I added one more contract since my post just a little higher. My average cost is showing at 7505. I am down about 30 points. My targets on this are fairly aggressive now. Target 1 = 7191 area Target 2 = 6820 area Someday target = 6220 area I do not have a definitive stop yet. I have a major weekly resistance level that I am watching. We are just a little past it now. If this collapses, I will get out. DRT
DRT, The good news? One of us will hit a home run. My avg. in long is .7345 for five AUD near-month futures. First entry .7315, with 3 avg.'g up from there, and one bought under .7300, avg.'g down. I'll take profits one at a time beginning if/at .7568.
I am less confident today than yesterday in my AUD longs given (1) overnight (Friday) losses in Australian equities, mining stocks among them, and (2) gold bids which, while AUD positive, could dry up and reverse next week if Middle East violence abates. Still in my position, only now with a hair trigger for exiting.
It's an interesting situation with both gold and USD rising at the same time. Although at the moment obviously EUR/USD is having a greater effect than gold.
I commend anyone who can trade this pair on the short term consistently. Today is a reminder of why I took this thing off my tickers months ago
The Aussie in my opinion is greatly underestimated by day traders perhaps because to make a living trading it you would have to get up at 1 am ET - to catch it's opening move. In the US it's a sacrifice few would make - and it doesn't have the thrills of trading cable or romantisism of swissy. I know of a Canadian trader who trades this pair exclusively though and he will start getting up later in the year - to trade it full time. I believe it offers perhaps the cleanest signals around (on par with the yen) - the only other currency I like to trade on a pre AUD data release day that can be quiet. I would pick the yen for the power of the candlesticks that Asian traders mostly follow, but the oscillator studies are very clean and precise on Aussie. Aussie also hardly ever spikes around and/or move in multi digit numbers (something that cannot be said for other pairs), it is a slow and methodical mover which I like. Very low spread on Oanda (2 pips), liquidity is HUGE (AUD/USD is the number 5 or 6 currency pair after EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CHF and perhaps the looney, with a $100 billion a day volume). As such there is zero slippage and or issues with trade size. Lastly, although the pip moves are less than the other pairs, the value of the pips are more, so the return on capital is sound. I'm trading aud/usd successfully short term. Start 3pm Australia time and I look to get into a trade for 20 pips profit with an 8 pip stop. I don't mind leaving some pips on the table as this approach works for me. After much experimentation I find that 60/30/13/5/2 minute charts in alignment work best and I look for either: 1) a pullback to an existing trend in force. I use the CCI so I have exact numbers that I am looking for on the cci across the various time frames. 2) Reversal - H+S or adam and eve trade. I can see the patterns in my sleep. I look at the oscillator across all the Tf's I mentioned but only look at the 1 hour candlesticks to get a feel for price action. I tryed the 5000vol. chart (that replicates the 60 min.) but the 1 hour works more reliably in my opinion. Ditto for lower value tick/volume settings - time charts work more reliably IMHO. When the trade works - everything lines up just right - and I take zero heat on a trade, no joke. Thats it. On a quiet day if I get one 20 pointer I am happy - I usually finish up by 2 am. When the US market opens (8.20 am) and there is an announcement I can usually grab the second 20 pointer for the day. It is NOT a pair you want to overtrade - that is what takes some adjusting to for traders who like to make 10-20 trades a day. MAX - 4 trades a day when things are moving. I like to move stop to BE after I am in profit 10 pips - and I check price every half hour, spend all of my time surfing and reading emails actually!! I would urge a newcomer to fx to give this pair a go. With gold booming (and the aussie being the currency that most closely matches the moves in gold), there always seems to be enough volatilty to keep this pair interesting.