. My strategy is a little different. I enjoy playing in calm waters. Here is the EUR/USD chart from last night. You can see that I just didn’t feel enough movement. I also wasn’t going to watch these charts too far beyond 8:00pm. So, I packed it in for the week. I only made two trades but I am still up 10 pips on the week. That aint bad!

I lied.  I didn’t trade last night.  I felt pretty good with the 2 days earlier.  Things just didn’t feel right tonight.  The EUR/USD was moving in a very small range when I took a look at the charts.  I set a fairly weak upper barrier to see what would happen.  The currency blew through it and traded fairly high.  There is a time to buy. A time to sell.  And, a time to go drinkin’.  I decided the best trade I could make is not making a trade at all.  Hopefully tonight brings more action to the table.  I will post something else for you to enjoy later in the day!

Last night was pretty exciting. I had to force myself to calm down. I had what I thought was a pretty solid upper barrier. It was right around the days high. I got onto the computer around 7pm and watched as the EUR/USD was just bouncing around a lower barrier I set. I actually adjusted my low barrier based on that movement. I then watched as things started to rise. I resisted the urge to get into a buy trade at that time because I fear getting into a position heading back to the days high. I still wasn’t sure if the drop had finished. It turns out that upward movement shot right up to the upper barrier. Here is where things got fun! I was convinced a new high would not be set at this time of the day. So, I got into a sell trade right at my upper barrier at about 7:49pm. I then watched in horror as the strong (violently strong!) rise kept going. It shot right through my barrier and looked like it was heading straight for my stop loss. Sure enough it topped out just below my stop loss and then dropped. Things kept dropping and my take profit level was hit at 8:01pm. Below is the chart so you can see what I saw.

Trade Summary:

Sell EUR/USD - 1.4794
Close Trade - 1.4789
Pips = 5

With my constant goofing around over the last few weeks, it is easy to forget that the actual purpose of this blog is to document my trades in the Forex market. I have enjoyed my vaction time but now it is time to get back to business. That includes eating healthy, working out and working my nightly charts. I was extremely cautious when I fired up the trade station last night. I knew that I would be jumpy to get into a trade. I also knew that I was out of practice having only traded a few times in the last 3 weeks. I jumped on shortly after 7pm and watched the EUR/USD pair. When I looked at the days activity I had even more reason to be cautious - the Euro had hit it’s days low after 6pm. That means that any upward movement later in the evening could be just a small blip before it continued to fall. It also means that my upper barrier might get broken during a correction of that low. There was a lot of reasons to question how solid my upper and lower barriers were. I waited some ups and downs out. I almost got in a few times but felt I didn’t have enough of a pattern. I finally saw some behaviour that convinced me that the lower barrier would not be broken and we were going to go up for at least my profit target. I jumped on a buy trade at 8:42pm. It went up, then dropped on me. Thankfully my lower barrier proved to be strong and the Euro bounced right off it. It headed back up and my 5 pip take profit level was hit at 8:59pm. What an awesome way to start the week. I was aware of the dangers and I was ready not to trade. I made a smart trade that had plenty of support and it worked out well.

Trade Summary:

Buy EUR/USD - 1.4678
Close Trade - 1.4683
Pips = 5

Last night I actually managed to get in front of the charts again.  As many of you know, I am into week 2 of my vacation.  As a result I am usually off doing awesome things and am too busy to get in front of my computer.  Last night was a relaxing (relaxing = hangover) type of day.  So I jumped on around 6:30pm to see what was happening.  I actually found a nice range and decided that the EUR/USD was most likely to drop a bit.  I hesitated a while and let the thing go down 4 pips before I finally got in on the action.  I entered into my sell trade at 6:58pm.  I made a bit of a boo boo on my trade entry.  I am going to guess this was the hangover at work.  I only entered a 1 unit trade.  With my broker that equals about a fraction of a penny!  CRAP!!!  Oh well, it is kind of funny.  My timing on the trade was perfect.  I was out with my 5 pips about 20 minutes later.  So, even though I only made less than 1 cent, this was still an awesome trade.  I just need to pay a little more attention to some other details when trading.

Trade Summary:

Sell EUR/USD - 1.4914
Close Trade - 1.4909
Pips = 5

Hey…today is a very lucky day!  It is the 8th day of the 8th month in 2008.  I am also posting this at 8am!  I think sometimes we make our own luck.  Last night I decided to stay out of the markets.  Again the EUR/USD made a nice drop all through the afternoon.  When I got into the charts around 7pm I noticed it rising from it’s low for the day.  This was a dangerous time to enter.  There was a good chance that things would rebound…taking them higher than my usual range.  There was an equal chance that things would continue to drop.  This means that if I got into a trade I was banking on luck.  Not good enough for me.  I turned things off and went to the bar for some nachos with a friend.  That’s it for me this week when it comes to trading.  I will continue to post some other random/funny things daily though.  I am on vacation next week but I will still try to keep an eye on the markets.  If I trade, you will all find out about it.

Rarely do you get a chance to redeem yourself. My previous trade sucked. The market did it’s thing but I was blind to the bigger picture. Last night setup in a similar way. I got in around 6:30pm to get my charts going. I set my barriers and then looked into the days happenings. Another nice drop in the EUR/USD and a slight recovery. This time I actually paid attention to the fact that the currency was coming up from a level close to the days low. I felt confident that my 15 pip stop loss below the days low would make for a safe buy trade. I took the buy trade at 6:41pm. It didn’t take long to be rewarded. At 7:04pm my take profit level was hit and I walked away with a solid 5 pips. This is exactly how the previous day was supposed to shape up! Oh well. You live, you trade, you learn!

Trade Summary:

Buy EUR/USD - 1.5412
Close Trade - 1.5417
Pips = 5

I had my first trade in about a week last night. Unfortunately, it was not well timed. I got into a sell trade based on the fact that I really wanted to get into a trade. I really did just manipulate my thinking just to justify getting into this deal. I got in at about 7:15pm last night when I saw the EUR/USD trading near an upper barrier I set. The problem is that the currency was still rising from near the days low. That is a dangerous sell trade to be in. When I currency is recovering from a low it wont always stay in small barriers. Oh well. My stop loss was hit at about 8:20 and I was out for a 15 pip loss. I will have to be much smarter than that tonight.

Trade Summary:

Sell EUR/USD - 1.5459
Close Trade - 1.5474
Loss in Pips = -15

I am actually a little amazed that I have a trade to talk about today. I did what any self respecting day trader would do with some free time. I went on a wine tour during the day yesterday. I have some good pics and I will probably post about that some other day. I got home just after 7pm. This was the first time I looked at a chart since Thursday. It looked like the EUR/USD got the shit kicked out of it in the morning. There were some massive drops. Things seemed to settle down in the afternoon though. I found a nice range in the currency and decided to get in on a sell trade 7:51pm. As usual I set my take profit at 5 pips and then set my stop loss at 15 pips. Things played around for a while, but my profit target was hit about an hour later. This worked out really well because I was tired from being out in the sun and drinking wine. Tough life, I know. Below are the details of last nights trade. I doubt I will have time to trade tomorrow. I am going golfing up north late in the day, so I wont be home until late. I might have time to jump in on Thursday though. As always I will keep you posted!

Trade Summary:

Sell EUR/USD - 1.5591
Close Trade - 1.5586
Pips = 5