In the spirit of "testing everything and holding fast to that which is good," I'm starting this online journal to assess my proficiency at reading the "signs of the times" to see that which lies beyond the Forex market horizon.
Operating in the Forex market without the ability to forecast what’s approaching is pretty much destined to end in failure. Accordingly, my approach to buying and selling foreign currency pairs owes its existence to the principle of interpreting the signs of the times—or of judging the times in which one is living, if you will. For me, it’s all about making decisions that rely entirely on statistical probability based on careful observation. Buying low and selling high is all well and good, but until price reaches zero, what’s “low” is completely relative, and since price can theoretically climb to infinity, “high” is an almost meaningless construct. So in my case, the answer to this dilemma is in giving high and low a valid context, and this I accomplish by analyzing the relationships between trend, typical price range, horizontal support/resistance levels, and market structure, all in multiple time-frames. For example, EURJPY gapped down at this week’s open so that it was sitting almost right on top of what I calculated as intra-day support on my one-hour chart based on my estimation of the typical four-hour price range. Moreover, I deemed the overall day-to-day trend to be bullish (see the green arrow), another significant level of statistical support (for me) on which the open happened to be sitting. So even though the intra-day trend was bearish, one could not ask for a much stronger sign to enter a long position, so enter a long position I did. I’ve elected to call the outer limits of typical price ranges: “statistical support and resistance,” and as of Friday’s close, statistical support is where GBPJPY happened to be sitting. So when it opened this week in the same general area, with the overall day-to-day trend being bullish as it was, it too was practically demanding that I enter a long position, so I did, even though the intra-day trend was once again bearish. As indicated at the top of this post, both of these trades hit their take-profit targets, but the platform I was using slapped a big spread on them, which especially cut into my EURJPY trade, and it was only a single Lot to begin with.
Why is your stoploss at -45 and -80 and your target price at +9 and +18 resp.? That doesn't make any sense... you need at least 80% profitable trades for that to work...
AUDNZD looks to have initiated an unsustainable climb PLUS it's on the "wrong side" of what I view as the overall day-to-day downtrend PLUS it's just about reached the upper limit of what I consider to be the maximum distance currency pairs are normally willing to separate themselves from the day's open before being drawn back toward the mean, so I will be watching for a Bona fide reversal to the south to enter a short position.
I don't know why. The spread was exceptionally wide, but it couldn't have been THAT wide! I must have messed up somewhere. You're right, it DOESN'T make any sense. The percentage of my trades that are profitable is somewhere in the neighborhood of 90, but that's beside the point. The reward-to-risk ratio should be 1:1 at a minimum.
I already cashed in with AUDJPY once today, but for some reason the pair decided to drop all the way back down to my trend line again, so I figured I'd go ahead and try reaping a little bit more. (It hit my target before I finished typing this post, so though my lines are gone my levels do appear at the bottom of the image.)
I got the go-ahead to enter a short position and saw AUDNZD hit my take-profit target about 23 minutes after that.
EURUSD looks to me to be overdue for a turn to the north, and having not too long ago apparently bounced off the 1.1863 area, I'm hoping to pick up about ten pips worth of profit here.
I’m relatively confident that my trading approach works okay with currency pairs, so I want to begin looking into whether I can also apply it successfully to stocks. That said, at 170.22 I will be watching BABA for the right time to enter a long position. The same goes for FSLR at 48.37, RACE at 110.97 and FB at 164.24. At 92.56 PG looks like it might be ready to try taking on a more bullish attitude, so I’ll be looking to see if it would have hit a take-profit target of 93.10 before stopping out at 92.02.