Trade Update - USD/JPY Short

The Trade: USD/JPY Short

Date: April 14 2008, 7:15am
Entry: 100.68
Lots: 10
Stop Loss: 100.88
Target: 100.38

Reason/Setup:
The trade was entered based on the Elite setup on 15 minute charts. The 3 EMA had crossed below the 34 SMA. The CCI had also dipped below 0 signaling a sell. The entry was made as soon as the new candle was beginning.


Result:
Even though the entry was perfect, the trend soon reversed, and pair soon started moving higher. My stop loss was soon hit.

Date: April 14 2008, 10:56am
Total Pips: -200
Profit/Loss: $198.24
Rating: 4

The reason I rate this a 4 is because the 15 minute chart is not very predictable for entering trades. It gives to many false spikes and I should concentra on higher time frames.

Trade Update - AUD/JPY Short

The Trade: AUD/JPY Short

Date: April 13 2008, 8:20pm
Entry: 93.35
Lots: 5
Stop Loss: 93.85
Target: 92.35

Reason/Setup:
This trade was signaled by the squeeze indicator on a weekly chart. Since its a weekly chart, it has greater room to move. So I entered short with a 50 pip stop and 100 pip target.


Result:
While I entered the trade as soon as the signal was given, I believe I made a mistake with the entry. From the chart, we see that while the histogram of the squeeze indicator is red, the trend has been for lower bars moving towards 0. This means that the pair has bee moving higher. This can also been seen from the price action where the past several candles have closed higher than the previous. In fact, we have 3 higher closes signaling a bottom and trend reversal. So it would have been a good time to go long on this pair.

Date: April 14 2008, 7pm
Total Pips: -250
Profit/Loss: $246.91
Rating: 3

Trade Update - EUR/AUD Long

The Trade: EUR/AUD Long

I actually made 2 trade with this pair. The first trade was signaled by the A-MACD and Elite setups on 4 hour charts. At the very same time, I also noticed a box play setup developing no the 4 hour charts for this pair, and I placed a buy stop order for this pair.

Here are the details for the 2 trades.

Trade 1: April 13 2008, 9:35pm - April 14 2008, 1am
Setup: A-MACD, Elite(H4)
Entry: 1.7049
Lots: 10
Stop Loss: 1.6999
Target: 1.7079
Total Pips: +300
Profit/Loss: $277.23

Trade 2: April 13 2008, 10:45pm - April 14 2008, 3:30am
Setup: Box play (H4)
Entry: 1.7070
Lots: 5
Stop Loss: 1.7020
Target: 1.7120
Total Pips: +250
Profit/Loss: $230.85

The charts below show the actual trades.




In an otherwise bad day, this was the one perfectly executed setups. I would rate both the trades a 5 since it was followed to perfection.

Trade Update - AUD/USD Short

The Trade: AUD/USD Short

Date: April 13 2008, 8:20pm
Entry: 0.92316
Lots: 5
Stop Loss: 0.92616
Target: 0.91816

Reason/Setup:
I got the signal for this trade form 2 setups. First was the squeeze indicator on 4 hour chart. I entered the trade as soon as I got the signal. I also got the signal for the short from the OzFX system. The price thought was above the 200 SMA, but considering it was signaled on another setup, I decided to take the trade anyway. So I entered this trade and placed a 30 pips stop and 50 pip target.



Result:
Once again it seem that the OzFX setup was triggered by the gap at open. All signals generated by the setup today have been failures. So thats something to keep in mind. After I entered the trade, the price steadily continued its move up and hit my stop.

Date: April 14 2008, 5:45am
Total Pips: -150
Profit/Loss: $150
Rating: 5

While this trade resulted in a loss, I followed the system. What I didn't know was the importance of gap setups and how they affect the result in these setups.

Trade Update - EUR/GBP Short

The Trade: EUR/GBP Short

Date: April 13 2008, 6pm
Entry: 0.7974
Lots: 5
Stop Loss: 0.8014
Target: 0.7944

Reason/Setup:
I entered this trade based on the OzFX setup on daily charts. The indicators lined up well and from the price action it seemed that the pair is poised for a move down. AC and AO were showing red candles, and the Stoch which was in oversold territory was starting to move down. Looked like perfect time to enter short. Since each pip on this pair was worth almost $2, I entered with 5 lots and placed the stop 40 pips away and target 50 pips away.


Result:
Like all other pairs, thisone had gapped lower too at start of trading on Sunday afternoon. And that probably caused the sell signal to be triggered on the OxFX system. The pair continued moving down after I entered the trade, but soon it got into the gap retracement mode. The price ws moving opposite to what the indicators were showing suggesting that this was a gap retracement rally. I should have known better and closed my position early and gone long this pair. Oh well.. Live and learn.

Date: April 14 2008, 3pm
Total Pips: -200
Profit/Loss: $395.31
Rating: 4

I did enter the trade correctly based on the setups. However I failed to place much importance to the gap retracement play and that cost me this trade.

Trade Update - EUR/USD Long

The Trade: EUR/USD Long

Date: April 13 2008, 2:35pm
Entry: 1.57037
Lots: 5
Stop Loss: 1.56637
Target: 1.57537

Reason/Setup:
This trade was entered based on the gap setup. Most pairs, especially the USD pairs gapped low after the comments from the G7 meeting. This pair in particular gapped down more than 100 pips. Gap plays being high probability plays I decided to enter long on this pair. I placed the target just 50 pips away as I didnt expect the full gap to be fill soon.


Result:
As seen from the chart, the candles highlited in white is the previous close. On open the next trading session, I noticed that the candle was slowly rising from the open lows. As soon as the next candle was hit, I entered the trade long as shown in the yellow highlighted region. And my target was hit at the red candle.

Date: April 13 2008, 11:30pm
Total Pips: +250
Profit/Loss: $250
Rating: 5

I will rate this trade a 5 since I stuck to the plan and the entry and execution was perfect. There were also other pairs that gapped, and almost all of them re-traced their gaps back. So next time I have a gap play, I will enter with bigger lots and set the target to the gap.

Weekly Summary: April 6 - April 11

Another good week that could have been great if not for the lapse in concentration towards the end of the week. All week, I was disciplined and followed the strategy from last week, and constantly kept increasing my equity. By Thursday morning, I had made over 9K in profits for the month, and my account was at its highest level.

Then greed and a brief lapse of concentration did me in. I traded for the sake of trading and entered trades where the setups were not valid. And in less than an hour of placing those trades, all of them hit my stop loss and I had a draw down of almost 3K. I immediately stopped trading for the rest of the week and took a break from trading to clear my mind. I figured if I continued trading, I will try to make up the lost money and will end up losing more.

Whats scary is that if I made 4-5 trades like this when I start with a real account (5K), I would pretty soon find myself in great deal of trouble. hence until I can build my account to above 10K, I need to look for 20-50 pip profit and cut my losses to 20-30 pips. That way I can manage my risks and handle some draw downs.

As always, here are the results for this week. Like in previous week, I have linked to my trades instead of giving the number. You can find it here.