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cowpip
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Everything posted by cowpip
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OAC, I don't follow this strat much, but I do believe OzFx has his own web site where he explains the details of his strat with some examples. I believe the web site is: www.ozfx.com.au. Happy hunting.
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I guess the markets don't like being weaned off of the milk? No more rate cuts, it sounds like.
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Here's my "value entry" for the day on $/yen and how I zoomed in to fine-tune my entry... judged off the broken support on the hourly/4 hourly charts and with the daily trend (lower). Thus far, not a lot of profits have been seen and my scaleout location wasn't ideal, but it was enough to perhaps secure an entry pre-FOMC. It's entirely possible they'll sound more hawkish (in fact, I expect they will), in which case I'll get nailed. But either way, this was an opportunity that reared it's head, fit my criteria and ended up being modestly profitable - even if it fails. If it sticks, I'll build upon it. If not, oh well... I'll ride the wave wherever it bounces.
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He's lovin' it, so far as I know. He'll undoubtably pop his skin-laden-eyes into this thread soon enough. Indeed it has. It's stepping down nicely, and will probably continue to step down if oil keeps chomping at the record book. I've dabbled a bit in CAD, but mostly in cad/jpy. I've also dabbled a bit in aud/usd, which provided some nice entries at the base of the recent consolidation pattern on the dailies. But to be honest, I've been more focused on $/yen and eur/jpy. I like their personalities for both short intraday and longer-term entries. And not just their beer! They've undoubtably loaded their pants as well. :o
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I'm doing great, Tess. Trading is going very well. More up days than down days, and that's all that matters. I'll tell you though, it sure took me a stinkin' lot of time to learn sufficient "patience and discipline." But it's been worth it. That's the challenge, isn't it? If it runs, great. If not, oh well. As long as you maintain the upper-hand on the majority of the trades. He is still heavy into forex, yep. I'll see if I can haul his butt up here for a how-dee-doo session. He's living on the big island right now, so his hours are a bit off from ours, but it lets him trade the asian and european sessions nicely.
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Hey Tess... good to see you here! That's a mighty cool example you threw up there. I missed that move myself, but it sure did offer a clear-cut least-resistance path with that 15-min rejection (melded 30-min doji). I love looking for ops like that if they fall in-line with decent support/resistance and have a secondary confirmer such as divergence. Thankfully, they're a dime a dozen, or I'd be upset I didn't see that. It pays to shop around, doesn't it?
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Don't rush the process, Sledge. It takes time and patience to master this. But it's well worth it when you do. You are very smart not to chase this train, Sledge. Good job! Let it go. Be patient. There are a myriad of other trains out there to hop on. You don't need to get run over by the tail end of this one. Wait for a pull-back, or another reversal somewhere higher (whichever way you judge provides the least friction). Retaining your capital should be priority #1. Take'r easy guys!
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It sure is, isn't it? We all have episodes like that, Torero. It can be extremely frustrating, but there's a reason for it - so the sooner you can identify the problem, the quicker you'll get back on the horse. When I suffer episodes of losses, I sit back and closely examine all of my trades and what the market was doing. It often gives me insight into what I am doing wrong and lets me make adjustments to get the "edge" back. Usually, my mistakes occur when I start fighting the trend (or when the trend is in the process of reversing direction and I fail to recognize it). As long as you keep your losses small and the frequency of your trades low during such periods, you'll live to trade another day, right? Take care! Have a great weekend, everyone!
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That looked like a wise exit, Sledge. Right at the top of prior resistance (I don't know what the hourly charts looked like, but I suspect it was probably at resistance on those levels too?) Nicely done! I guess my main point is that trading should not be done haphazardly, entering and exiting on a whim, particularly for those only trading part-time (structure and strict obedience to your plan is essential). After seeing your exit point on the charts, I can see that you didn't exit on a whim. There was a good reason to do so. For those who are only able to look at the charts periodically during the day, it might be wiser to take entries based on the longer time-frames (4+ hour charts) using smaller size, larger stops and larger targets. Yes, it takes longer for setups to appear, but it is generally a safer way to play these volatile instruments. Just a thought...
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Nicely done, Sledge! I hope you took profit not specifically because it was "pausing" but because it gave you an indication it was going to reverse, or at the very least hit your target (a prior S/R level)? Congrats!
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Yes, you could easily be right. That daily pattern could easily turn into a nice pin-bar type of pattern that would reverse well off of the lows. A similar pattern has also developed on the 4-hour, but is at risk of being invalidated if it moves much further south. The jury is still very definitely out on this one, obviously. As I said - everyone has their own view of this. That's a healthy thing.
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I agree. It looks pretty two-wayish to me as well. Personally, I'd favor further downside on cable, but to be honest, that pair isn't currently on my radar. It's just a little too whippy for my liking. Good luck to the two of you. I hope you can both benefit from the price action (if that's not asking too much).
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And that's why trading is so diverse! Everyone has a different take on the landscape.
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Focusing on one pair - preferably a major (especially when you first get started in forex) is a good idea. I too focused on cable when I first started. I believe once you know one pairs' personality, it's generally not as difficult to learn the personality of others. There are a lot of ponds to fish in. There's almost always one or two pairs that provide decent setups during the course of a week (depending on your strat and the time-frame you play). No sense over stressing your brain, or your account.
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Hey Sledge... you should be patted on the back for your questions. You aren't only learning yourself, but you're allowing a whole lot of other people to learn as well. That's a big deal. No serious question is too silly or dumb to ask. None.:applaud:
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Anyone who is trying to trade that pair is undoubtably looking like this: :crap: Screen's full of bars that do not stack nicely will almost certainly sap your cash faster than an unguarded bank. That's why eur/gbp has been such a nice pair to trade over the last few months. Nothings friendlier to the account than predictability, and bars that stack nice are a whole lot more predictable and liquid than those that don't.
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Nothing in forex travels fairly easily without much resistance, imo. There is always resistance. From the micro to the macro time frames, previous support and resistance will be tested. Once in a while, price will take a good jaunt toward the next S/R zone (particularly post-news), but even those zones are usually retested at some point. If you see the price action that supports a quick jaunt back up higher to the 7800 area, then carefully consider it. But contra-trend punts are always riskier. In this case, (and imo) there wasn't a good signal on anything but some sub-hourly bars to attempt a long on. In this particular case, you would have been wiser to be careful because: You're punting contra-trend (always a bad idea). Your target is so small that your entry would have to be quite well defined (on the micro frames - 5 to 15-min frames) and be well executed in order to reduce your risk / reward to a justifiable level. The hourly and (particularly the) 4-hour bars were not encouraging for longs. Pre-weekend position adjustments would have made this an 'iffy' trade. The price action you saw where it bounced off of the 7750 zone was almost certainly more to do with pre-weekend profit-taking / adjustments. That zone hasn't really been well tested yet and will almost certainly be tested harder next week. In fact, the current price indicated on the chart (7823) is a former S/R boundary (from the base of the bigger pattern - it's testing the underside of that now) and may actually be a good place to start looking for a reversal signal to run price back down to the 7750 zone. The safer direction is always with the flow (and in this case, that means short is the path of least resistance). That means being patient and waiting for pull-backs. Then waiting for price action to confirm a reversal back in the direction of the dominant trend.
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Thanks Milliard. I know it's back-pocket material, but wasn't sure if it might become front-pocket material in the future. But really, you're right. That doesn't matter right now. It's being largely ignored right now, so ignore it. The dominant themes you pointed out are definitely the focus. It will be interesting to see if the euro can regain control above 5550. It may take a horrific NFP number to knock reality back into the heads of equity and dollar bulls. I'm not at all convinced this is anything but a medium-term dollar rally. There are so many fires smoldering in the forest, it won't take too much of a wind to fan the flames into another fire that burns away at the dollar. But for now (at least for today), they're buying dollars, so we follow.
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I have a question for the audience at large, and especially for those with a little more knowledge in the fundamentals. Not very long ago, the market was fixated on asset backed commercial paper. As I recall, it was contracting and was causing a lot of worry. That topic then died out over time as the sub-prime mess spread into other newer areas of concern. But a report out of Reuters today states that this last week, commercial paper shrunk for another week (that makes the 5th week running) and asset backed paper shrunk again as well (making it 4 weeks for that stat). I'm curious if anyone here believes this old can of worms might come back to haunt the market? Milliard - are you guys paying any attention to these fundamentals? There are rumors that the commercial paper may be shrinking due to concerns regarding auto and related loans - which is currently thought to be a possible "new shoe" to drop.
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For me, trading the news is simply not worth the risk. There are MUCH better opportunities post-news - AFTER the true direction has been established. And then you aren't subjected to the tricks that brokers can (and do) initiate to shake out the gamblers. My money is too valuable to gamble with. I'll take a post-news entry and ride the flow far sooner than a pre-news "wish upon a star" entry. Yes, I do know of strats that try to guess the direction of news based on reactions that occur just a few minutes prior to the news releases. But those strats are still (imo) nothing more than nearly-pure gambles. It would be a fairly simple matter for a broker to manufacture such reactions in such low-liquidity environments that immediately precede news announcements. You can't tell if the reaction is real or pretended. Thus, it's a gamble. If you take the post-news price action (many minutes to hours after the news has come and gone), you are much more liable to see true price patterns that properly reflect market sentiment. THOSE are the times to enter. Just my 2 bits...
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Cable's price action (on the daily charts) is NUTS!!! It doesn't take much of a wind to blow it around these days.
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I totally agree with you. My concern has been that people will say, "well it's no wonder I can't make forex work. Look at the tools they have." I believe almost anyone can make forex work quite well, if they have the patience and discipline to make it work. I too have been enjoying their comments immensely, and I have appreciated your questions to them. They're very good questions and deserve being answered.
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We can probably all tell by now that there is a fairly big difference in the tools that the pro's use to trade compared to retailers. They have access to tools that provide them with a unique view of the market (such as real-time order book flows). Most of us do not. But their view of the market is no different than the rest of us. I'd like to be clear about one thing: Anna-Maria and the rest of the pro crew would be perfectly successful in their trading with or without access to those tools. We have to remember that they are dealing with entries that are SIGNIFICANTLY LARGER than the sizes retailers play with and that they likely NEED those extra tools in order to justify placement of such large orders. When you're dealing with many thousands of dollars PER PIP on a trade, you want to be absolutely certain that not only is the situation a GRADE-A setup according to your 'edge,' but that anything and everything else that is known about the market is skewed toward your entry. They are dealing with some SERIOUS cash. Their investors would balk if they weren't using anything but the highest quality information. But their access to those tools does not in any way negate the effectiveness of their strategies they employ. I've seen some of them trade on their personal accounts with absolutely fantastically stunning results. So don't let their use of these professional tools distort your thinking about what is and what is not possible. They could undoubtably trade naked in the bathtub while simultaneously blow-drying their hair without getting shocked. Although I'm not certain I'd want to see proof of that!
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Amen to that, Milliard. It's suicidal not to pay very close attention to the larger time-frames. Sentiment and momentum don't switch on a dime. The daily, 4-hourly and hourly frames (in order of importance, imo) are the "truth-tellers." I really prefer the 4-hour time-frame. It seems to be the best in terms of determining market sentiment and providing relatively tight entries (of course, zooming in to the hourly and sub-hourly as needed to secure the best possible entry).
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Brilliant post, Milliard. Thanks. Many (if not most?) of us using retail brokers reading this thread will not have access to the tools that you pro's have access to. I believe they would provide a strategic advantage toward entering trades and having perhaps a higher strike rate. But... I would like to emphasize that although the more tools you have in your bag, the better, having such professional tools is not a prerequisite to success in forex. You can still quite capably bring in excellent cash flow if you abide by some simple rules (most of which have been repeated often in this thread): Find an "edge" that works consistently for you. Spend as much time at the screen watching as possible. Be PATIENT in waiting for the GRADE-A setups. Be DISCIPLINED in executing your edge without hesitation. GO WITH THE FLOW. Choose your battlefield (currency pair) carefully. Skew the odds of success in your favor as much as possible. Use WISE MONEY MANAGEMENT. Protect your entries against losses. Don't ever let a winning trade become a losing trade. These are repeats of what we all probably know. And most of it I was taught myself by those now present in this thread. But it doesn't hurt to repeat it over and over (and over). Yes - having an underlying (higher-grade) view of the news and order flows would certainly be nice and could be used to sharpen your edge, but they aren't a prerequisite for success. (I know that Milliard wasn't implying that they were a prerequisite, but I can see some reading this thread who might feel like they need it to be successful.) A heap-load of money can be made using retail brokers by following these simple rules, even if you don't have access to anything more than a news calendar. I have read of some people complaining that their retail broker has been playing tricks of various sorts on them, requiring them to switch brokers (supposedly because they make too much). The only people I can honestly think of who would be affected by this are those playing the news or the very fast time-frames (or those with very bad brokers). I've been with OAnda for years and can honestly say that if your edge isn't news-based or based on the very short time-frames (like the 1-min or smaller frames), there is very little that a broker can do to prevent you from making money, aside from turning off your feed. If your edge is flexible enough to be utilized on the larger and mid-term chart-frames (even down to the 5-min frame if you're very careful and picky), the "good" brokers won't be able to knock you out of positions very easily at all. So despite what some have said, I believe you CAN make excellent money from good retail brokers (I continue to do fine) if you abide by the rules. Learning Forex is easy. Trading forex profitably is easy (once you find your edge). The hard part is learning to control your mind so that it doesn't prevent you from being profitable.