torero

We sure miss feb! Hope he comes back. If you really love the market, you're willing to do it for free? I paper traded for a year without thinking if I was going to make money. My only idea was to understand the market and eventually with luck and readiness I can start trading for real. Money should not be part of the equation, it's an afterthought. If you think about it before, during, and after the trade, you're off to a wrong start. Believe it or not, it's not about the money. It's the whole irony that makes most of us lose in the markets. If your surgeon think about how much he's going to make on your operation and not about saving your life, you'd think twice right? Take some rest and see if this is what you really want to do, write down 2 columns with pros and cons, and see if it's what you really want to do, even if it's for free. If you do decide to go for it, think of it as an internship, no pay, just learn the ropes until you're ready to be hired as a fulltime employee. The other thing is a couple of months is very little. Took me a few years to break even. Lots to learn, relearn, develop, redevelop, define, refine, repeat, etc. All these takes time. Good luck.

I see you still lead a bachelor college life. Have a drink for me, but keep it steady so you're still fit to trade. I totally understand how difficult it is for you to trade at such odd hours. I don't start trading until 3:30pm my time and it's about time when the kids are coming home so I can't really have much time to trade and stay focused. So 2 hours I have, I have take the advantage of it. Now if I were living in California, I'd get everything done by noon! Now that's cool! Okay, we're WAAAAAY off topc here. Sorry tin.

Near resistance 9754 and booking profits and wait for another possible consolidation. I think I'm very lucky to be starting to trade forex in a bull trending market like this. I know the good times like this might not last but hopefully I'll be aware of it when it ends because it seems a bit too easy to believe it.

while we're on the subject, I'll put my checklist and journal: 1) check the daily, weekly and monthly charts for important resistance/support, pattern and trendline levels and determine if they are bullish or bearish. Determine at what level above is bullish and at what level below is bearish 2) Check the intraday chart (60 min and 3000 tick in my case) for same as above. 3) Mark the nearest S/R and trendlines to current prices 4) Check for measured targets and compare them to S/R and trendline level. 5) Write down all the above numbers into trading plan 6) Trade only from those levels. When levels are near, I watch price action for clues if the prices respect levels or not (higher highs/low and lower highs/low from bounce or price piercing the levels). 7) Write down reasons and emotions felt before and during trade 8) Position manage the trade (i.e move stops, draw new TLs are market reveals itself). 9) Exit at target or unless market reveals the tendency in opposite direction 10) repeat step 5 with new levels written. I review the journals later and see where I did wrong and did right. After a while, I recognize flaw in the entry/exit or analsys almost immediately and readjust the chart and refocus and reread my rules and trading plan to remind myself to be ready for the next trade.

Tin, glad to hear thing are getting back to normal. Keep it up. Just keep your mind of your past trades and focus on the NOW MOMENT, the current trade only. Remember, we're traderholics, easy does it and take one trade at a time. I'm using this concept from Alexander Elder's referring to traders as alcholics. Very good analogy.

Yes. They do but it's not cheap. They charge 150$ an hour. If you were US residents and US citizen, things are easier as they know the routine already. When I mentioned it to them, they said they have to do research first (hence the rate), then they do the report (more payment). But they are good from what I hear. I may use them but I'm still shopping around right now. I'll let you know once I have contracted the person and see how good he/she/they with overseas traders and pass along the info.

So we've noticed, soul. You've been AWOL yesterday. Hmmm.

It's great stuff but I think it's a bit too complicated. John Carter's covers keeping a journal and it seems to fit what I see as a more useful and approacable concept to deal with. Taking in the economics numbers and world events don't much sense to me. Just my personal opinion. I keep a journal and requires nothing but charts and notes in those charts. Says everything I need to know. Adding news and world events would only mess up the mind by taking into account chaotic and over-emotional reactions of traders, not the stuff we want to take into trading, I think.

Stopped out from moving stop from last trade. I think th consolidation here may be forming into a triangle again but not taking anything for granted. I'm seeing another pullback and moving upwards again. Taking another long here.

SW=software, geek speak!

Hi reaver, Check out this site. If you plan to trade fulltime or very active, you can declare to the IRS as trader. Here's a very good site for reading on tax and accounting biz: Traders Accounting Good luck!

And another triangle! I made another long since I got stopped out and still see more advance ahead. Let's see if NY can push it up higher.

Problem is many SW vendors still don't support Macs, esp. in trading industry. But I'll do DD before considering it. Plus the prices are a bit steep for me compare to PCs. I guess you can consider it a luxury item. I'm a lowly trader from lower depths of bottom feeders LOL. I'm a bit of a scrooge when it comes to spending to be honest. I'll keep it in the wishlist like the others... porsche boxster, etc.. LOL

9570 is an recent historic high isn't it? If we get past this, it'd be since 1992 since we've seen such weakness in the dollar (the Brits visiting America must be estatic!). One observation I noticed but it's too early to make a conclusion and please correct me if it's off, and that is usually one market pushes it higher (say, Tokyo), then settles or consolidate until another market London opens and continue the advance, etc. This is truly amazing to watch.

Hmmmm, I think I should be more open to buying Macs. Always heard good things about it, but now with parallel OS, could be a incentive to buy one. I want a Powerbook though, any good? Ok, folks! Need extra dough for my new Mac, please adsense me LOL!

I got stopped yesterday from the short (tight stop), had tunnel vision and saw the small patterns. When I got stopped out, I went back up higher timeframes and saw the big picture. Sure enough, I took a wrong position. I shorted at support (9459) on 60min and 240min frames. This morning I went in with stop buy at 9490. Had to leave my laptop so I set the trailing stop with 20 pips trailing. Finally I got stopped at 9540. Not bad, it right at my target. Now a new game with new highs, I'll just keep buying pullbacks. Tex, one question. What are you thoughts on using trailing stops on forex? Have you used it with any success? I use this when I can't babysit it.

Looks like a reversal is in place on 15min charts, seeing triple-top plus a Heads-n-Shoulder. I missed the entry near 9454 but will wait to see if it comes back up for a small kiss.

Traders from Spain must be banned or someting. In the registration, Spain is not included in the country entry. Oh well. Thanks for the notice though.

Actually not. As usually I managed to keep about 50pips before letting it go. Not bad but still learning to hold it longer. Adjusting to forex is a bit difficult because I never expect it to trend so long and orderly unlike futures. In any case, I'm getting a hang of it little by little. One thing I do notice is that there are alot of triangle formations, mostly continuation triangles. The only caveat is the we don't know where the triangle breakout is or just another move toward apex. But very interesting indeed.

Going long at 9441 on pullback from triangle and rising channel breakout. I see 9460 as possibly strong resistance. But I'm just going to follow price action and keep a stop under 9415, a little tight but r/r is might not be great unless I count of the breakout above 9460.

Yes, I had my stop at 9336 and it took it out in one swoop when Tokyo closed. I thought it was safe, now I have to redraw it 9300 as support despite this spike down was a freak. I'll pass this up until I have a clearer answer possibly tommorrow. Yes, I agree I'm still looking for long plays.

Looks like it did fill in the end, I saw it stopped at the high of Friday but it pushed to closing. I got stopped out on that trade. I'm staying out until I see a better entry. I still see 9500 as target but not sure with this gap now, unless it makes over the top of the gap. But by then, the reward from there to all time high is a bit small. What do you think?

Yeah, I was amazed to see a 24hr market with a big gap as strange too, unless some big news over the weekend may have something to do with it. I had the alarm on the break of the gap to fill but in the end, I overslept and missed the move. No biggie. Asian close, London open should be interesting.

So what are gaps like in forex? Do these get filled like in futures? Looks like I'm witnessing one right now on Cable right after the Tokyo open. Maybe 50% fill? The spread is incredible--- 10 pips!!!! Wow! My mistake... bid 1.9150, ask 1.9400!!!!

Continuing with the price action primer (“Price Action: Modern Day Tape Readingâ€Â), this article will focus on where and when the best spots are located for entries and exits. As explained in the previous article, trend direction or lack of direction is determined by HIGHER HIGH and HIGHER LOW for uptrend and LOWER HIGH and LOWER LOW for downtrend. Understanding the above principle is fundamental in the concept of following the trend (i.e. “trend is your friendâ€Â). With this in mind, each trade more often than not have a higher ratio of reward to risk and that the probability is much higher in getting a trade to be winner than a loser (Inertia: The reluctance of any object to change its state of motion). The idea is to move with the trend and buy the pullbacks in uptrends and short the rallies in downtrends until the market shows otherwise. The chart above is the example of an uptrend in a series of HIGHER HIGHS and HIGHER LOWS. The best entries are the pullbacks, where the safest trade where the reward is high and the stop loss is small. How do we know when the pullback is finished and where to place the entry? In an uptrend, the pullback ends when a new bar is formed where its high is higher than the previous bar's high and/or the new bar’s low is higher than the previous bar’s low (although the determining the low is not a requirement). In close up of the pullback from the previous chart, the ideal entry is taken where the bar hit past the high of the previous bar. Why there? Momentum. This bar indicates that the bulls have made fresh new buys reversing the pullback. With these buys, more bulls will gain confidence and commit their buys or adding their positions to push it up further, this these bars usually see surge in volume. In addition, many scalpers at this point are covering their shorts, pushing it even higher. One caveat: make sure the volume during the pullback is low compared to the volume during the upmove. This indicates whether or not there are many sellers participating in the sell-off or not during the pullback. Low volume means a large majority of bulls are holding their position. Where is the ideal stop loss? It can be the previous higher low or the last pullback low, depending on how large a risk the trader is willing to take. The last pullback is a scalp risk while the last higher low is longer intraday trade. When we do take profit? Here are two options: 1. Look for the next resistance, it could be yesterday's high, this week's high or last high of the last few weeks. This strategy is best when the trade was initiated in the middle or latter part of the trend. 2. But the best indication to take profit is when the price action is no longer making a HIGHER HIGH and HIGHER LOW. Either it has gone into a range or it is now making a LOWER HIGH AND LOWER LOW. Following this strategy will ensure the trade will ride out the entire trend. Either option will provide a minimum profit at least 2 or 3x the amount of risk taken (stop loss amount * 2 or stop loss amount * 3). Below is the example of the second exit strategy where the profit exit line hits below the last higher low. Below is the chart with a strategy for shorting the rallies in a downtrend. It’s the exact opposite rules to long entries. When the small rally is ensuing, when a new bar that makes a low past the previous bar's low, that is the ideal entry. Target is the previous LOWER HIGH or the last rally high. And the exit occurs when the market is no longer moving down by not making a LOWER LOW and is now reversing to make HIGHER LOW or at next support. The best risk/reward entry is the first or second HIGHER LOW. This is very straight-forward way to making high probability trades if a trader is willing to take the time to learn the price action. Most professionals use this tactic time and time because it's one of the safest win-win trades (high probability of success with extremely small stop but a large profit target). With enough practice and observation, price action will be the primary confirmation and indicators will only be a second confirmation signal to make trading decisions. Despite the extensive use of technology for trading today, the market still speaks to traders in simple ways-- price action. So if a trader wants to listen and understand what the market is saying, this is the best way to learn to speak its language. This article was first submitted and posted at MrSwing.com. More trading articles. Charts provided SwingTracker