Wrapping up for 2009

Hello all!! Bottle here wishing u a belated Merry Christmas and a advance Happy new year!!! Today, the last day of the year and im here to wrap things up. The good the bad and the screw ups and some of my thoughts in words. Haven been trading much this month. Dont see much opportunity. Thats why. Is it because its coming the end of year hence everything ease down? Hope thats why cause i expect to see more action next year yea!!

Somehow i've lost the fire that i once possessed when i just started trading. That was like 4 months or more ago. I dont have the urge to go in trade anymore like some anxious kid, instead, im now more like a old man sitting by on my rocking chair waiting for money to drop. I rarely trade more than once per day and often set up the trade and went on to do other stuff without sticking my eyes on the chart. Good news or bad news? I read before that this is suppose to be good and yup i have to agree it is. Only one small bad point that is i learn lesser since i dont look up the chart that often. But the most impt point is, this month's account... Green

Had a little chat with Black, was quite disturbed... or rather worried by certain things he shared with me. No wrong, no right, true or not its up to individual i guess. Well u see, we just started this Forex trading not long ago and we pin high hopes on it. I myself set great targets in the coming future. So stuff like this often make me think u know?

The content goes like this... Its about our indicators and techniques that we all have been using is losing its power, its accuracy. In their words, bows and arrows against the chart. They are using gunships and tanks while we are still riding on our four legged beast with flesh as armor. How can we rely so much on techniques created in the 80s n 90s and expect success in modern market? These words strikes me. It sounded logical and true.

But whenever there is darkness, there will be light somewhere. I went around looking for successful traders (still) who uses techniques that i have been trying to master and learn. They are doing very well i should say. then i tell myself, have faith... Even modern war tacticians and strategist still read up ancient war strategies from great man from the past ya? U know... great man like those from the 3 kingdoms? Or u know "Shun Zhi Bing Fa" ( Sun Tzu , The Art Of War)? Yea they maybe bows and arrows, but... in the movie "Avatar" the good guys still win the war right??? Hahaha... Maybe for now, i will stick to what that has been proven to work.

Have faith. Keep flying and i believe we can succeed.

Bottle
Rather be the Crow that soars high in the sky with dangers than be a bird in a cage.

Merry X'Mas!

Merry X'Mas to everyone! Havent been trading for couple of days. Anyway me and Bottle wish everyone have a good holiday celebrations and next year will be a better for us! New year and new success! We had a good celebration last night over at Bottle's place with our friends. Good gathering and gifts exchanges, as usual, we made a hell of a mess there. Haha, but it was fun. Once again, Merry Christmas and advance Happy New Year!

Black

FXDD Holiday Hours

Christmas Trading Customer Service
December 24	Close @ 2:00 PM EST	Close @ 3:00 PM EST
December 25	Close	Close
December 27	Open @ 5:00 PM EST	Open @ 5:00 PM EST
New Years
December 31	Close at 2:00 PM EST	Close at 3:00 PM EST
January 1	Close	Close
January 3	Open @ 5:00 PM EST	Open @ 5:00 PM EST

23 Dec - Eur/Usd on New Home Sales

Bearish US New Home Sales. Price spiked 40 pips on Eur/Usd after announcement. Short for retracement, stochastic turning and price has been settled down a little. after about 10 minutes into the trade, bear couldnt make it down, so i thought of closing on break even, becuz in such cases bull usually will bash thru a weak bear when times up, but a part of me tells dont waste ur time closing breakeven. and i learned my lesson on the importance of breakeven trades when the second bullish candles appeared that bite the hell out of my s/l. (-20 pips)



Black

21 Dec - Aud/Usd & Eur/Usd Daily: Just Analysis..

This is a screenshot i captured from Aud/Usd Daily chart. im still watching and waiting for the nxt move. We should see what awaits us in the New York session. From this image, we can see price laying nicely on the brown 100 sma line, any possibility of breaking down? its been a big move and rally for the US last week, personally i am not very keen in entering at this point of time, dont really know what might happen next. wait for a reversal? lets see Eur/Usd below..



Another Daily time frame i captured. a smooth downtrend. looks like a doji formed, followed by currently a rising candle. still a very strong trend based on ADX indicator. stochastic oversold, but havent hook up. hmm.. noe wad? guess its a night where im juz gonna watch.

Black

Dec 16 Trades on Aud/Usd - FOMC Statement

The reason my previous daily sell stop on the aussie pair was fried becuz i wasnt confident of the news. FOMC statement was at 3:15am singapore time and i woke up early to check out my trade. almost 100% of news speculation that the Fed will be maintaining their low interest rate on greenback.

IF ONLY i had hold it, i didnt. price before the announcement was hovering upwards, did not want to kill my week's hard-earned profit i closed the shot. the movement was huge, but that 20 minutes of ups and downs after the announcement, price was only between 0.8985 to 0.9015.. which was around 30 pips range.

This was the firstime i wake up in the middle of the night to trade news. I did about 5 longs during the announcements. The dangers from the news trade i had was that, my lot size was getting bigger almost each time (+13 pips in total). Kinda get hold of the momentum of price movement, until things got a bit died off and i went back to bed. Getting back the momentum to sleep was the harder part of the night, after such intensity.



Will price break down based on the triangle i have been watching? Or will 100 SMA serve a strong support? Lets continue watching it. +114 pips for the week. I need a break for the rest of the week, yah.. till then :)

Symmetrical Triangle - Aud/Usd Daily

Updates on my Buy Stop and Sell Stop from yesterday. My trades executed (Eur/Usd & Usd/Jpy, short and long respectively) while i was in my office, and both my s/l and tp was wide. Was monitoring in my office and the dollar was very bullish, which was good for my trades. On top of that, PPI m/m was bullish. Short eur/usd below week's low. I coulda rallied maximum 40 pips on eurusd after, but price retrace to my trailing stop after bad TIC Long term purchases which was bearish for dollar.
(+20 on the pair)

Usd/Jpy was also buy stop at price 89.00. I felt that if usd could push to that price, it should have no problem pushing through to 90.00. Japan's offering $81 billion stimulus package could cause some wild swings in its exchange rate. I am still looking forward to a bullish dollar. Another good thing i found out about buy/sell stop is that instead of entering for a reverse (buy/sell limit), u can actually place u somewhere below the support level (if u sell stop), or above the resistance (if u buy stop), becuz it goes with the flow of the price.

Current position on the Usd/Jpy. Protected my profits and did a 35 points trailing stop.
(+90 pips closed)



Symmetrical triangle still consolidating off Aud/Usd since yesterday's image. My sell stop is still waiting for an ambush.



Black

Reuters - Factbox on Political Risk in Singapore

While surfing on Reuters this morning, i notice some interesting headlines on political risk factors in some of Asia-Pacific region. Its a good-to-know fact about some of these neighbouring countries. To my fellow Singaporean readers, here is the link to know more about some political risks in our own country.

Five Political Risks To Watch In Singapore

Under Reuters - Currencies section (can found under our blog links), u can also find some other Asia-Pacific risk factor like Indonesia, Malaysia to Australia. Happy Reading.

Black

14th Dec - Hidden Bullish Divergence Eur/Usd

Im starting to get back the feel for the eurusd pair. did not enter a trade recklessly this time. instead, this time i decided to do the trade in my own room, less the noise n distraction from my family members. i did a couple of buy stop and sell stops. mainly on dollar bias, after reading up some economic news.

i wonder if you would notice the symmetrical triangle forming off Aud/Usd Daily chart. taking the US bias, i did a sell stop at 0.8990, taking a chance that if price happens to dip down away from the triangle. When a symmetrical triangle is formed, usually a breakout would take place, either direction. taking the fundamental datas as a guide for my execution this time.



As usual, blue lines in the chart showing a higher low and a lower low. this happens when the oscillator has been pushing down towards the over-sold level, yet the price is still maintaining higher. despite the sell stop in place, i did a long. price didnt move in my favour the first fifteen minutes. i could have done an average down, but seller looks strong. until the one hour candle bar is completed, price move in my favour. thats when the seller has given up, and the support held very well at below my price level. i did an average up and close the first position on t-p price and the second position when buyer looks like they were not able to push the price to the next level. +16 pips in total tonight.



Black

Report for November 2009

Hi, sorry for the idles past few days. Bottle and I were away to celebrate a good fren's birthday. Both of us will meet up soon and discuss further on some of our own strategies and plan for upcoming months. We usually meet up to review our research for our tradings.

Anyway, i was suppose to upload my trading graphs for Nov 2009. Well, definitely something un-inspiring and something not for u to follow.



Can't believe i was profitting during my exam period with a few short day trades and then a downward elliot's wave forming right after when i was supposing to be more focused. hmm.

anyway, happy weekend to u guys, im off to do some job-searching and reviewing my trade journal and see if i can find out the problem lying beneath these losing trades.

Black

9 December - Shooting Star On Eur/Usd Hourly

Havent been trading very good past few days. Wanted to do some scalping, but i find myself finding no clues from 1M & 5M chart. Scalping i suppose is a serious technique for more specialized traders. I did a small research this afternoon between Intraday trading (and scalping) vs Swing trading. Intraday trading requires more time to analyse the day's price action and technical analysis (just have to careful with the Economic news announcements). For swing trading u go for the bigger move.

Wad i prefer in intraday trading is the fact that u dont bring any open trades to sleep. It is something i am not used to, although i did during my demo days but they were demos, i dont dream of my trade hitting the s/l or the t-p every hour of the night. and eventually waking up in the middle of the night closing trade. but currently, working a full time job, and having some other commitments, i guess i may not have the luxury of time to glue my eyes to the charts for hours. a part of me wants to eat, shit and sleep with the chart. cuz i think i do have much to learn.. very much.

decided to use back my 1H / 4H chart and Daily (for eagle-eye view of the price action) after few days of failed scalping with 5M / 15M :( Basically short after a shooting star formed off 1H chart, and Stochastic was pointing down, and the good and MOST IMPORTANT thing was, short during downtrend. <<-- i learned a lot of hard experiences trying to pick rebounds against trend. protected my profits by manually trailing my s/l with my profits.. havent had this chance for sometimes :S Closed trade @ +50. Good enough to sleep.




Check out Gpb/Usd bounces sharply off of top downtrend line below. gotta go with the trend, go with the fashion. as the saying goes, the trend is ur fren, never backstab ur fren!



Black

Transaction History For November 2009

Start of a new month. Start of a new target. Forget the lost. But not the lessons learnt.

Yes thats whats happening now. The month of November has been a roller coaster ride for me.
First, i taste the sweetness of a "successful" trader. Every trade was entered correctly, things were all going so smoothly for me. Account doubled. I thought there i am in my own acres of diamonds, everything is within my reach. I am finally seeing things going for me and yes! The start of my profittable journey as a Forex trader. Just when i starts to fantasize even more as to what all these success can bring me in the near future. Lightning struck, the smooth journey i m enjoying proves to be too smooth... i slipped and fell back down straight to earth. I am human once again. Below is a graphic example of what happened.

Yes yes yes, i talked about the sweet part above and ended with bitterness. But whats after that? I would never imagine the aftermath could be so devastating. As you see from the image above, the first up spike is the doubled of my account. Sweet. Thereafter a sharp fall. That u can refer to one of my post on Stop Loss. Its about me being stupid n naive n not setting Stop Loss. It cleared my profits. Then i fought back. Same thing happen thereafter. Stop Loss not set.
Now i start the new month with a lost.

I mentioned about the devastating aftermath yea? Well, after these few traumatizing loss and bad experience, i became worried and paranoid about my trades. The confidence that i used to have when entering trades and riding thru them is gone. I hardly get into trades now even after my system tells me signals are right. And when i'm in trade, i would become anxious the moment trade go against me, eventually, i start to exit early and cut my profit short. These all sounds familiar aye? Yes.. these are all the things that i did and happened during my initial first or second month of my trading journey. Its like all the hardworks and "mental" building i have achieved and worked for previously just vanish.

Now is all about picking myself up and get back on track. Not sure where Black heard or read, he told me that we are in the crucial stage of our journey, the stage whereby the glow of the fire inside us starts to diminish... Guess its when most new traders couldnt sustain their account or just cant take it anymore and give up? Well, not sure if its true, but yes im feeling kinda low morale too. I started spending lesser time on charts.

Looks like i have to start getting books to read and get inspired! Get the hype back!!! AH WOOoO AHH WOOoOO!!

Bottle

Mypaper - Mind Your Money

Did not trade today. but on can see USD is still rallying for today. Short post today. If u work or live in singapore, u will noe that u receive free news paper at almost every train station every morning. today there was an article on forex trading.

Basically a generic explanation on FX Trading and a little in sights of how our dollar is doing. Any i think is good to share it here. Link below, enjoy :)

my paper 7th Dec.

Black

4th December NFP - Eur/Usd

Hello, its the time of the month. Non-Farm Payroll announcement for the month of November. For the past few days, price has been hovering between 1.5 to 1.51. I guess it was the deep breath before the plunge. Sat down 30 minutes before the announcement and went through some news link. I studied Kathy Lien's review on NFP, saw the tweets from FX360. Without the news announcement out, you can never know where the price will be heading. Its either you pend for the knee-jerk movement to stabilise, or u pick a side and fight.

I decide to use my break-out trade method. I picked on the USD side, partly based on the previous months NFP knee-jerk movement. Therefore i told myself to get out of the trade after max 20pips. Entered the trade a minute before the announcement, s/l set @ 20pips away with lot size that max loss of 3% of my account.

I can tell u my heart was beating damn fast and kinda shivering in the first fifteen minutes. Price dips 20+ in a split second, i try to close the trade. Failed, slippage.. Re-quote @ loss when retracement took place, i clicked Cancel. Price dips again 10+ pip, i try to close and fail again due to slippage. Finally close the first trade at 5 pips. All these happen in a minute.

Price movement still looks to continue breaking down. I short the second time. Recalling my first trade, i modified my orders so that S/L & T-P were in place. Closed trade @ 10pips. I thought that was it for me. This happened the nxt minute.

I decide to short again looking at the strong selling and a very good NFP result. But out of fear of retracement, i closed at 1pip.

Short the 4th trade @ 10 pips. Cuz it was closed to 1.5000, triple zero. Which i thought retracement could be strong. I was wrong. Price further dips to 1.4912 tonight (singapore time).

+27 pips for the night. I closed the 5th trade (long) @ 1pip after holding for 15 minute. i think with the good US news, seller is still very strong, i doubt price will go back to 1.5000 level for the time being. Lucky for me, price dips again after i closed.



While watching dips during the NFP announcement, i was closely watching other pairs. Of course, mostly are correlated, with USD rallying like nobody business. But.. to my surprise i saw the aussie rallying FIRST (when USD has already been spiking in other pairs) before giving way to the USD. That puzzles me.



I think at that moment they give birth to a new baby koala. Still did not make up for my week's loss pips. but anyway happy for the day's gain. Gotta take it step by step.

Black

Testing Feed

Testing

3 December - Sitting On Cold Bench

Today is day of announcement. I didnt enter any trade. It was too volatile. I guess i shall wait for Non-Farm tomorrow. Probably things will be a little better to focus, and let's see the outcome after Fed Bernanke testifies.

15min bar after US Unemployment Claims. Actual is better than forecast.


15min bar after ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI. Actual is worst than forecast.


Black

1st December Trade - Eur/Usd & Gbp/Usd

Feeling very reckless today. Did many short scalps. I did about 7 short trades, both on Gbp/Usd & Eur/Usd. my Eur/Usd pair made 80% winning trades, and 100% loss on Gbp/Usd. Im simply scalded by the cable.

If you were following, this aint the first time i got knocked by the pound. I guess i am not familiar with this pair enough to trade them. Im not sure to say if this pair is too volatile to do scalping, becuz it hit my s/l twice before proceeding to my desired direction. Sigh, blame it on my itchy hand today. I hate the way to start the month.

Im on short now @ 1.5075, but im having the fear of the Eur/Usd breaking 1.5100 level again.


Black