xelite... How much loss on the EUR/GBP trade? Typically I wouldn't ask but it seems like you you don't mind saying how much you win, but nobody likes to talk about losses. Are you still in the EUR/AUD trade? that chopped as predicted. And one last question, what was your handle before xelite777?
Could be a fake up move, look at all the resistance the USD/CAD is facing now. In fact I am waiting for the first sell signal to short this pair...
Last night EUR/GBP trade did not behave "correctly" so I had to close the trade at a loss (16 pips). After years of trading, I noticed that winning trades do not spend much time around the entry price, they usually move in our favor almost from the start. So if the position does not move rather quickly the way it is supposed to, I close it immediately after X bars, win or lose. This is called a time stop, as you probably already know. No I liquidated that position a while ago, for a nice profit, when I saw that the (mini) down trend was losing steam. I learned the hard way that trying to predict the market is a very dangerous (and costly) activity. I do not try to guess where the market is headed, I simply follow it using pure price action techniques. This is my first time in this forum, why?
You have to predict even if you think you're following it, there is no question about that fact. You MUST predict the direction one way or another.
Here are your exact words and I quote : " ... but I think we chop a bit on Euro before a turn and AUD is looking to drop at the highs and do the same" See, now you are obviously letting a personal opinion about the future direction of the market cloud your judgement. In other words, you are trying to predict the market. On the other hand, saying something like : "The Eur/jpy closed above its 200 day moving average for 3 consecutive days, according to my backtested system it could be the beginning of a trend so I am buying here with a stop there" is an entirely different story. Now you are just playing the odds, you are not trying to predict anything (even though it seems that way). Ok, back to the trading charts, let's see what the Yen is up to...
No lets go over this... It does not matter if you use price action, MA's, moon phases, nobody cares. You have to predict it will keep going or turn if you're trading spot. You like to trend follow, so you must predict it keeps trending no matter what you use. When you say "EJ closes above its 200 DMA 3 days in a row so it could be the beginning of a trend" you are predicting the market, as that is a personal opinion on what you see the market doing, but will it keep doing it? You don't know. It is the same thing as someone else saying "I think EUR/JPY will make a bullish reversal tonight because they will soon come to a half ass agreement and push back the Debt debate once again to avoid a default. Also, now we don't see a taper until into 2014 and not an end until later in 2014 if ever. Let's buy here and put a stop there" lol In both cases, nobody knows 100% what will happen. I can see the font pages now...
If you take another look at my post it says : "The Eur/jpy closed above its 200 day moving average for 3 consecutive days, according to my backtested system it could be the beginning of a trend so I am buying here with a stop there" So no, each trade is absolutely not based on any personal opinion, rumor or preconceived idea but on mathematical and statistical realities, what we simply call the edge. And for me it is the ONLY way to trade.
That was not there when I quoted, you added it. Either way, you still have to predict the markets direction and if you can't do that you can't make money in the long run. Whether you use backtested historical stat/math system (laughing) that helps you predict it or not, I am not going to get into that, because as I said it doesn't matter.
Sure, let's all trade un-tested, un-proven systems as soon as possible! Let the systematic traders worry about drawdowns, average profit/loss per trade, sharpe ratio and all that geeky stuff, nothing beats trading on intuition, hunches and guts feeling.