ForexSpirit

Plenty of titbits picked up this week. All of which can probably just be summarised as: stick to the plan, dammit!

13 April 2009

Date	Entry Time	Market	Direction	Entry	Exit	Pips
13 April	11:16:31	EUR/USD	Long	1.3330	1.3327	(3)
13 April	14:04:17	EUR/USD	Short	1.3359	1.3364	(5)
13 April	20:00:23	EUR/USD	Short	1.3369	1.3365	4

13 April pips: (4)

Just about everywhere markets were closed on Easter Monday. My original intention was to take the day off, just like I had on Good Friday. The good move that occurred out of the gate at 8:00 EST made me reconsider that decision. In the end I would have probably been better off just sticking to taking the day off as while there were some more small moves during the rest of the NY session, it was pretty listless overall.

14 April 2009

Date	Entry Time	Market	Direction	Entry	Exit	Pips
14 April	09:06:54	EUR/USD	Long	1.3250	1.3259	9
14 April	11:04:12	EUR/USD	Long	1.3270	1.3279	9
14 April	14:13:55	EUR/USD	Long	1.3280	1.3273	(7)
14 April	20:25:17	EUR/USD	Short	1.3260	1.3256	4

14 April pips: 15

The Asian session trade was a classic example of a trade touching the stop I’d moved to be +4 before shooting off to hit the full profit target of +30. I would also have been better off to just close this for around +20 pips when the trade became 20 minutes old. I was trying to give it some room to the +30 goal. In retrospect, when it just hung at around +20 for around 10 minutes there was going to be an increasing chance of a retrace before a test of any new lows took place. I should have identified that risk and just cut the trade.

15 April 2009

Date	Entry Time	Market	Direction	Entry	Exit	Pips
15 April	09:16:47	EUR/USD	Short	1.3170	1.3162	8
15 April	11:22:42	EUR/USD	Short	1.3170	1.3170	(8)
15 April	14:01:58	EUR/USD	Short	1.3190	1.3201	(11)
15 April	15:18:04	EUR/USD	Long	1.3200	1.3207	7
15 April	20:08:42	EUR/USD	Long	1.3230	1.3242	12

15 April pips: 8

Another flirt here trading both 14:00 and 15:00 EST, mainly because the 14:00 hour was so quiet.

16 April 2009

Date	Entry Time	Market	Direction	Entry	Exit	Pips
16 April	08:00:28	EUR/USD	Short	1.3190	1.3203	(13)
16 April	09:07:48	EUR/USD	Long	1.3230	1.3200	(30)
16 April	11:14:08	EUR/USD	Short	1.3180	1.3196	(16)
16 April	14:02:56	EUR/USD	Long	1.3160	1.3160	0
16 April	20:29:31	EUR/USD	Short	1.3180	1.3150	30

16 April pips: (29)

Two mistakes today cost me dearly.

There were US housing and weekly unemployment figures coming out at 8:30 EST so I should hold off and just trade at 9:00 instead of 8:00.

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to trade at 11:00 due to a meeting so I decided to make up for it by trading both 8:00 and 9:00. This was a classic refresher on why I’d created the rule to hold off an hour in the first place.

The market was essentially rangebound up until the data came out, so I ended getting chewed up in the chop for the first trade of the day.

In the 9:00 trade I didn’t take the chance to cut my loss when I really should have. By 9:12 I should have pulled the plug on it. At that time it had not yet proved itself, as price had failed to cleanly break through 1.3230 and was just hanging around 1.3226.

Looking back at the previous day’s price action explains why: 1.3230 was a clearly identifiable resistance level. Price had not made a clean break of this resistance level on this attempt. The longer it hung around underneath it, the less likely it was to make a punch through. I failed to properly utilise my time trigger to identify that the move had faltered and that it was better to take a small loss rather than risk a much bigger retrace.

If I had not made these two mistakes and assuming I would have taken a 4 pip loss on the 9:00 trade, then my daily total would have been a much more respectable +10 pips.

In the end I was even able to trade at 11:00 due to the meeting getting delayed.

17 April 2009

Date	Entry Time	Market	Direction	Entry	Exit	Pips
17 April	08:22:17	EUR/USD	Short	1.3060	1.3064	(4)
17 April	11:07:04	EUR/USD	Long	1.3050	1.3030	(20)
17 April	11:14:42	EUR/USD	Short	1.3030	1.3043	(13)
17 April	14:08:57	EUR/USD	Short	1.3030	1.3030	0

17 April pips: (37)

All the market action this weeks seems to have been in the commodity currencies such as AUD and CAD. EUR and USD have been pretty tame all week and this was definitely evident today. Fridays can often be wispy and rangy even during more active times but today it was especially so, with price during the NY session tightly locked within a 30 pip band.

I got whipsawed hard during the 11:00 trade. My original long entry dropped precipitously just after being entered and it looked like a good opportunity for a stop and reverse. Of course, the strong support at 1.3030 put paid to that.

Since the Bunny method aims to take advantage of volatility and thrusting moves, it obviously did not fair well in such a stale environment.

Let’s see if next week sees the major currencies back in the limelight again.

13-17 April weekly total: -47 pips