Anyone here into FOREX?

[Music_Producer]

The one thing I notice about your trades. I read that you got a lose and then I wait to see how you recover it. Always amazes me how you recover this stuff.

You always keep resistance and support levels on your chart.. and the 5SMA. Retracements usually hit the 30 min or 1 hour 5 SMA and then proceed back on track.

An hour ago, GBP/JPY started rushing up.. it hit 231.60 (which is a fib level - so good resistance there) As soon as it hit that level, it started dropping. So I shorted it, for a quick scalp.. I was expecting it to fall to the 30 min 5 SMA which was around 230.95. It eventually went down to 231.07.. where I exited.. because it didn't look like it was going to hit the 5sma level. Plus, Bernanke's speech is coming up today.

Every spike, or drop.. always retraces. You can see it running out of steam.. you have to get used to it. Of course, you do have to look at any news event which is causing that spike/drop.. if there is no news.. then yes, it retraces.. if there is.. then determine how strong/important that report is. For e.g. a surprise interest rate hike/cut.. the pair will shoot 100-150 pips.. and will never retrace.

 

[joshmv]

Just traded real money for the first time, closed out with 9 cents profit,

 

[Music_Producer]

Just traded real money for the first time, closed out with 9 cents profit,

Nice! That's how I started.. my first profit was 1 cent.. and I went out to celebrate lol.

UK earnings report and claimant count was so easy to trade.. in a funny way. Both came out good.. and oddly.. GBP/USD dropped to 2.0320 (from 2.0330) I guess people were expecting it to come out bad.. so I got in at a great price.. 2.0320.. and got out at 2.0345.

It's dropped a bit now, but that might be profit taking. Also some news about a UK hedge fund losing 25% of their account.. that's weighing in on the pound. With all these bad reports everywhere it's become a pain to trade news reports.. usually we could have seen 30-40 pips move.. but there have been idiotic 10-12 pip moves.. and then retraces.. trades whipping around.. nuts

I can't wait for this carry trade sob story to be over already!

 

[zorgborder]

I've got 13 cents

 

[Music_Producer]

I've got 13 cents

Hey you're making more than me Pound now at 2.0365 (ahhhh why did I get out at 2.0345 )

 

[~Shard~]

I've been trialing a new method for scalping this past week and so far it's worked fairly well. 1 minute trades for the most part, 3-4 pips is the goal, and I've been fairly consistent. Made 12 pips on AUDUSD alone last night and another 7 on EURJPY. Potentially a nice supplement to news trading.

So, is it time yet to pile onto the carry trade again?

 

[joshmv]

I've been trialing a new method for scalping this past week and so far it's worked fairly well. 1 minute trades for the most part, 3-4 pips is the goal, and I've been fairly consistent. Made 12 pips on AUDUSD alone last night and another 7 on EURJPY. Potentially a nice supplement to news trading.

So, is it time yet to pile onto the carry trade again?

Scalping is all I've done since I went live, mainly because I haven't seen any news that I knew well enough to trade, and I couldn't stay up for the GBP announcement.

I am on the positive side, but I need to make sure that I only trade when it is abundantly clear what SHOULD happen. Occasionally I find myself guessing the tops or bottoms, and I need to be patient, and wait for the major indicators to come into play, that way I know the bigger players will be going in the same direction as I am.

What's next on everyones radar as far as news releases are concerned?

Also what are your thoughts on the state of carry trades at this point, obviously most have had a strong week, but it's a strange trend overall.

 

[nhallmark]

Well, its game over for me...lol ...made some mistakes financially.

It was fun while it lasted though!

Good luck guys

 

[~Shard~]

I am on the positive side, but I need to make sure that I only trade when it is abundantly clear what SHOULD happen. Occasionally I find myself guessing the tops or bottoms, and I need to be patient, and wait for the major indicators to come into play, that way I know the bigger players will be going in the same direction as I am.

You're absolutely right - blind speculation in the markets is a very bad thing and will get you in a lot of trouble. You essentially end up guessing and if that's the game you want to play you might as well just guess what number is going to hit on the roulette wheel at the casino.

No one can know for sure what will happen or else we'd all be rich, but what we can do is try to even the odds and make the most informed decisions possible at the time. It takes a lot of discipline, trust me.

What's next on everyones radar as far as news releases are concerned?

US retail sales and production/productivity. Then of course next week is the big rate announcement. Lots of action then I'm guessing.

Well, its game over for me...lol ...made some mistakes financially.

It was fun while it lasted though!

Good luck guys

Nathan, I'm sorry to hear that. You do not have to elaborate of course, but I am curious, did your forex account blow up or does this have something to do with your financial situation in general which has resulted in forex trading not being an option for you anymore?

Either way, I'm sorry to hear that - as one long-standing member of the thread to another it was great to have you around and I wish you nothing but success in the future. Take care friend.

 

[nhallmark]

Nathan, I'm sorry to hear that. You do not have to elaborate of course, but I am curious, did your forex account blow up or does this have something to do with your financial situation in general which has resulted in forex trading not being an option for you anymore?

Either way, I'm sorry to hear that - as one long-standing member of the thread to another it was great to have you around and I wish you nothing but success in the future. Take care friend.

You guys warned me and others on this thread not to rely on forex to pay the bills...but I did it anyway

So, yeah, I "blew" my account on bills lol

 

[joshmv]

US retail sales and production/productivity. Then of course next week is the big rate announcement. Lots of action then I'm guessing.

Are you still trading on the initial spike, and have you tried trading the retracement spike afterwards?

I'm still with Oanda, so with the crazy spreads, I might sit back and try and trade the second spike on that one to see how it goes.

If it's only a 10 pip spread or something I'll definitely try and trade with the news, but as big as the announcement is, I'm guessing it will be large.

 

[ctrackstar]

Well, its game over for me...lol ...made some mistakes financially.

It was fun while it lasted though!

Good luck guys

I havent had the pleasure of blowing my first account. From judging what I've seen all the best investors blew there accounts. The worst they blew it the better it seemed they came back as long as they didnt quit. Time to demo your off

 

[Music_Producer]

Got a good 25 pips on NZD retail sales report.. this was again, slow and easy.. I like NZD for this reason.. shorted 5 minutes after the report came out.. at 0.7110.. and took profit at 0.7085.

Nathan, what happened? PM me man, was it your dukas account? I hope you didn't get caught up in technical trading the GBP/JPY.. I only trade GJ on important US reports (especially during this risk averse environment) .. otherwise I don't touch it. That pair moves 100-200 pips in seconds.

You can build your account back up, slowly - it will take time.. but no losses are permanent mate. Every time I deviate from my strategy.. I get punished for it, so I stick to what I know and do best.

Shard, no carry trades happening yet - it's almost 2 months now since the carries got busted.. and they aren't anywhere back to their original levels.. just shows that market confidence is pretty shaky. Everyone's waiting for Sep 18 - till then markets might range or stay flat (unless something important happens before sep 18)

 

[~Shard~]

Are you still trading on the initial spike, and have you tried trading the retracement spike afterwards?

Nah, no retracement trading for me, not yet at least. I've toyed around with it a bit, but there's something that still bugs me abut trading it, as I feel it's speculative trading and not trading based on the facts, even though I know the probabilities surrounding retracements are somewhat valid.

Shard, no carry trades happening yet - it's almost 2 months now since the carries got busted.. and they aren't anywhere back to their original levels.. just shows that market confidence is pretty shaky. Everyone's waiting for Sep 18 - till then markets might range or stay flat (unless something important happens before sep 18)

Yep - next week I might even take a day off work on purpose just to be around to day trade.

 

[joshmv]

I haven't seen much discussion of it elsewhere, so I might be off-base, but I'm seeing a pretty strong trendline on the AUD/JPY pair. If you look at the 3 or 4 hour chart, you can take a trendline from the tops, and it comes down as a resistance zone a little bit above the current price.

What do you guys think about that?

Sorry no picture, don't have enough time to figure that out right now

 

[Music_Producer]

38 pips on US retail sales.. had a feeling number would come out -ve. I like -ve numbers Anyone care to guess which pair I traded?

 

[joshmv]

With the lower spread, and the bigger action, I'll go ahead and say USD/JPY?

 

[Music_Producer]

With the lower spread, and the bigger action, I'll go ahead and say USD/JPY?

Ding ding ding! You win a beer The reason I went with UJ was because GBP/USD was heavily beaten up today.. two bad news - Northern Rock forced to borrow from bank of england.. and the house prices in the UK dropped sharply. So I wasn't too sure about GBP's strength.. and I was right, it moved up only 20 pips on the news

Today was a fantastic opportunity to witness fundamentals vs technicals. Check out te GBP/JPY thread on forexfactory.. even *after* the bad news about northern rock came out.. people went long on GJ based on technicals. Needless to say there were losses of 100 pips or more (I'm sure some hopefuls kept holding on till they got a margin call)

Again, techs are great for determining supports, resistance.. and possible retracement levels.. but for God's sake.. if there's significant news staring at you in the face, don't ignore it!

 

[~Shard~]

Very well said Music_Producer, and well done on the trade! I only managed 9 pips myself, but that's better than nothing. Plus I'm still with CMC, so enough said...

Getting back to you point though, yes, technicals have their time and place, but I would never trade based on technicals during a news announcement - that's just plain silly. Technicals might (rightly or wrongly) move the markets at times, but fundamentals, are, well, fundamentals. You can't argue with them.

That being said, I technical traded EURJPY last night due to some nice setups and scalped 7 pips in total. Trades were only open for a few minute, in and out...

Well, I'm done trading for this week, but next week should be loads of fun. I'm debating taking Tuesday off from work and seeing if I can make more money off day trading the US rate announcement than I would have at work.

Have a great weekend everybody and happy trading!

 

[joshmv]

Do you guys think the consumer numbers coming out at 10:00 ET will be able to move the markets much?

 

[nhallmark]

Here's another laugh if you guys haven't seen this yet...

 

[joshmv]

I'm getting ready to trade the announcements on Tuesday, what's everyones game plan?

Which pair are you going to trade on?

What's your move for 0 bps, 25 bps, 50 bps?

 

[~Shard~]

I'm getting ready to trade the announcements on Tuesday, what's everyones game plan?

Which pair are you going to trade on?

What's your move for 0 bps, 25 bps, 50 bps?

I'll bet 25 bps. Potentially trading GBPUSD, USDJPY and GBPJPY.

 

[joshmv]

I'll bet 25 bps. Potentially trading GBPUSD, USDJPY and GBPJPY.

What do you think about trading the AUD/JPY, since it moves much the same as the USD/JPY and may have a very low spread throughout the announcements?

Also, what exactly would you do if it moved 25bps since MP was saying he thought that was probably already priced in.

By the way, are you trading the other announcements earlier in the day, or just leaving it alone until the interest rate news?

 

[Music_Producer]

25 pips on UK CPI report, 18 on US PPI report (both GBP/USD) and 75 pips on GBP/JPY (US PPI report) I went long on GJ after the terrible US PPI.. because that basically guaranteed that the Feds should cut rates. And I love it when I'm right.. GJ shot up 100 pips.

Now I'm staying out till the rate decision.. I'm VERY scared to trade this one. Your trading platform will most likely freeze or do weird things. I really don't want to give my pips away.. lol.

The only possible trading scenario I have is - if markets do not cut, or if markets cut by 50 bps. I don't know what a 25 bps cut will do - markets have priced that in a month ago.. in fact, 40% of traders are even pricing in a 50 bps cut.

So I would love to see no rate cut (the ultimate prize would be a rate hike.. I think I'll be vilified for this comment)

If it's a 25 bps cut.. I'm staying out until the Fed statement.. and see what their language is. If they talk about cutting rates again.. then I'll buy GJ.. if not .. or they talk about inflation being a concern.. I'm staying out.

There will be wild swings on this one, so do NOT trade a lot of units. I am, myself using a minimal lot.. not because I don't trust my trading.. but I don't trust the trading conditions.

Every trader - professional, amateur and his pet cat are going to be waiting for this rate announcement.

Josh.. I don't know about AUD/JPY.. but if news is good for carries.. then AUD/JPY will go up with GBP/JPY. GBP/JPY moves the most though.. like 100 pips in 2 seconds.