People waiting for the FOMC minutes in 45 minutes (no pun intended). Keep an eye on the USD then. I'm still following the market out of a sense of duty, not wanting to get lazy, etc., but I don't think I'm putting any trades today. Had a long bias, but missed the euro breakout and the only decent (for me) entry about half an hour later on the mini pull-back to 76.90 (thought it was going to retrace some more). Then, didn't want to scalp short just because I missed the nice one. Argh, what a wasted day!
Waiting for the perfect setup is fine. I think if I were actually patient and waited for the perfect trade every time I'd be alot more profitable, albeit bored as hell.
set stop to b/e @ 77.50 edit: I'm feeling a bit crazy today, will hold through fomc minutes if I don't get stopped beforehand
Meaning...It seemed like from the timing of your posts that you put on a perfect short and exited almost b/e before the move of the day, then put on a long at a place where a short entry was indicated. Of course, the timing of your posts might be off from the chart I'm viewing, but your trading had me in a tizzy No, I didn't catch the breakdown. I generally wait a while after FOMC minutes for price to settle down because I expect whipsawing and the thing just went straight down. Close to the place you went long I nearly got in short but it dropped really far as I was about to hit the bid. I've only played one breakout lately and breakouts are like free money on CL. I must get my CL ass in gear! (CLassy of me to talk that way, no?)
Your charts are right - it's my brain that is amiss :eek: I was tempted to short right after the minutes, instants before the first trade, but one of my rules in CL is that I don't enter unless I have 45 minutes left in the RTH so that it has time to move (and try to close before the last 10-15 minutes which in my view are way too random due to position traders entering/exiting). So I changed it to sim and shorted for the heck of it; I was stopped out (almost to the tick) when I was preparing to add another car at a lower price (first move stop, then add). I went long because the move down looked more like a massive stop run than a game changer and I thought that after the knee-jerk reaction to the soft minutes either stocks were going to rebound or that even if they didn't, bad news for the US should have been positive for the euro (rate-wise, as the day before with the trade balance), which had already began to rebound. Maybe I should start a extreme-scalping movement: 20-tic stop for 1-tic target. I'm sure I could get at least 50% right - or not. Since your reality-checking friend Lemon-what's-his-name doesn't seem to hang around anymore, I'll spell it out for you: you couldn't catch a breakout even if it bit you in the butt, abandon all hope, you pathetic excuse of a trader! (Eeehhh... I <i> really</i> hope you know what I'm saying)
OMG, I forgot about that! In return I offer this for your FOMC-induced sim trades: Your hair looks really nice today!