ForexTraderX

And... as you said it was the most traded price... .we really couldn't crack much under it on this little swing down. I think the RTH open will see a push deeper... but i'm expecting a bit of a ranging market... that won't move much lower than yesterdays RTH highs... if it does hit there, i'll look to get in again long most likely.

Though.... I think we'll see a pullback during the session very close to yesterdays regular session high... but, during news events like this (and the other day), i just like to go for the easy money if an opportunity shows up... i'm never comfortable holding much for very long in such active event driven markets.

thanks fo rthe heads up... closed out the last position for 11 ticks...

Grabbed 2 points on the first contract...now stop is at 1436.50... which is +1 tick on the last. risk free... shooting for 3-5 points...

Got short at 1436.75... max stop is 4 points, but will likely close out earllier if moving agianst me.... target is open for now...

Actually, managed short at 1.2735... hoping for the best now.

Whoops! just remembered it is NFP day... that completely slipped my mind. Closed out the trade for a 6 pip loss. not going to hold such a position through this news announcement. That being said... if we could get anywhere towards 1.2740 or higher, I will be looking for a short trade. I'll be placing an order for a short at 1.2748 about 5 minutes after the NFP release because want a short at that price regardless of what PA does, as long as it's not driven into that price within the first few minutes after the NFP release... and will probably take a 30ish pip stop, 30-60 pip target. Next price up to short abouve that is right around 1.2800-1.2820... and i'd like to get long if we could get back towards yesterdays high.

Well, price does indeed look like it's stalling out and rolling over on the EUR/USD... so i took a very small short position at 2708... 30ish stop, similar target... we'll see.

Well, we just hit 1.2700 a few minuts ago... and I'm tempted, but gonna hold off only due to the very positive sentiment for risk at the moment... but I think a short here with about a 25 pip stop,, and a 30-50 pip target would probably do just fine. I think this is nearing the high for today anyway... guess we'll just have to wait and see. I will say this however... if i'm watching this a while longer, and see some strong volume correlate to pinbars and bearish reversal candles.... I probably will take a quick short.

I ended up with 1 futures trade, which I took a 4 tick profit on in the 6E, and myfxbook shows i'm up about half a percent since starting. Fact is, i'm up about 2.5% for the week, but since I didn't hook the myfxbook to a new account I funded about a day or so ago, it only reflects about the last 36 hours of trading. From now on it'll just be easier if anyone wants to know what type of results I get from my trading and analysis...etc. I have some very small pending orders to short the eur/aud, but unless one of those triggers, i'm done for the week. Looking forward to the weekend, and hopefully another profitable upcoming week.

If your looking to determine how price patterns and such play out in terms of their statistical edge... i strongly suggest you google bulkowski. He's written several books on what your asking about, and he has a great free website (not sure the URL..google him, it'll come up) for example, a bearish engulfing candle on a daily chart in any given equity in the stock market has I believe a 78% chance of accurately forecasting a 5% drop in the stocks price (if I remember correctly anyway... I know for a fact it's over 68%) How did he determine this? He found over 30,000 examples in over 500 different stocks taken over a 10+ year period of time, and he has software he developed that specifcally screed for this criteria. This was the result. Not exactly sure what your looking for, but if you want to see statstical validity in your chart patterns, bulkowski probably has what your looking for.

So...the if you look back at the pics I posted with my analysis of the AUD/USD long trade, you'll notice that blue line I drew as a likely reversal point... well, not sure how things will evolve over the next few hours, but for now, it was indeed the exact high of the move up. This is why I like market profile as a tool in market analysis... To see what i'm talking about, i've included the exact same pic, just taken as a current screen shot. i've also included a close up shot in a 1 min time frame...so you can see exactly how precise such an intraday analysis can be...

For those of you who may be wondering how last weeks live trading session went... unfortunatly it didn't. I only had 2 people actually contact me, at all, and only one actual "RSVP", so maybe there just isn't as much interest as I thought there might be. Anyway, maybe if this thread gets more active and has more people posting up questions or comments or ideas, i may organize such a thing at that time. For now, for anyone who is interested in learning how to trade or whatever, hits me up on skype, i'm usually up for an impromptu discussion on trading and my approach to it. my skype ID is: forextraderx

well, closed the remainder of the position at 30 pips (give or take)... as well as my AUD/CAD long. Now, I have no problem getting back in the aud/usd if it dropps back to a price i want (about 35 pips below where it is now)... but i've had so many profitable positions just vanish before my eyes as asia rolls into europe, that I'd rather close out the rest here, and risk missing the re-entry about 30+ pips below... than hold it here, and risk pulling back to my entry price (which would have stopped me out at BE on what I still had, since I moved my stop up) even though I could finish out with approx. 37-40 pips. It works for me. And that's more important, in my experience... finding, and acting, on "what works for me"

well, the AUD/USD is looking good so far...but we are getting closeer to europe, and I've found that as we come into the time when the euro session starts, moves in asia are often reversed... because of this, I will take a bit more of the trade off the table, and move up my stop so i will be guaranteed a profit on the trade over all, regardless of future market action.

For the most part... I agree. Though I find trading the crosses is more straightforward and in general easier to execute in the spot market, hands down. I will regularly put on decent or even large positions in spot for cross pairs. Also, position management is much more flexible... a person can take off 13.21% of their trade without any difficulty...in futures such a position adjustment would only be possible if you are trading contracts in the double digits. And in the UK, the benefits of speadbetting being tax free is significant... but, in the U.S, if your trading any pair with USD in it... one is almost surely better off trading it in futures. For me, I view my futures trading as very short term, whereas my spot trading I will manage differently..however, if I put on a "big" position in a major currency, I almost always do it in futures, not spot. I don't understand people that "scalp" the eur/usd, or usd/jpy, or gbp/usd, or whatever/usd... but who do it in spot rather than in the futures markets. I do it in both, but youo can be sure that the lionshare of my risk and profit is coming from the futures side of the trade, not the spot side.

Well, after looking over the charts, reading some news, seeing what opportunties are developing... I decided to take a long in the AUD/USD. Put in a long order at market, with about a 30ish pip stop, and similar target... I wanted to take a minute to explain the thought process behind this trade. first off, I had a very strong bullish bias yesterday for the AUD/CAD. And while we did move upwards on the day as a whole... I took some pretty bad entries, and therefore lost money on the trade. One of the things that really caught me off guard was just deep the retracement was before it bounced back upwards. we pushed almost to 1.007, and i figured 40 pips higher would be the likely "low of the day"... To add insult to injury, the AUD/USD was a bit of a rocket ship yesterday, and i was able to watch it take off as I sank in my AUD/CAD position. So, as I look over various charts, news articles, etc.... these are some of the thoughts and conclusions I had that showed me the opportunity that exists in the AUD/USD for a long trade today, in spite of the 100 pip move up that occured yesterday. 1. I'm currently bullish on the AUD/CAD... and though price action yesterday was showing weakness in the CAD... after the news broke regarding bond buying in europe, a positive employment numbers...etc... the CAD had a rare reversal of fortune, and went from being one of the weakest, to one of the strongest...2nd only to the AUD. In spite of this recent CAD strength, i'm still bullish on the AUD/CAD today, and holding a long in the AUD/CAD right now. 2. Below is a daily chart of the USD against a weighted basket of currencies. (similar to the dollar index, but the weighting is more equally distributed and not so euro heavy like the DX is) You can see from the most recent price action on this daily chart, that the dollar is looking quite weak, against the other G8 currencies as a whole. 3. i'm bullish on the EUR/USD as well... yet, i'm BEARISH on the EUR/AUD, due to the fact we basically made a bearish engulfing pattern on the daily chart of the EUR/AUD, after an extended move up with no retracements, and having hit a visible techincal level of resistance earlier this week, right before yesterdays bearish engulfing candle formed. So, if i'm bullish EUR/USD, and bearish EUR/AUD, then I must be REALLY bullish AUD/USD. Pictured below for further explanation 4. I was able to get in about 11 pips above a price that Is likely to act as significant support... and with a target approx. 40+ pips above my entry. thus giving me a good R/R on the trade. This is better explained and illustrated in the pics below. the AUD/USD futures chart that I use in the picture is an intraday chart, not a daily chart (for any who may be confused) Since I started typing this up, the AUD/USD rallied about 19 pips above my entry price... while the AUD/CAD is yet to move that much. Seems at least in this case, the rational proved insightful, and it's this type of consideration and market understanding that can help someone identify good, high probability opportunities in the marketplace.

Wow... yesterdays trading was just total crap. I feel like I got lucky. Super Lucky. Guess it would be that 7%ish drawdown at one point on my open positions... A few things got ahead of me and I was somewhat distracted with my futures trading so I hadn't realized the exposure (and poorly planned stops to boot) that I had built up when things pushed against me and levels didn't hold. About the only saving grace was that market sentiment was just so darn positive, and my bigger picture view seems to be correct at this time on the "risk" currencies, so I did end up salvaging a disaster and turning it into only a very minor loss. That being said, my spot trading was absolute crap. Futures trading was weak...but at least it pulled out a profit, and at no time did the drawdown reach some rediculous level (I think about $650ish drawdown at worst... which is not unreasonable for me in futures trading) Here's a screenshot of my final total from futures for those who are interested.... I don't anticipate trading much today, other than managing what is currently open. If I do take some new positions however, I'll make sure they are examples of good trades and trade management, as opposed to so-so trades and horrible management

I just got a long position in the ES, at 1410.50... no stop or target yet...though I won't let this pull against me more than 4 points at most... we'll see...

the USD/CAD also looks like it could offer some decent long opportunities today... though I am currently in it, and do not plan on re-entering since I feel there are better opportunities that i've already discussed... but, i'd say around 0.9875 looks good to act as a possible reversal to the upside, and if not there, then 0.9865-0.9860... that would be my "ideal" entry point if I was looking to get long in the USD/CAD again. Anyway, we'll see what happens, but unless there is some significant fresh selling in the USD/CAD... i tend to think it may be near it's low for today right now...

well, the EUR/CAD on a 3 min chart looks to be forming a falling wedge, which is recognized as a "bullish" chart pattern. If we continue to hold around support here at 2470ish... and then see some nice strong bullish candles breakout out upwards, that would be a decent price action signal to trigger a long entry in the EUR/CAD. My only real regret so far tonight is that I seem to have been a bit too aggressive with my entries, particularly in the spot forex market... I may end up stoppi9ng out on a few of these, only to find myself re-entering just a few pips below that if the next support level shows signs of holding. but, that being said, i like what i'm seeing in the EUR/CAD and the AUD/CAD enough that I would be willing to re-enter if i'm stopped out, as long as nothing changes my analysis and trading biases for today.

right now, AUD/CAD is sitting just a hair above 1.0120... i'm thinking we'll see a bounce either here, or if not, 1.0110 is likely even a bit better to act as support. and, i'm looking for one of these support levels to hold for the low of the U.S. session... so... we'll see. if we can touch 1.0110, it might be a really nice opportunity, depending on how price action looks when (and if) it gets there.

it seems that the EUR/CAD is finding some decent support around the 1.2470 level... though I wouldn't be too surprised to see it push a bit lower just as the New York session starts (around 8 am EST)... this would likely trigger off the sell stops of the folks who are currently buying at this 1.2470 level... i'm thinking 1.2460-1.2455ish would most likely be good enough to provide the liquidity needed for a larger player (or series of larger players) to fill up at what would likely end up becoming the low of the day (if it is indeed a push into liquidity, and not just excess supply hitting the market) at any rate, between 2470-2440 should still be a nice place to pick up a long position... however, AUD/CAD is probably even the better market to get long in. At this point, it's kinda of just a waiting game for me until the U.S. session starts up in an hour and a half.

Well, so far today I've had 6 trades in various futures markets (crude, currencies, etc)... i've taken 2 losses, had 4 winners, and am right now up about $110 after comissions. May not seem like much, but up is up, and i'm grateful for any and all profits that I can pull out of the markets, even if it's just a couple ticks at a time. I will post a screen shot of my results when i'm done trading.. probably around the london close time today.

well, just closed out my mini crude short at 96.325, for a 4 tick profit. it seems to be stalling here aroudn the 96.30 price, and the daily candle from yesterday is fairly bullish. Also, i'm seeing sentiment as primarily risk on today... so, these reasons, combined with a slow crude market right now, i'd rather just get out, and look for a better place to enter again. Slow rangy markets like this make me uncomfortable, particularly in a market like crude that has such a large degree of volatility. In my experience... if a position in crude is not moving your way... it might as well be moving against you.