I guess a lot of traders are geeting chopped today as well; I got a small taste of it around the 1.23 area. Running to and forth the screen doing other things - not really optimal for trading. 2 pip loss so far on 3 trades, but it's hard to get a good feel for whichever "trend" is present. Nothing like chopped onions to get some traders' tears out ... [17:05 EUR/USD: Backs Off After Fibo Test] Boston, September 27: EUR/USD eased back to 1.2300 after stalling at 1.2315, the 61.8% retracement of the 1.2365/1.2240 drop Friday morning. Dips are seen limited to the 1.2290/95 area near-term with the buck struggling amid high oil prices, sagging yields and a firm tone to the EUR crosses. [15:07 EUR/USD: Quasi-Central Bank Returns To Offer Side] Boston, September 27: EUR/USD is consolidating around 1.2300 after running into offers from a supra-national central bank just above the figure, dealers note. The same name was able to cap EUR/USD around the 1.2330 level late last week. Technical resistance is limited ahead of 1.2365 owing to the speed of the pullback after those highs were posted Friday morning. 1.2290/95 is modest support in dips. [14:49 GMT 27th Sept] Fed Fund futures now price in an 85% chance of US rates rising in November but [EUR/USD] is unlikely to care at present because the pair seems intent on going nowhere. The current range for the pair is 1.2120-1.2320 as both currencies struggle to find fresh momentum as they come to terms with their own differing situations. The EUR looks helpless as its one-size fits all interest rate continues to please no-one but appease everybody and the politicians remain sidelined to change this quid-pro-quo, whilst the much embattled USD fights to keep its head above water. The USD has in recent days looked slightly firmer now the recent "blip" in data is beginning to come to an end but traders still remain wary and USD jitters are still plaguing dollar-bulls. This stalemate is leaving [EUR/USD] directionless and until we see trading break above the plethora of option barriers above 1.2370 little action is expected. With tier-one US data at the end of the week and a G7 meeting we could see a move lower as the USD goes on the offensive and this would be likely to return the pair back to the base of its recent range base at 1.2120. edit: we believe these reports when we can smell the terrorists ... (so many disappiontments before - no reaction in the market) [17:18 EUR/USD: al Qaida Number Two Reportedly Captured] Boston, September 27: Bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri has reportedly been captured in Pakistan. Al Arabiya TV and Israeli radio are reporting the capture, though there is no confirmation from the US. Al-Zawahri is often pictured with bin Laden and would be the highest ranking al Qaida operative captured to date. Dealers are treating the report with caution, awaiting official confirmation. EUR/USD trades at 1.2305, just below session highs. <pre>| [ EUR/USD TRADING PAGE ] | [SPOT] |[TECHNICAL SIGNIFICANCE] |[RECOMMENDATION] | [POSITION] : 1.2465(M) |daily high Jul 19 |flat on a failure | [FLAT at] : 1.2385(M) |daily highs Aug 16, 17 |sell failure, buy break | [1.2270] : 1.2360(M) |failure high Sept 24 |sell a failure | : 1.2315(M) |hrly high Sep 27, 61|8%R |expect stalling |Open|21/09/04 [1.2301] 17:20 GMT MON 27 SEP : | TIME|14 38| : 1.2240(M) |daily low Sep 24 |buy a bounce | | : 1.2225(M) |range low Sep 22 |buy a bounce |TGT | : 1.2210(M) |61.8% of 1.2120 - 1.2360 |buy bounce, sell break |Stop| : 1.2180(M) |prior range top Sept 20,21|cover on a bounce | ============|==========================|=========================|=============</pre> It may be ragged, but the primary trend on the daily charts remains up. After failing to take out Friday"s 1.2240 lows earlier today, the pendulum has begun to swing to the upside again. Intraday studies are bullish, with some room to run yet. The problem for buyers is that there is no clear-cut breakout point. Buying dips is far superior to buying breakouts. [17:08 GMT] edit2: this last hour of RTH should probably get some action going, let's see which direction. I do not prefer entering trades with calm waters all around, so I'll be looking for directional hints now, or maybe look at asian session.
Well, things seem to have been taken to the lower range of today with the RTH ending and a little more action than the last few hours. Ending my session with +5 pips on 5 trades. Just as lackluster as my head feels now - too much to drink yesterday, I guess. At least all that chili-pepper sauce did some good to the not-so-fabolous cooking yesterday - and my internal system. [18:42 EUR/USD: G7 Build-Up Begins, Clement Dusts Off Usual Verbiage] Boston, September 27: Platitudes are being prepared for this weekend"s G7 meeting with German economics minister Clement dusting off an old favorite. He says the US twin deficits and geopolitical landscape are risks to the global economy. The oil price is a risk to the German and global economies, he says. Given the present state of the German economy, the biggest risk would be the US closing its current account gap as domestic demand remains extremely sluggish despite a global rebound that is at least 18 months old. EUR/USD is steady near 1.2300, holding below the 61.8% fibo of the 1.2365/1.2240 drop located at 1.2315.
Yes, I know exactly the chopped onion feelings I haven't traded today. I've been trying to sort out my trailing stop dilemma. Good luck with the rest of the day. Chinook
If you come up with anything, please let us know. I've often felt that using a trailing stop, at least some of the time, would help my trading but I have not been able to decide on what type of trailing stop and what parameters to use. Cheers, TRADERguy
I use tick charts. I like the 150 tick chart "time-frame". It can capture these nice intraday trends. I have an adaptive moving average coded in TS and the trailing stop basically follows that moving average over/below and adjusts the distance from the MA with respect to the recent tick bar height average. I'm limiting the trailing stop to be max. 30 ticks--Initial entry stop is max 12 ticks. Most of the time the stop is 16-18 ticks away from local maxima/minima. If it's a trending day, it nicely captures most of the move. If it chops, then it leaves most of the profit and some more on the table. Also, once I'm up 16 pips then the stop is moved to b/e+1tick and then the trailing stop is followed. I lately tried to trade both the chop and trends and completely messed up by overtrading. Sometime ago, I was able to handle both modes. So for now, I'll trade in the trend mode by trailing my stops and not taking profits at certain levels. Once I'm in a trade and up by about 20-30 pips, most likely there'll be these 15-20 tick pullbacks. I can usually feel if these are reversals or just "hooks". So if I feel that these are hooks and the trend will continue, then I'll scale in and keep trailing my stop. Most of the time, you'll lose little bit money with this. But once in a while, this'll capture these 100-150 tick moves. But perhaps 2 out of 5 days you'll give back 20-22 ticks profits and 2 days you'll get chopped and get stopped out at your initial entry stops. You'll be always tempted to take profits and all these extra charts will be playing all kinds of mind games with you So you have to sit tight. If you're in trend trading mode, you'll have limited number of trades to enter and overtrading will be curbed. However, you'll often leave ~20 pip profits on the table and you'll be tempted to collect profits fast next time. Now if you start collecting profits then this'll turn into range trading.
I think that's a pretty good handle you have on the stops, it can never be perfect but as long as you know what your trade-offs are in advance you can live with the results either way and make changes were necessary. I'm scaling my exits which still tends to get me out too early, but for the system I'm trading I'm still not at the point where I feel comfortable exiting and re-entering/pyramiding into pullbacks. I believe that's in Trading for Advanced Players and I'm still a few chapters behind At least I'm not selling the exact lows on those shakeout hooks anymore -- used to be pretty amazing how often I'd get stopped out at the exact bottom or top before the move continued on without me. But it's funny how when I'm in a position, I'll have to desperately fight the urge to exit at the exact moment I know I'd want to enter if I were already flat -- that's when the market never fails to make me feel like a noob.
illiquid, I tried exiting fully and re-entering/pyramiding into pullbacks. It worked somedays but in others I completely missed the major portion of the moves. This also requires constant attention and was quite stressful. Now what I try to do is at most risk "1R" per trade. I make the initial entry risking "1R", then if the position is profitable and the stop is beyond my entry level then I enter second set of contracts during one of these hooks. Most likely at most I can lose will be still be "1R" but if I catch a big move then I make 10R+. I have the exact feelings during these hooks/pullbacks. It feels like my mind splits into two and there's constant fight between the two parts. What we discussed is quite easy. I'm doing everything so there's no ambiguity about the stop and entry levels. The numbers are displayed on my screen, I simply need to follow them. I need to shut down most of my brain during the trading day
Chinook, If you don't consider it proprietary info, I would love to see what type of adaptive moving average and what type of trailing stops you use. Easy language would be fine although if you wrote an english language version prior to coding that would be killer. Thanks, TRADERguy