I had a choice between shorting EURJPY or EURUSD. Had I opted for EURJPY, I would have ended up with a respectable profit in my pockets by now, but I went with EURUSD, which has essentially stalled. To make matters worse, USDCHF has actually lost a little ground. In that both pairs are acting a bit “suspiciously,” I exited EURUSD at breakeven and USDCHF at a slight loss. I’ve purchased USDJPY in their place and have already encountered greater favor with this asset.
I’ve been working on optimizing the ability of the adjustments I’ve made to my system to maximize the ratio of my average profit trades to loss trades while maintaining an 80% to 90% success rate. After pretty much completing this process, I entered a USDJPY long position and EURUSD short position when I temporarily awoke at 3:30 a.m Pacific Time this morning. Each would have offered me a 40 to 50 pip profit, but due to being stopped out of the trades after I went back to sleep (I had relatively tight stops) and not being awake to put the trades back on when price moved in my favor, I lost out on the opportunities. But at least I now know that the premise on which I was operating was sound (AND with a minimum 4:1 win-to-loss ratio). Based on one of the strategies associated with the above mentioned adjustments, I’m waiting for GBPJPY to reverse direction so I can enter a short position. Its current level at 148.97 is satisfactory, but I would love to see price climb to at least 149.22 before I execute the trade. (I wouldn’t mind shorting USDCHF at around 0.9914 as well!)
USDCHF reversed direction near the level I forecast “almost to the penny” as A.J. Monte is so fond of saying. If the pair hits my take-profit target, I will interpret this as additional evidence that the modifications I made to my system are sound. (المجد يكون إله يسوع)
It made sense to me to buy the major euro pairs about seven hours ago, so I opted to go with EURJPY and EURUSD. I’ve locked in profits three times already with the former, but the latter has essentially gone nowhere thus far (see below). I tried to lock in a little bit of profit with it about four hours ago, but price pulled back just as I was planning to do this and I missed my opportunity. The real test will come with the arrival of the London Session, when I will be looking for price to take off, hopefully without being preceded by a major pullback that stops me out (but just because I’m expecting a lift doesn’t mean I’ll get it).
I was happy to exit EURJPY at 133.42 and I managed to lock in a few pips profit from EURUSD at 1.1797 before it dropped back down to the 1.1779 level, so now I'm hoping to pick up a few more pips shorting USDJPY... Oops! After a second look I realized not everything was lined up the way I wanted, so I exited this position with just six pips profit. I might short it again later on after everything is lined up correctly. On the other hand, EURGBP has everything in sync, so I'm now long there from 0.8954.
I wrote that everything was in sync, but there was one aspect in which one might have argued that it made sense to pass on the opportunity. Based on that aspect, I just decided to buy USDCHF and EURJPY (though I will need to lower my stop on the latter to about 132.75). I will see about adjusting my “lines” to conform with this new way of thinking as soon as I have a moment to do so. (USDCHF did not take very long at all to hit my take-profit target, but the overall trend is still bearish.) A long position in USDJPY could also be justified... I knew I was entering a EURJPY long position too early, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity amidst all my activity. Having done so however, I’m still anticipating I will eventually be able to milk at least a handful of pips out of the trade, if not more...
The trajectory of USDCHF from a day-to-day perspective is rather bearish, and given the pair’s position within the 24-hour market, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this is just about as high as it wants to go, in which case, the pair has a whole lot of room below for taking an extended trip south. I’m therefore going to see what happens if I enter a short position here.
I locked in profits when price hit 0.9913. I was watching to short USDJPY as well, but unfortunately, I was dealing with a matter on the phone when the alert signaled. That’s too bad, because it would have been quite an excellent trade indeed! It’s looking to me like the current state of my setups are about as accurate as I might hope for. I just picked up six pips of profit buying EURJPY and I’m hoping to repeat the exact same thing just a couple of minutes later thanks to the pair’s seesawing price action. I’m also waiting for the signal to buy USDCAD, which is presently heading south (the farther south—the better). (I’m waiting for the signal to buy this asset!) In short, there’s not much reason to continue posting my trades because, unless I’m mistaken, the parameters of my setups are pretty well set, and the steps for maximizing the effectiveness of my system have, as of today, become pretty clear. I identify the best setups using my one-hour charts, and then switch to one-minute charts to pinpoint precise entry and exit levels. Unless the system suddenly begins to fall apart, I’ll have to find something else to do to occupy my mind during idle moments.