Up or Down: the eternal question?

Ok, I know my trades so far have been gash, my current open short trade on Tony has shown little interest in doing anything, but I do believe Yippon will be ready to make a move tomorrow, which is now today. From the chart, you can see that it is forming a fairly distinct ascending triangle, which would favour a breakout to the upside. However, it appears to be losing momentum long; the current high appears to be a lower high and it is starting showing divergence on the NMACD. A break below the riser (rising support) is not unthinkable and would spark a sharp move down to the previous low (180 pips). A break above would target the sinker (falling resistance) line above (110pips) I am therefore interested in trading this pair on a 1hr break of this triangle.

Gone short Tony

Ok, so there was a breakout for Tony alone, and it was huge, and it was to the upside! Oh dear, but hey it only went as far as the weekly pivot which it had been missing earlier and now it has printed a large reversal pattern and is coming out of overbought on the 1hr 9,3,3 stochastic so I am in short and wanting to hold it to the bottom of the box. Yippon and Cable are still messing around, and will breakout eventually and I do favour shortside, but they are being difficult, quelle surprise.

4Hr chart showing this weeks weekly pivot point hit. Amazing how they often tag this indicator with one or two pips to spare and then carry on their merry way. It often offers some explanation for those 'random' spikes you see (note the 19 Jan WPP tagged below). You could almost create a trading plan around that phenomenon. Of course, now I have said that the pair will power on up through it!

Break out coming!

Hi, looking at all three pairs, I think they are winding up for a breakout and my feeling is it will be to the short side. Yippon is in a tight penannt, cable a descending triangle and Tony approaching the top of an established channel. I will attempt to trade the breaks of the penannt/triangle and the reversal from the top of the channel for Tony, but am engaged in lectures this afternoon and may miss the entries.. Go easy if you are going in! I will have to follow with charts later, but draw the channel, pennants and triangles and you will see!

Break to the downside!!

Oh good, fantastic, no sooner did the trade start looking good, then it turned around and slammed south. I love trading. Looking back at the entry, it looked ok, the break above the box was small, but the candle was very bullish with a small wick on the candle, suggesting intent. Indeed the first 20 minutes of the trade looked to confirm that and then woompata! Looking across the pairs, there was probably a fundamental news event that as a technical trader I am unaware of. At that level. 'News candles' can go either way and do not form part of my trading plan, so I just have to roll with them. Interesting that the pair held up at the bottom of the box and has been indecisive. In good faith, I am going to redraw my box around the spikes and will look for an entry again. Remember, I am looking to get into a trend early and build positions; Tony can trend steadily for weeks and I want to be part of it when it happens. I therefore keep taking these knocks while the next trend unfurls. However, the price is very volatile at present (no shit) I will be opening again with a small position and adding to it later when it starts going my way. New levels: above 1.6782, below 1.6620. My preference is to the short side. Here is the posthumous chart, it was a legitimate open, although only just, and the trendline above was added afterwards. This emphasises a few things: the volatility of the pair, the need for a catastrophic stop loss and trading is shit.

Bottom line – 64 pip loss

Break to the upside

Morning, it would appear that Tony has continued his move to the upside after an overnight consolidation and has just closed outside the box set last night at 1.6755. I have therefore entered long, with a 100 pip catastrophic loss and will look to hold the trade unless it closes back inside the box. Profit target could be the 200 SMA at 1.6821, 65 pips away or I may wish to see if it will retest the previous highs at 1.6921 and 1.71210 (I wish). Either way, I am in. Chart to follow later.

Trade exited

Hi, great start Tom; I have just exited the Tony (GBPCHF) trade at 1.6720 for a loss of 45 pips, which is disappointing, but within the bounds for this type of trade. I have now redrawn my box and given the fact the pair has met decent support at 1.6636 and resistance at 1.6755, I will be trading a 1 hr close of the box in the direction of the breakout. In the spirit of honesty, bottom line:

 
 

Trade closed for -45pips

Sticking with it

Hi, Quick update; I am still with the Tony trade, even though it has closed above 1.6681. The reason is the fact that it has been beaten back so violently from a high of 1.6722 this hour and has now printed a candle with a tall wick and could be the start of a reversal pattern. I have also been watching Yippon and Cable who are also being beaten back from their rally(exited those trades with 30 and 35 pip loss respectively).
I am therefore waiting to get a feel for the next hours candle before closing the trade. If it is bullish and looks set to hold above 1.67, I will close the trade at that point. At the minute, I am down 33 pips which is acceptable for me.

Trade Opened

Hi, Tony trade has now opened with a cool big bearish candle breaking out of the box. I have a catastrophic 100 pip stop loss in place, but otherwise will close the trade if the pair closes above 1.66815, which is the bottom of the box.

Screen clipping taken: 09/02/2010, 09:47

Hello again, where the hell have I been?

Hello, remember me? For the two followers I think we had last May, I would like to apologise for disappearing without an explanation. I hope you took the last Tony(GBPCHF) trade I described, as I seem to remember that it did come in. By way of an explanation of my absence, I had to stop blogging for the remainder of that summer as my job as a Career Manager in the Royal Navy was reaching a crescendo and I realised that I didn't have the time to trade properly, let alone blog properly. I therefore pretty much stopped trading until Oct 09 and have only really just got back into the swing. My trading since Oct 09 has been pretty good, and I have been pretty happy with my analysis. I am therefore willing to share my thoughts with anyone who is out there and I will attempt to record all my trades.

So, without further ado, I am very interested in going short on Tony (GBPCHF) who is hanging over the abyss. Having marched stoically for four consecutive weeks, he reached strong resisitance at 1.712, a former rejection area. The pair has been volatile ever since and has now pulled back to the 1Hr 800 Simple Moving Average and I believe it is really to blow below 1.6681, and I will sell it when it closes below that level on the 1 hr chart.

As you can see on the 4 Hr chart, it is hanging over an abyss and I would like to trade it down to the low at 1.6316

I am also currently short on Yippon (GBP JPY) and Cable (GBPUSD), who are again standing over a huge chasm. Yippon in particular has broken a BIG support level at 1.3984, which is now acting as resistance. .

I am aware that I am exposed to the GBP at present, but the Tony trade looks so good to me and the Yippon and Cable trades are now nicely established, so I am willing to go for it.

YIPPON

CABLE