Category Archives: EURUSD

EURUSD DST Short – 3 Aug 17


Acc Risk: 0.5%
Short: 1.1868
Stop: 1.1918
Target: 1.1640 (4h100, 228 pips, 4.56x RR)
Mindset: Positive, like the set up, but feel the trade has further to run.

Update

Took my first profit manually! – 9 Aug
CPI figures came out bearish – 11 Aug
Still in the trade waiting – 19 Aug
Still here, trend channel looks to be breaking – 24 Aug
Stopped out – 25 Aug

Spotted this set up doing my morning scans, noticed price had diverged into resistance on the 4h and 1h. The resistance was on upper trendline on the daily chart and into MA resistance on the weekly (w200) and monthly (m50).

So a lot of nice factors in my favour.

Didn’t manage to get any screenshots! Was in a bit of a rush.

Took my first profit manually! – 9 Aug


Acc Risk: -0.25% 🙂
Short: 1.1868
Stop: 1.1918
Target: 1.1600 area (268 pips, 5.36x RR)
Mindset: Still like the set up

I’ve split my trade and took my first profit manually just ahead of the 4h100. I always get annoyed when I do this – I should just set and forget and let the market decide when I exit. Shortly after I closed the trade 20 pips off the 4h100 price went down and tested it. These things eat away at your performance and you often regret the decision immediately after you’ve made it.

I’m leaving the remainder to run after a chat with Charlie, I have a feeling we’ll be able to get lower, but this is based on nothing other than speculation.

The trade is paid for now, I’ve banked £45 and I’ve got £18 plus charges at risk. So either way I’ve made some money on the trade.

CPI figures came out bearish – 11 Aug

The CPI figures were a miss, not a big miss 0.1% instead of 0.2% predicted. The Euro has rallied I’m not convinced this will run though, the trend is still down. If we do come higher we get a new divergence short set up which would be great. That would give me more certainty in a run lower. So I’d be quite happy to get stopped out now and re-enter again later.

At the moment price is chopping around the 4h50 which actually feels like a good shorting zone, but no set up so not going to trade it.

EURUSD 4H Chart – 11 Aug 17

Still in the trade waiting – 19 Aug

I’ve been sitting on this trade waiting for the 4h200 to be tested and I’m still waiting! I can see this getting touched around the recent lows at 1.1660ish. Often happens when you use moving averages as targets. I thought we might be forming a triangle but it looks like we’re in a mini down-trend which is holding for now.

More tests of the lower trendline than the upper, so I wouldn’t be surprised to get a test of the upper trendline again soon.

EURUSD 4H Chart - 19 Aug

EURUSD 4H Chart – 19 Aug

Still here, trend channel looks to be breaking – 24 Aug

Am I bored of this trade, this trend looks to be breaking now to the upside now. I definitely prefer those quicker moves that are over in a few days. This has dragged on for ages. Something I’ve seen happen a lot with trades is an initial flush down a pause and then a move back to the prior low, usually to coincide with a moving average target. E.g. I’m holding for a lower level target that ends up being the prior low I.e. I could’ve been out of the trade a couple of weeks back.

Not sure there’s anyway to trade that, but just an observation.

EURUSD 4H Chart – 24 Aug 17

Stopped out – 25 Aug

Finally got stopped out of this trade, as I suspected, price was heading higher. Would I have done anything differently? No. I took partial profits and tried to run the rest based on my analysis which I think was still sound. I can’t close a trade on a hunch alone.

So no problem there. Made a small profit on the trade.

Blue-cross hair shows the exit point of the trade.

EURUSD 4H Chart – 25 Aug

EURUSD DST Short – 28 Apr


Acc Risk: 0.5%
Short: 1.0894
Stop: 1.0961 (63 pips)
Target: 1.0686 (d50, 209 pips, 3.31 RR)
Mindset: Surprisingly positive considering my track record!

Update – Stopped out – 4 May

Following the french election, the mega gap up must have everyone getting short the euro. It certainly crossed my mind and I’m sure it will but I’m also sure it won’t happen when everyone expects it to. Most of the Euro markets have been rallying higher since, I took a divergence short on the GBP and surprise surprise it didn’t work out.

This set up, on the daily timeframe, looks pretty good to me. I think we’ve got a few days margin too before the divergence doesn’t work out if price moves higher. It’s not A grade though, with gaps like this I guess you are often going to get a divergence!

Here’s the set up …

Daily Chart

EURUSD Daily Chart – 28 Apr

Price is into the upper trendline, we’ve got the gap and the upper trendline has been tested a few times but failed to break. Obviously the gap is the obvious trade to take, the GBP gap following the Brexit vote is still there!

Weekly Chart

Weekly the gap has opened up into the w50. This also adds a bit of validation to my short.

EURUSD W Chart – 28 Apr

I think we could be sitting on this trade for a while.

Stopped out – 5 May

Price stopped me out. I never liked the set up of this chart; I traded the divergence but the trend has been higher. It feels like the Euro will sell off after the french election regardless of the result. There’s a 4 hour divergence setting up but there’s no confirmation on the lower timeframe for me trade – so I’m sitting tight for now.

Daily Chart

EURUSD D Chart – 5 May

4H Chart

EURUSD 4H Chart – 5 May. Divergence on the 4H but not the daily or hourly.

EURUSD DST Short – 20 Apr


Acc Risk: 0.35%
Short: 1.0759
Stop: 1.0782 (23 pips)
Target: 1.0697 (1h500, 62 pips, 2.7 RR)
Mindset: optimistic and impatient

Update 20 Apr – Manually closed for a 40 pip profit 😐

I have to confess a few faults here:

  1. Trading off the hourly timeframe, not in my plan (although I think I should include it!)
  2. Trading mechanically first, then analysing a trade after I’ve put it on
  3. Suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out). I feel a pressure to take every set up so I don’t under trade my system.

I cover 20 markets and so I’ve usually got a set up forming or tradable. However over Easter I didn’t trade, and it’s been pretty quiet lately, so I haven’t put a trade on for about a week. I have been keen to get back into the market. I was looking at the EURUSD 4H chart and looking for a divergence which didn’t materialise, price was into a weekly trendline resistance, so I went down to the 1H timeframe to see if a divergence had occurred there.

It had, it looked nice, so I didn’t think twice about it.

1H Chart – the setup

EURUSD 1H Chart – 20 Apr

4H Chart

EURUSD 4H Chart – 20 Apr. Not that I would trade from it, but I did note a 61.8% retrace.

Weekly Chart

EURUSD W Chart – 20 Apr

It’s a small position – risk is only 0.35% but I wanted to get back into the market. Not a great reason but I have followed the set up rules, just on a different timeframe.

I have also been thinking recently that it might be short-sighted to stick rigidly to my two timeframes (daily & 4 hourly) when things don’t quite set up like this did, why not check the hourly timeframe for an entry?

One other habit I’ve noticed is seeing a set up, taking it and THEN really checking the charts to see what other factors might be in play. I need to kick that habit into touch! Thinking about it for a second, I would say this is partly because I don’t truly know what I am looking for, I have no other stats to base my analysis on (e.g. 70% of the time when price closes inside the 4h bands, it will touch a particular ma, or x tests of trendline usually lead to a break etc) it’s back to my opinion again, I have no real weighting I can apply to what I am seeing.

I think I need to do some more back testing, although not sure how best to backtest broad analysis like this.

Update 20 Apr – Manually closed for a 40 pip profit 😐

Well I haven’t followed my original plan here. I’ve had a lot of doubt about my target, some targets are very clear to me and don’t get changed, but some are difficult to pick. This is a great example, the set up was on the hourly chart, but I’m always thinking bigger targets – hence my 1h500 target which aligned with the 4h200. However, I only have daily and 4h backtesting stats on the 20, 34, 55 & 100 MAs and the divergence only occurred on the 1h timeframe.

So I decided I was trading on opinion and not my strategy, so I closed the position just below the 1h50 (yellow line) @ 1.0719. Not that it matters/bothers me, but price has since hit the original 1h500 target (red line).

EURUSD 1H Chart – 21 Apr

A few thoughts/questions on this trade:

  1. I haven’t back tested the 1h timeframe, but I found similar results across the daily and 4h timeframes so assumed it would be the same for the hourly (but I never checked / did the work).
  2. Once the trade was on I checked the chart regularly! I didn’t want another loser (had a number of losers going long against the Yen) and I wasn’t confident about my exit. This has to be a sign I’m not comfortable with the trade. In future is it best to just close the trade if I find myself in this situation again?
  3. I think I did the right thing in retrospect – exiting at the 1h50 – my original target was baseless and I still earnt an okay RR

Some things here to cover with Charlie.

EURUSD DST Long – 10 Apr 17


Acc Risk: 0.4%
Long: 1.0585
Stop: 1.0563 (22 pips)
Target: 1.0660 (4h50, 75 pips, 3.4 RR)
Mindset: Erm – not enjoying going long the Euro.

Price has been trending down for a while now on the EURUSD and might be bottoming out. I don’t feel great about this trade we look to have cleared the 4h500 nicely and I don’t really see any reason for a move higher. On the daily chart we’ve retraced to the 78.6% fib level. That’s about it. Anyway – we’ve formed a divergence so I’m going in!

EURUSD 4H Chart – 10 Apr 17

And what a nice divergence it is! Lovely and looping. Not the best price I could get, but not terrible.

Target hit – 12 Apr

The North Korea problem. Seems that Trump might be starting to spread himself a little thin. Got a lot of enemies to go after!

Trumps at it again, just happened to be on the right side of this! Apparently he did an interview with WSJ saying two things:

  • The dollar is over-valued
  • He’s after North Korea to stop their nuclear programme

The dollar dropped, Gold rallied, Euro rallied, etc. My target got hit. It’s all gravy. I have to say was not feeling good about this trade so feel lucky to be out of this.

I think I always say that, feel lucky, like I’m totally winging it!

EURUSD 4H Chart – 13 Apr. Nice divergence!

My order was triggered at 1.0633 for 48 pips, 2.1 RR.

XAUUSD & EURUSD Short 27 Mar – 13 Apr 17


Total Acc Risk: 0.5% => 1.1%

EURUSD
Acc Risk: 0.2% => 0.5%
Entry: 1x 1.0864, 2x 1.08750 (market order)
Stop: 3x 1.0915 (51 pips)
Target 1: 2x 1.0787 (4h50, 77 pips 1.5 RR)
Target 2: 1x 1.0690 (4h100 & d20, 174 pips, 3.4 RR)

XAUUSD
Acc Risk: 0.3% => 0.6%
Entry: 2x 1253.8, 2x 1258.0 (market order)
Stop: 1263.3 (Avg. 77 pips)
Target: 4x 1241 (4h50, 128 pips, 1.35 RR)

Updates

XAUUSD order triggered, now in the full trade – 28 Mar
Cancelled the remaining EURUSD Order – 29 Mar
closed some positions – 30 Mar
have added to my gold position – 5 Apr
NFP tomorrow, feeling ominous – 6 Apr
Stopped out – 7 Apr
Still tracking Gold – 11 Apr
Gold heading higher – 13 Apr

This is a more complex trade for me. I have a few xyzUSD pair shorts either setting up or currently diverging. So I’ve split my exposure to the USD across the best looking set ups (EURUSD and XAUUSD). I feel uneasy about these two trades, I feel obliged to take them as my scan shows so many correlations right now.

The problem I’m struggling with; I can’t seem to get a run of winning trades going and it feels like I am beginning to hemorrhage money. I’m desperate to close my reasonable profits on my GBPJPY long, it’s close to target, but that just isn’t disciplined.

I have to remind myself that I am taking these two trades because my monthly reviews show when I pass on divergences, I will usually regret it in hindsight. However, the long USD trade seems so obvious to me right now.

Of those set ups I have chosen XAUUSD and EURUSD to go short on, primarily because the charts seem to have the cleanest set ups (i.e. touching long term MAs and diverging on the 4H and almost on the Daily timeframes – sort of 🙂 !).

Here are the set ups.

Gold Daily & 4H Charts

Gold Daily & 4H Chart – 27 Mar

The 4H divergence is pretty clear, the daily one isn’t but I’ve mentioned this before in my monthly trade reviews – it seems as though MAs distort some of the divergences either pulling or pushing price so the signal doesn’t set up.

Regardless, I am trading this on the 4H divergence – aiming for the 50MA. It’s a pretty crap RR when you consider the 50MA will be moving higher, but still in my favour for now.

EURUSD Daily & 4H Charts

EURUSD Daily & 4H Chart – 27 Mar

The weekly chart is very close to touching the 50MA, the monthly is close to the 20MA.

Trade set up

Across the two pairs, I’ve got a full position on both at a little over 1%. ~ 1/3 of the position is open now in each market, the remaining ~ 2/3s is to be opened by order at the upper bands (I chose the upper bands because the prior candlesticks were spiky and long bodied so the upper bands coincide with about 50% of the candlestick body).

I’m not totally comfortable with these trades, but I need to trade the system – not my opinion. The proximity of the MAs on the higher timeframe does worry me. I need to be more like Chirrut from Star Wars. He has absolute faith in the force and I need to have faith in my system’s probability. 🙂

If Chirrut was a trade he’d probably say…

I’m trading the system and the system is with me, I am trading the system and the system is with me, I am trading the system and the system is with me …

Trust in the system. I am trading the system and the system is with me

Hahaha, I’m such a dumb ass.

XAUUSD order triggered, now in the full trade – 28 Mar

My additional gold order has triggered at 1258. So 2/3rds of my dollar position is open now. The remaining 1/3, order to short the EURUSD, doesn’t look like it’ll get hit.

Cancelled the remaining EURUSD Order – 29 Mar

Mini update, price has now hit the 4h50 so I’ve cancelled the remaining EURUSD order to get short. As some of the move has now played out, there’s no need to add to the position if price comes higher.

As we’ve got a double divergence in play, I’ve kept the more ambitious 4h100 target and ditched the 4h50 target.

Closed some positions – 30 Mar

Some good news, but bad trading, today. Both of these positions have been doing OK; however, I’ve been undecided about my targets and not been moving my limit orders inline with my MAs regularly.

Being honest, it’s been a combination of being forgetful and dog tired. I managed to catch another cold off the boy and he’s not been sleeping well so I’ve not been on my A game. This time though, I’ve been lucky to be watching when price has hit my targets, so I’ll accept the spoils and consider this a lesson learnt.

Taking some profits

My EURUSD trade is now closed – we touched the 4h100 around early lunchtime. My Gold trade is partially closed, I took half profits following the USD GDP figures move down to the 4h50. Not a big win on either, but not terrible.

The remainder of my Gold trade is being held for the 4h200 now. I originally planned to close the whole position at the 4h50 but price action has been slow and the 4h50 has moved up and up. So, I’ve held half of the position open, because I would’ve been dissatisfied with a move lower that I wasn’t in.

Here’s the latest charts.

EURUSD 4H Chart

EURUSD 4H Chart – 30 Mar. Pink line is the 4h100.

XAUUSD 4H Chart

XAUUSD 4H Chart – 30 Mar. Purple line is the 4h200.

It feels good to have cut my risk and be out of some of those positions! I can move on to the next opportunity.

Here’s what I’m left with now.


XAUUSD
Acc Risk: 0.3%
Entry: 1258.0
Stop: 1263.3 (53 pips)
Target: 1233.7 (4h200, 243 pips, 4.58 RR)

Have added to my Gold position – 5 Apr

Gold has been holding up and has made another test of the d200. I wasn’t surprised to see it and fortunately for me it has made another 4h divergence. So we have a double divergence in play. So I’ve added to my position at 1253. the 4h100 has also crossed the 4h200 so I’ve split my targets to test both (as they are close by and the 4h200 hasn’t been tested in a while)


XAUUSD
Acc Risk: 0.5%
Short: 1256.3 (Avg price)
Stop: 1263.3 (70 pips)
Target 1: 1240 (4h100, 160 pips, 2.32 RR)
Target 2: 1234 (4h200, 223 pips, 3.18 RR)

I did get a screenshot of this but late on in the day. I was working to get ready for a call with Charlie. Here’s how it is looking. Looks like it might hit my target soon!

XAUUSD 4H Chart – 5 Apr

Just noticed my targets are both on the 4h100. Ops better update that! So many mistakes lately – I’m not putting enough dedicated time into this – it’s always rushed lately. Need to be better at that.

NFP tomorrow, feeling ominous – 6 Apr

The ADP figures were a strong beat and I feel that whatever happens now NFP will be a disappointment, surely a good figure is priced in so anything short of excellent will be a disappointment. We’ll see at lunchtime I guess.

Stopped out – 7 Apr

Trump announces an air strike on Syria. No doubt he mentioned some very bad people – sad.

Well I never got to those NFP figures, Trump launched a missile strike overnight and that seems to have spiked Gold higher (to be expected.) I’m not too fussed about this, not the sort of thing you can predict and so long as risk is managed it’s going to happen.

XAUUSD 4H Chart – 7 Apr 17

Price is potentially forming another divergence (double this time). I expect with the NFP figures we’ll get the set up. This set up is on the daily and 4h timeframe. I think I’ll be waiting towards the end of the day to trade this. NFP is due out at 1.30 and the candlestick on the 4h FXCM chart closes at 2pm (which might be a bit close!?) IDC 4h candlestick closes an hour later at 3pm so I might wait for that to get my read on the market.

Still tracking gold – 11 Apr

Following Friday I missed an entry to get short again on Gold. TBH I was pretty fed up with the price action and was happy to leave the trade and wait for fresh eyes on Sunday, at the back of my mind was a slight doubt that was the correct decision, but I left it nonetheless. Well turns out it wasn’t, Friday evening triggered the trade to get short, I didn’t think much would happen until Monday and I didn’t need to be holding risk over the weekend for no reason so didn’t check the market.

Being a double divergence the target would’ve been the 4h100, which got a great touch soon after!

XAUUSD 4H Chart – 11 Apr

I guess price action is crap, until it isn’t!

Price is heading higher, and looks to be setting up a daily divergence. Shame the 4h won’t now. The double divergence was much nicer. It’ll be really interesting to see what price action is like over the next two days.

Gold heading higher – 13 Apr

Just keeping my eye on this – for now the trade is over, if we get a sudden reversal the daily chart could still set up but the price action seems very bullish right now. There was a lot of hand-railing of the d200 and the small pullbacks were quickly bought up, so I guess the writing was on the wall for Gold shorts.

Either way, we got some pips out of this, on to the next trade.

XAUUSD Daily Chart – 13 Apr

EURUSD DST Short – 21 Mar


Account Risk: 0.35%
Short: 1.0810
Stop: 1.0830 (20 pips! 🙂 )
Target: 1.0714, 4H 50MA (116 pips, RR 5.8x)
Mindset: Really pleased with the entry but still expecting to get stopped out again

Update 1 – Not much progress, but the daily divergence has set up – 23 Mar
Update 2 – Might be getting a double divergence! – 24 Mar
Update 3 – Got stopped out ;-( – 27 Mar

I saw this set up on the morning scan – and whilst I didn’t really want to take it – I had a really nice spot to enter on. On the daily timeframe there was also a divergence setting up (although not yet official).

The set up – 4H Chart

EURUSD 4H Chart – 21 Mar

Daily Chart

EURUSD Daily Chart – 21 Mar. Will the divergence materialise?

One thing worth noting is the proximity of the 200MA. It’s not a million miles away so may well get a move up to that.

So I put the first position on and was just about to put the second position on when my ETX quote locked/stopped quoting and I couldn’t place my second position for about 10 seconds. When it came back again the price had moved about 10 pips so I waited for price to come back to me but it just kept falling away.

Sell quote locked. Came back 10 pips lower.

I decided to wait but price didn’t come back so I closed the window. There are other set ups forming on other Euro pairs, so for now I’ll sit tight.

Update – Not much progress, but the daily divergence has set up – 23 Mar

EURUSD Daily Chart – 23 Mar. The divergence set up.

Small update the daily chart is now diverging and I’m unsure about what to do next. The daily 50MA is a nice distance away so I feel I should switch my target to that from the 4H 50MA. However, The 4H 50MA hasn’t been tested yet (according to my charts) it had an air kiss.

At the moment I’m sticking with the 4H 50. (I think mentor Charlie would go for the daily 50). I really wish I had those two positions now so I could target both!

For now I’m going to play safe, price action hasn’t been great. I can see myself getting stopped out of this trade and having to re-enter. Price is also hand-railing the 4H 20 so maybe we’ll get a blow-out to the downside?

EURUSD 4H Chart – 23 Mar.

Update – Might be getting a double divergence! – 24 Mar

EURUSD 4H Chart – 24 Mar. Double divergence forming?

Just noted that price has moved up this morning against my position but I just wonder if we’ll get a double divergence setting up!?

Hmmm I wonder

If we do, I’ll be switching the next target to the 4h 100 which is very near the daily 50. Could be a tasty entry, we’ll see.

Update – got stopped out – 27 Mar

The Euro gapped up over the weekend and continued higher. I was stopped out of the position as the market opened on Sunday night. My first experience of getting gapped over my stop.

Wasn’t great – but I’m glad I didn’t get put off shorting again (even though I got stopped out again on my EURCAD trade!)

EURUSD 4H Chart – 26 Mar. Gapped and stopped out.

Will wait and see if I get another entry on this.

EURUSD DST Short – 16 Mar


Account Risk: 0.7%
Short: 1.0709
Stop: 1.0757 (48 pips)
Target: 1.0618, 4H 50MA (90 pips, RR 1.95x)
Mindset: Keeping the faith

Update 1 – Stopped out – 16 Mar

Saw this short set up this morning. Prices have been rallying higher since the Fed rate decision, so decided to take the short. My mind is awash with reasons to not take this trade but I’m trading the system! So it’s a short from here. Here’s the set up.

4H Chart – the set up

EURUSD 4H Chart – 16 Mar

I’m hoping for the 50MA – it’s a fair target if it works out.

Update 1 – Stopped out – 16 Mar

Just got stopped out of this trade. I don’t really think there’s much more to say on it, it’s one of those things. Another loser to add to the list. I really need to work on maxing out my winners! At the moment they are all pretty even in size so I’m net down after these losers and trading costs.

EURUSD 4H Chart – 17 Mar

EURUSD DST Long – 3 Mar


Account Risk: 1%
Long: 2x 1.0515 & 2x order 1.0505
Stop: 1.0475 (40 pips & 30 pips)
Tgt 1: 1.0556, 4H 50MA (41 pips, 1x RR)
Tgt 2: 1.0655, 4H 200MA (140 pips, 3.36x RR)
Tgt 3: 1.0975, D 200MA (410 pips, 10.25x RR)
Mindset: Optimistic

Update #1 – First Target hit – 6 Mar
Update #2 – Wait and see – 8 Mar
Update #3 – Final Target hit – 10 Mar


I’m about to start building work on the house and so my time is seriously stretched at the moment. It’s not the ideal situation for trading – late nights, lots going on and generally feeling tired. I need to be aware of my stress levels and mindset over the next few weeks. I may have to take a break if my routine isn’t consistent enough.

Anyway, for now the situation is manageable. I saw a EURUSD trade set-up I’d been monitoring on the 4H chart. This trade has been my first opportunity to test out my new position sizing approach. The idea is to scale in to positions at a better price within, and at the edges of, the bands.

General approach is to enter the market with half the position and try and get a fill on the other half at a better price using a market order.

Here’s the set-up on the EURUSD.

4H Chart – set-up chart

EURUSD 4H Chart – 3 Mar

The price action is showing a 4H double divergence. When you add in the daily chart, things get a bit more interesting.

Daily Chart

EURUSD Daily Chart – 3 Mar

We’ve already tested the 100MA and we’re currently on the 61.8% fib retracement (2nd test). Price is also testing the weekly lower band.

Monthly Chart

I wanted to include this too, we are on an ultra-long term trendline of support today (lower blue line).

EURUSD Monthly Chart – 3 Mar

But what caught my eye on this chart was the trend channel break-away. This was a pattern a recall learning ages ago – I have no stats to prove that it works or doesn’t – but the trader I learnt it from said it was a particular favourite of theirs.

Price is in a down-trend channel (red line) but then accelerates away, steepening the trend (dark red line). Price can often retrace that move just as quickly back to the original trend line.

Hopefully the chart mark-up makes sense.

Nothing I can actionably trade, but interesting nonetheless. If my full position is triggered I might be tempted to hold on to the last position for a while.

Executing the trade

With my new approach to position sizing, my charts are very busy! But here’s the trade – I’ve manually opened the first 2 units. I’m using an order for the remaining 2 units.

EURUSD 4H Trade Chart – 3 Mar

Targets are spread across as follows.

  1. 1x @ 4H 50MA. This will be the first target to hopefully limit my downside. It’s my alternative to moving my stop.
  2. 2x @ 4H 200MA. I thought about the 500 but they are so close I think it is fair to shoot for the 200. The 100 has been tested a few times, so I’m aiming for more pips.
  3. 1x @ D 200MA. the 100MA was recently tested on the daily chart, so I’d like to run the last position to the Daily 200MA.

With the orders, stops and limits, my ETX chart looks terrible! I’m glad I’m using two different chart packages so I can keep things clean.

EURUSD 4H ETX Chart – 3 Mar

Update 1 – First Target hit – 3 Mar


Account Risk: 0.4%
Long: 2x 1.0515
Stop: 1.0475 (40 pips)
Tgt 1: Hit @ 1.0556, 4H 50MA (41 pips, 1x RR)
Tgt 2: 1.0655, 4H 200MA (140 pips, 3.36x RR)
Mindset: Not good, not bad

The second half of my position didn’t get triggered before price has moved higher. I’ve been surprised how quickly price has moved. I hit my first target within hours of placing the trade. Feel fortunate to have caught that wave.

For now, I’ve cancelled the remaining long orders and will watch price action.

My final target is still the 200MA. I saw we hit the 500MA this morning and price dropped back sharply. Maybe I’ve been too greedy to go for the 200MA? Time will tell – it’ll probably hit the 200MA at the exact same price level !

EURUSD 4H Chart – 6 Mar

I’d say the trade is break-even, since hitting my target, but I’m paying rolling charges so it might not be when I’m threw!

Update 2 – Wait and see – 8 Mar

I can’t claim not to be a frustrated with this trade, I was quite close to getting my exit but price has drifted away now.

EURUSD 4H Chart – 8 Mar

Following the bounce and the fast move up I thought we might be into a trend change. However since hitting the 500MA price has just slowly ebbed away. I’m starting to think I’d been too greedy going for the 200 over the lower 500MA.

Hard to say, I wonder if we will move down to retest the lows and set up another divergence?! If we did that would be great for another long. Given the news events over the next two days I’m really not sure how to trade this if it does set up. The ECB meeting is today and includes rate decisions (one of the biggest factors of a price move) and forward guidance on the interest rate will move this currency.

The NFP figures are out on Friday too and the ADP figures (which forecast the NFP figures) were a big beat. So price movements could be huge.

I’ve really not decided what to do yet.

Update 3 – Final Target hit – 10 Mar

EURUSD 4H Chart – 10 Mar

My final target has been hit, feel pretty lucky about it now, after my call with Charlie last night he agreed going for the 200 over the 500 was probably too ambitious 🙂

Anyway, I feel pretty lucky about this, price got up there real quick and I my limit order closed me out of the trade. The only frustration was that it wasn’t a full position like intended, just a half size. Makes me wonder if trying to scale into a position is worth it, it would marginally reduce loses but ultimately it would reduce the winners if only half the position gets triggered (hmmmm?)

I’m starting to think that trying to get better entries is probably not worth it. Question for Charlie!

Here’s the final trade.

Account Risk: 0.4%
Long: 2x 1.0515
Stop: 1.0475 (40 pips)
T1 Hit: 1.0556, 4H 50MA (41 pips, 1x RR)
T2 Hit: 1.0635, 4H 200MA (120 pips, 3x RR)

Now this position has closed I can add to my GBPUSD without maxing out my USD exposure, so I’ve added a final position. I wonder if I’m too early on the £ trade as the Fed rate decision is due Weds evening. Hopefully we can get some breathing space on the GBPUSD to handle any shock reactions to the market.

EURUSD DST Long – 12 Feb


Account Risk: 0.7%
Long: 1x @ 1.0635 & 1x @ 1.0631
Stop: 1.0586 (45 & 49 pips)
T1: 1x @ 1.0719 (85 pips, 1.7x RR). 4H 50MA.
T2: 1x @ 1.0756 (125 pips, 2.7x RR). Daily 100MA.
Mindset: 50/50, ok set up. My long term view is up, short-term view might be down. Lots of MAs to bounce around.

Update 1 – Something’s bugging me – 13 Feb 2017
Update 2 – Divergence didn’t materialise – 13 Feb 2017
Update 3 – Stopped out – 14 Feb 2017

Watched this chart into the close on Friday to see if price action would close inside the bands. It’s a divergence on the 4H but also a double divergence on the hourly chart. I’m really 50/50 on this trade, my instinct tells me that prices are going to go lower (not higher). But I’m about trading the divergences I see rather than my opinion so I’ve placed a trade.

I’ve slightly upped my position size to nearer 1%. I’ve got two targets in mind so I’ve opened two positions. My first target is the 50MA on the 4H chart. The other is the 100MA on the daily chart. Price has recently tested the daily 100MA, before coming down to the 50MA, so I’m looking for a retest.

4h Chart – Set up

4H EURUSD Chart – 12 Feb 17

Hourly Chart

Here’s the hourly chart that gave me more confidence to place the trade.

Hourly EURUSD Chart – 12 Feb 17

Daily Chart

Here’s the Daily chart showing the 100MA target I’m looking at.

Daily EURUSD Chart – 12 Feb 17

Update 1 – Something’s bugging me

I judge how well I’ve executed a trade by how often I check on price (e.g. how nervous I am). Usually I just let it do it’s thing, but something was bugging me and I kept checking on the price action during the day. I think it was the way I set up my targets, I am happy with the 4H target, but I have no real justification for the Daily target (there’s no divergence setting up on the Daily chart).

I’m also not happy about the number of bigger MAs in the way of my targets. I don’t have a great feel for their significance yet.

So I’ve gone back over my charts to recheck what’s going on.

Quarterly Chart

Quarterly EURUSD Chart – 13 Feb 2017

We’re on the lower trendline of a major trend channel going back to the 80s. I think it’s more likely to assume we’ll continue in this trend until proven otherwise (for me that would be a number of quarterly closes below the trend line) and the monthly chart pointing towards more downside.

Monthly Chart

The monthly chart kind of looks bullish to me. We’ve got an almost formed divergence.

Monthly EURUSD Chart – 13 Feb 2017

Weekly Chart

This looks to me like we may come lower to test the lower band. So perhaps more downside on the cards before any move higher?

Weekly EURUSD Chart – 13 Feb 2017

Thoughts going forward

The Daily and 4H Charts haven’t really changed from above. I don’t think I have justification to aim for a daily 100MA target without a daily divergence. This morning the hourly timeframe hit the 50MA (21MA on the 4 hourly).

So I think I need to rethink my targets.

Looking again at the Hourly and 4H charts

On the four hourly chart we’ve tested the 21MA 3 times (the last time was this morning), we’re chopping around the 200MA but I’m ignoring it for now – from back-testing this happens quite a bit.

4H Chart – 13 Feb 2017

The 500MA looks like a fair target for a retest to me and the 50 is heading down so I can see price hitting both MAs at a similar level. So I’m happy to pick that as a target.

As I’ve been typing this the Euro has been heading lower, but it looks to me like a triple divergence might set up on the hourly chart (see my purple and grey lines)

Hourly Chart – 13 Feb 2017

If it does and sets up with the bands I’m currently thinking I’ll up my position to the full 1% and target the hourly 100MA. Something I wasn’t thinking I’d say when I set out to update this post.

The hourly 50 got tested this morning and the divergences are fairly clean (for now).

So – at the moment – the trade is:


Account Risk: 0.7%
Long: 1x @ 1.0635 & 1x @ 1.0631
Stop: 1.0586 (~47 pips)
Target: 1x @ 1.0684 (1x RR, 50 pips) 4H 500MA.
Mindset: Happier with the target but not the RR.

I will watch the hourly chart for the triple divergence set up.

Update 2 – Divergence didn’t materialise

I set some alarms and checked the 3, 4 & 5pm closes on the hourly chart and price didn’t make it back into the bands. The 4H divergence also didn’t materialise, price headed lower. So this looks like being a loser (not stopped out yet).

4H EURUSD Chart – 13 Feb 2017

Interestingly stops should really be set as points at which you’ve been proven wrong. I feel pretty satisfied that I’m not right on this trade. So maybe I should be reducing my stop margin?

Can’t say I don’t feel a little disappointed about this trade, the set up seemed pretty sweet at first. If the hourly chart had closed inside the bands this afternoon it would’ve been a text book set up too. Oh well, I heard a trader interview with someone called Michelle Koenig she made an interesting observation about trading emotions and taking loses.

To take the emotions out of trading you need a trading plan/strategy which tells you why you’re getting into those trades and how you’re going to manage those trades; but also time in the seat, so as time goes on, the big emotional roller-coaster becomes more like rolling hills which then becomes a washboard or driving down a bumpy road.

Update 3 – Stopped out

Just got stopped out of my trade, I thought it might turn around after a small dip overnight, but no such luck. The position closed at 1.0586. No great shakes.

4H Chart EURUSD – 14 Feb 17

Thinking about the trade execution:

  • I definitely could’ve picked better targets initially. I was happier with them in the end.
  • The entries were okay but for future I might look to lower timeframes to get confirmation and a better entry price and risk to reward
  • The risk to reward was verging on sub 1 (so not worth the risk). I need to be more careful of this scenario
  • I’m glad I was trading at a bigger size – I want to be moving on with my account
  • I think the trade was fine to take – even though the divergence didn’t work out

Question for Charlie: When trading off the hourly timeframe would he trade a divergence in the early evening (when price seems to drift sideways)?

EURUSD DST Short – 1 Feb 2017


Acc Risk: 0.5%
Sell: 1x @ 1.0781
Stop: 1x @ 1.0832 (51 pips)
T1: 1x @ 1.0681 (100 pips, 2x R:R)
Mindset: 😐 Not too confident

Update 1 – Post NFP (Still in the trade) – 03 Feb
Update 2 – Moving my target 😐 (still in the trade) – 05 Feb
Update 3 – Target hit – 05 Feb

Spotted a pretty standard divergence the other night so took a position, I shorted on the open of the next 4 hourly bar @ 1.0781. Aiming at a 2x reward to risk. I was looking to add an additional position at the upper band but cancelled the order because I wasn’t comfortable with the full position size. I think this is mainly down to not having much trade history and building my confidence.

The support areas on the higher timeframes are moving averages which are pretty soft levels of support (I assume everyone has slightly different MA chart settings (e.g. exponential, simple, 20 or 21 etc etc). The trend is still up and hasn’t really shown any topping price action to me (spikes higher, collection of dojis or flattening of the trend).

For my target I’m aiming for the 100MA. It has already been tested but I’m only looking for a retest because I’m not feeling confident about the trade. I wonder if in hindsight I should’ve aimed for more.

Here’s the set up (red comments are points against)

4H Chart – The Set up

Daily Chart

Weekly Chart

Post NFP Update (still in the trade) – 03 Feb

Leading up to NFP the target was looking like a dead cert. The NFP was positive for the dollar but earnings and unemployment weren’t so the picture was mixed. The Euro has since rallied higher and price action is looking like bullish for now.

It made me go over the higher timeframes just to revalidate where I think we are (I didn’t do this properly before – broke my trade plan!)

Monthly Chart – 03 Feb

I redrew my trend line going back to 2000 and to me it looks like we’ve broken it and are doing the kiss goodbye. Trendlines are very flaky though, like elliot waves it is all down to interpretation. Someone could well have drawn that as support. However that’s how I see it. I can easily imagine a monthly roll-over and a bullish divergence setting up.

Weekly Chart – 03 Feb

More of the same just zoomed in. Green line is my current short @ 1.0781.

4H Chart – 03 Feb

Green line is my short @ 1.0781, red the stop @ 1.0840 and blue the target @ 1.07.

Price didn’t make it down to my target and for now looks bullish to me. We’ll see how next week works out. I can see a marginal new high on the cards with potentially a double divergence setting up. So might get stopped out and look to be shorting this again.

I’m glad to be trading a system with some stats behind it so I still take trades rather than talk myself out of positions. Even if I am wrong I will have got some experience out of it.

One thing that frustrates me about this trade is that using a moving average as a target murders the RR. Is there a point which I should just aim for a fixed RR? Perhaps as long as I average min 1x RR overall that is fine? One to ask Charlie.

Moving my target 😐 (still in the trade) – 05 Feb

Just a quick update, logged on to ETX this morning to tend to my limit orders, and noticed that I’m now moving my target to Friday’s prior low.

Getting frustrated moving my MA target to previous lows.

I know this is the system, but it’s frustrating to see. During back testing I did notice that often the exits weren’t great RR when targeting bigger MAs. Not always the case but I wonder if after a while the RR goes below 1 it’s just better to lock it in at 1 RR and wait for the target to be hit? Question for Charlie.

Target hit – 05 Feb

Not long after moaning about my target creeping up, it got hit. Over the weekend, I took some time to review the charts and I could see more upside easily following through, but this morning opened down and the target got hit around lunchtime. Here’s the final trade.

FInal trade, target hit at 1.0712.

I’ll take some time to digest how I felt during this trade, I wasn’t super confident about it to start with, so feel lucky that it worked out. Especially after the NFP results. It looks pretty textbook now – so I should be happy.

Looking again at the chart, I noticed the divergence goes back further. I didn’t spot when I placed the trade, and in hindsight it might’ve been better to take two positions and run the 2nd to the 200MA? We’ll see how this pans out.