torero

My only take from this 240-min is that the upper 9440 is back into the rectangle. Since it's been broken down and possible this is a confirmation to make what was support is now resistance. I'm watching this careful for any signs of weakness to reverse my position.

Thanks but to be honest, I didn't take this trade based on my discretionary rule, it was from a trading system I had just launch to trade in realtime. It hasn't signalled to exit just yet. But I see some resistance in this area. I'll stay with the trade since it generated it.

I still sense a feeling of sibling rivalry? :0) A very nice team you both build! I took a long tonight with a small tight stop. I'm looking for 9440 as target (38.2% retracement).

If your trail stop is higher timeframe than your regular timeframe, wouldn't it exit late?

Seems like the old gang is here. I assume everyone knows each other from the previous internet life? Good to have you all on board and get some fresh insight. I'm looking forward to learning more!

Nice. Thanks for the answer. I think the charts don't tell the whole truth. You have to be there and watch the quotes yourself. It looks so smooth but it's very tricky I believe. Time and time looking at it make it look so easy but thanks for reminding why the pros stay away!

Buk, Tex, Looking back at this news announcement from the 15min chart, one could bracket this area, buy stop and sell stop in case it goes either way. Would this would with decent results? I drew 2 broken horizontal lines to mark the narrow bars before the news.

This is too funny. All this time, tex was mentioning Buk, I thought she was talking about $ LOL! I couldn't make sense some of the things she was saying until now! Silly me, I'm very slow to get things. It's quite an honor to have a tag-team to provide some excellent insight! I hope you both stick around as I'm still learning the ropes in forex. Tex, you were right on after I made the short this morning, it went nowhere and not going until the NFP is issued. I always wondered why it has such a big impact like the FOMC news in terms of price volatility? Great to have you on board Buk!

I gotta start looking at another pair, apparently this has been trading extremely well. I'm going to keep an eye on it more. Need another pair to trade more actively. I've managed to trade 2x a week with GBPUSD. 4-5x seems reasonable, especially at this beautiful move like this one.

Is this the 2nd chance? Just took a short here and see how it does.

Yes I missed this one too. I have set alarms in the past for any overnight moves that may happen, unfortunately, most of the time they were short lived moves, especially when London was near.

I agree, looks like another bear flag is at work again, a continuation pattern. Let's see how it does overnight before London opens.

Very nice Monster! You got the good end of the trading the news.

I missed this bear flag completely. There were missing data in Tradestation since FOMC news yesterday and still seeing holds here and there. Hopefully I can get it corrected soon. Big moves and I'm not in it. To be honest, I was a bit how large a move to the other direction for me and wasn't really prepared to go short. But I have to correct this chart before doing anything.

Thanks for the info. I usually don't follow news, but follow when it was to be announced. Swing trading is a bit difficult when interruptions like this break the mood and momentum. I may go back and stay with smaller frames. Good learning experience for $0. Not a bad education eh?

I totally agree. Trading mechanical doesn't really take away the fact that you still can pull the plug or manipulate it during the trades, etc. This intervention is what makes the system worst and not stay with the performance as expected. As I said before, my system were built on money management first. They must fit my trading style and tolerance level. All the systems I've put it on trading has then 20% maximum drawdown. So I know I'll pull the plug on it when it reaches there. It's a benchmark point where the system will have stopped working. Most people don't understand that systems can handle drawdowns on its own, it's the owners or traders who trade them that can't handle them. This is the other reason why renting them can be an emotional panic when you don't know in full details what the system is capable of doing and not doing. I always judge the systems' soundness by seeing if any money management is in place, then see if it's within my emotional tolerance. I learned this very quickly after deciding to go mechanical with the original belief that no more emotions will be involved. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Not sure if this dropped was news-driven or not but certainly swing trades are tough when it has to deal with news wild swings, something I didn't consider before. Intraday might be my best bet since I'm not good at accepting wide stops.

Ouch! Lesson learned: don't change timeframes in winners or losers. I'm going to look to fill the gap here.

I had suspected moving from intraday to swing might be a total change in targets/stops, etc. I had thought this would be a good exercise for myself how this would work out. True I had my stop placed under the top of the New Year gap. Might not fly in the 240min or daily chart. But I already missed the exit at 9743. So, might as well hold out this pullback and see how it goes. I'm watching the daily triangle confirming the breakout, so still bullish, only problem/concern is where will the pullback stop and turn upwards again. hmmmm.

Most system traders (successful ones) admit no system will last forever. Hence there is always continuing search for the new systems. Even robust ones need tweaking, revisions, etc from time to time. Same as discretionary traders, they need tweaking (bullish to bearish mindset etc) as new conditions arise. This also explains why these systems for sale out there don't make money. Either too many people trading it making the market absorbing the strategy into failed ones or just don't last long enough when changing conditions become evident.

Hi Tex! Happy New Year and hope you had a great holiday with your loved ones as I did! I'm still on the trade. Originally it was a meant for a 9743 area as target. But seeing the bigger picture on daily and weekly, I'm placing a breakeven stop and let the bigger pattern (triangles on daily and weekly) take this trade. Taking this action, I'm wondering if my stop is foolish and should move it to an appropriate area on the daily and/or weekly chart. What do you think? I've seen traders turn a winning trade from an intraday to a swing (but I've seen newbies doing the opposite... taking the loser from intraday to swing). Think it's a good idea? If it doesn't work out, I'd break even, so no risk to me. One of my new resolution was to ride the winners longer.

I got a bachelors in international marketing. Just nights studying to become a webmaster when webmasters belonged in the marketing department. From there it went on. It took a few months of reading, doing tutorials etc. Matter of time, just like how one would start on trading I guess. I got to know EL with a tutorial and manual in no time. Again the less variables and rules the system is the more robust it is. That means with different conditions, it manages to survive and thrive in it because there are little rules to thrive in one and die in another. So, in truth, the good strategy doesn't have to be so sophisticated or difficult to code. Know the market and code should come pretty well placed.

Believe or not, soul, I've seen some code in the TS forum and has been shown by other traders using internals to signal and time their trades. Nothing is impossible that cannot be done in code. Just a matter of how skillful or skilless the coder is. Check around the forum and you can find some nice nuggets to get your ideas going.

Well, Happy New Year everyone and looks we're starting the year with a big bang (gap LOL). I went long right after the gap. I have seen a few positive patterns to make me go bullish. Both triangles in daily and weekly are in play, both with target just above 2.000. This is a big big big resistance area so we'll see if George Soros want to short again here LOL! Different times and different scenarios. We'll see.

I guess now I have find out for myself. Thanks, guys. Should be good read during holidays LOL!