Shout out to Selah, Washington!

I just wanted to say thanks for reading and encourage any comments/opinions/etc.

Keeping an eye on that AUD/USD...

I like that .95 support and how it's held up with the across the board USD strength this morning. Major moves against the EUR & support blown on the GBP but AUD holds. I'll continue to watch it and see what happens...looking to revert back to the original long idea and perhaps the employment reports coming later this week will kill this USD rally and allow the AUD/USD to continue upwards (sticking with the longterm uptrend on the daily).

Good afternoon :)

Stops hit on AUD/USD - Out at breakeven

AUD/USD, GBP/USD

stops are about to be taken out...we just could not get over that 958 mark last night.  Saw some bounce on 955 but I doubt it will hold.

GBP/USD fell nicely as expected.

GBP/USD - wanting to go short...more AUD/USD

below 1995 and ride this down to 199 (or lower) but I will hold off right now.  Rising bottom trendline converging on the primary downtrend so I do expect a break soon (thinking lower).  I'll wait for that break to make a trade.

1985ish or a bit higher looks to be the support we need to sink this pair.

On the AUD/USD, I'm still sitting about the same...+30something on the first position and +10 something on the second.  S/L is still at breakeven.  The screenshots show what I'm going for with the daily trend as well as an update on the current pip situation.

A/U update...

...holding steady at about +35pips on the first position and +15 on the second.  Stops at breakeven, risk free.

AUD/USD Stops moved to Breakeven

AUD/USD update...

I'll look to move S/L to breakeven/.955 in the next couple of hours. I want to be a little more mindful of any possible strong selloffs/strong USD.

Good morning :)

AUD/USD update...

+20 pips on the first small position, went ahead and entered a market long with a second small position @ .9567 and I still have my full size position set at .9510.  Right now, as long as we stay above .955, I'm looking to see the pair move upwards.

Good morning :)

Limit longs set on AUD/USD...

....9510 is what I'm going for.  S/L .944 & TP above .965 but is very subject to change.

*Market long a small order @ .9542.  Full size limit long remains in place, waiting patiently.

Small gap on the AUD/NZD...

...looks to be about 25 pips.  I will be watching it.  FXStreet charting shows the price level down to  1.285 but my broker is still showing 1.287 so I'll hang to the sidelines for now.  It seems to be coming to short term support @ the 1.285 level and getting some bounce.  Close price is 1.287

***Correction, there was no real gap down upon further inspection.  There was a small gap upwards but this was quickly closed with a strong move downwards which appeared to represent a false larger gap.***

Slow Sunday for gaps, oh well.

Good morning and welcome to Sunday gap plays

I'll update as the gaps come in...reviewing the news right now to ensure nothing critical happened over the last 48 hours that may justify any gaps.

Update...

Mmk, it's just after 1pm PST and the E/U & G/U have started to gap down a bit.  AUD/NZD has made the largest gap thus far of about 20 pips.  My spread is going to be extremly high the first few hours at around 10pips for the majors and even more for the minors.

Update...

Almost 3pm PST, I've looked over the majors and the gaps just aren't coming in this afternoon.  Nothing more than a few pips and we don't touch those :)

I'll catch up later this evening with some more recap if anything comes up.  Good afternoon :)

AUD/USD Daily Trendline...

...I'd like to get long on this for the trek upwards and .95 looks like a really nice number. Taking a look at the hourly, .955 seems to be holding well and it may not quite get down to the .95 price point. Will keep watching. Again, I'm trying to get my entry as close as possible to what I see as support to avoid another U/J trade with a super early entry...but we'll see.

We're going into the weekend so there will not be any trade entries until Sunday/Monday... but I'll keep an eye on it.

I was watching the GBP/USD last night and almost wanted to go long as we came down to the 1.985 support line but held off as we had GDP news coming afterwards. The pair did rocket upwards a good 100-150 pips but reversed sharply and is now showing some sort of little downtrend channel on the hourly but is still in an uptrend on the daily. This pair seems to be getting increasingly hard to trade with fundies in mind as the UK news is getting worse and the US market is still crap (IMO)...so I'm just not very sure on this one. I think we'll need to break 2.0 again to confirm the uptrend.

The US stock market is sort of at break even today, banks are falling back down. Another 1.5hours till close.

I'm looking forward to the gap plays this Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure if I'll put my money where my mouth is and trade them on my main account as I did last week...but I'll certainly be watching them and if anything decent comes about, I may give it a try.

Oh and I purchased http://www.forexgaps.com/ so I figured I would give that URL it's first bit of publicity. Not sure what I want to do with it but it would be cool to get a decent forum up and running, bringing in different experiences & input.

I'll catch you Sunday. Have a good weekend :)

**I'm also watching the NZD/USD for possible short entries (close to the upper trendline). Same channel that I played last week...

Follow-up on the U/J trade...

....pips lost and precautions for next time will be updated later.  It's coming :)

A couple of things that come to mind now...

- Wait for the correct entry, ie close to the support/resist that the trade is based upon.  There was no reason to enter at the early price of 106.35 when resistance was so far away.

- Watch the S/L and adjust as necessary.  That last short sell I had was hanging as I had not adjusted the S/L to agree with my other short entries' S/L.  There was no reason for this, especially after we had blown the resistance line that the entire trade was based around.  The trade should have been shut down...not doing this and letting it run that extra 30pips to the S/L cost money.  Unnecessary loss.

Last U/J short stopped out. Total account loss...

...just under 2%.

Good Morning :)

U/J Stopped

I was stopped out of two of the positions for a 1% loss. The remaining position will bring the total loss up to about 1.6% if/when stopped out.

Verge of S/L...

...chart shows the breakout on the daily. This may fall back or it may accelerate.

USD is posting gains across the board. The stock market is not down like I had wanted it to be but it's also not posting big gains. Banks are rallying.

U/J Short...more

Looking at it now, it certainly looks like I got in far too early, even with my scaled entries. I should have held back and waited for a price that allowed my S/L to be relatively close and my T/P to be 2-3x that.We'll hangout and watch this.

I know the other limit sell has been hit, which is good...but the first entry was larger than it should have been.

A S/L will run me about a 1.5% account loss.

U/J Short...

...Continue to watch, I'm a little worried about my S/L being a bit too short but won't hesitate to re-enter if I'm taken out and my technicals are still clear.

Down about 50pips right now & I believe my second limit sell has been activated.

More on the USD/JPY Short

I went over this earlier today and stated that I rarely trade this pair...but I feel the US stock market will be headed lower soon, which will impact the USD/JPY which trade in similar fashion.  Secondly and most importantly, we have a nice downtrend on the daily/hourly with 107 being the point of resistance.  We've made lower lows and I look to see this continue.

My first entry was at 106.35.  I've staggered a second limt at 106.85 or so and may place another in between.  My S/L currently is set just above 107.2 and I'm targeting the low 105's.  I may pull the entire position at that time, may cut half and let the rest ride or simply adjust my stop and let the entire position run. 

The charts show the daily and then the hourly...you can see the resistance and support levels as well as the downtrend that the trade is based upon.

Thoughts?

Good evening :)

Short USD/JPY, wide S/L, going for 150+pips

I'll add charts later.

I like the idea of a USD/JPY short...

...but will hold off for now. Looks like a nice little downtrend on the daily, we're right about at resistance and I BELIEVE the US market will be done with this little 4 day rally and be ready to continue on with the dump. However, the USD/JPY honestly scares me and is known for it's voilently quick moves, something I'd rather stay away from at least until I feel more comfortable with the pair.

It should be fun to watch :)

On the NZD/JPY, we're flirting with the 96 mark right now...looks like we want to go lower but will continue to watch for now.

Good morning :)

GBP Gap Closed...well, almost

With a nice bounce off the previous low (1.9907), we were able to come back and just about close the gap. I had my T/P set about 10 pips below the actual gap close price, just in case we had another AUD/USD run like last week (almost closing). This turned out to be similar as we only came close to filling...but my T/P's were hit and all was good.



The screenshot sort of goes over what happened...balance received an increase just shy of 1%. Not bad for a Sunday evening :)


We're up +8.6% for 2008.

GBP/USD gap still not filled...

...we're about 8 hours into market open and still no fill, sitting about the same price I entered at.

Long the GBP/USD gap

Watching the AUD/USD & NZD/USD for next week...

...will be keeping an eye on the AUD/USD for a chance to get long for the next leg up. .97 seems to be holding nicely, not sure if it will continue. This may be a chance to stagger in some longs all the way down to the rising trendline. I expect this little bounce back in the USD to end today (Friday!) and for next week to continue downwards.

As for the NZD/USD, it would be nice to get short again, possibly on another rally. I would like to look into building a longer term NZD short, something that I have not done yet. I've rarely held trades more than 3-4 days, a week at most. So this would be a new experience but one that I believe would pay off. Selecting the right points to exit the trade (at a loss ie S/L) will be the most difficult issue, I believe. Building long term positions is fine and dandy until one needs to look into determining at which point they say I WAS WRONG on direction, news, whatever.

More of that next week. I'm looking forward to the Sunday gaps...it would be nice if we could see some action similar to last week's gap movements.

And I'm up +7.9% for the year.

Have a good weekend :)

eh, that aud/usd...

...too bad about getting stopped out earlier...and only by 5 pips did I miss the 100+ pip move downwards, as thought.  It bounced back up a bit on .97 and it looks like a nice short for the next leg down on the hourly around .974.  I shall resist as it's just an hourly trend (less trustworthy IMO) and we're going into the weekend tomorrow.

Glad to see my trade plan worked out just the stop loss didn't.  I'm still thinking I had my S/L set about right...just that I should have been ready to re-enter short when the spike that took me out did not hold and quickly fell back.

rambling.  on the road again tomorrow, will be tuned in for Sunday gaps though! :)  Have a good Friday.

NZD Trade Closed

Took the 106pips and ran with it. Nice bounce off the .76 there...had some trouble closing it fast enough and unfortunately couldn't get it closed before the bounce. Regardless, pips were good and this was a pretty easy trade. I may short another retrace...looks like we may break into a triangle here if the bottom continues to rise...otherwise, if we can break it and make lower lows, it should be time to short again.

After the loss of .5 percent on the AUD/USD short last night, this trade brought in a 1.75% account balance increase.

I plan to be done for the week and look forward to trading Sunday gaps this weekend. If I can find anything trustworthy, I may trade the gaps with this primary account (not the smaller, secondary account that usually handles the gap trades).

Good day! :)

NZD Update

The trade is going well. Up about 95 pips & I'm trying to close 1/2 of the position...

Chart shows the progress...compare it to the chart from earlier today and you can see that I'm getting the movement that I had wanted.

NZD Chart, Downtrend

This is what I'm watching on the NZD short...trying to play the daily downtrend.

I am concerned about the rising bottom. The lack of lower lows is not something that I like...but I believe we're still headed for some retrace lower, at least a good 100-150 pips.

I will look to close half of the position when we get some decent pips banked and continue to adjust the S/L to protect the remaining half. Right now, S/L is still remaining at breakeven as I will not take profit on just the +30-50pips we have right now.

AUD/USD stopped out

for loss of 22 pips, NZD/USD is +30 pips, S/L moved to break even.

Good Morning :)

Also short NZD/USD...

SL above 778, targeting a good 150+pip move downwards.

If this short doesn't work out, I won't hesitate to take another shot in the future.  I believe NZD/USD will be headed lower eventually and am taking advantage of the recent rally to go short.  Following the daily trendline on this one.

Short AUD/USD @ 1.9760

Looking to play some retrace here...watching the downtrend on the hourly and the recent climb on the daily.  Would like to see this come back to the upwards moving trendline on the daily to go long again.

S/L set just above 978, T/P .972.  Will move S/L to B/E after we get below 975

Not a normal trade for me but this is what I think it will do.  S/L is close by if this thing wants to climb higher.

See the screenshot for the little downtrend I'm following on the hourly...

Sunday 7/13/08 Gaps

E/U (40pips), G/U (40pips), U/J (30pips) all closed. The A/U had a large 50pip gap which came close to closing up (10 pips away) but ended up reversing and just not closing the gap.  It came close again about six hours later but again reversed at that "10 pip away" point.

Regardless, it was a good weekend for gaps.

Sunday Gaps for 7/13/08

Recovering from Vegas and was on a plane during the market open yesterday. I reviewed some of the market open action and it looked like we had some real nice sized gaps (40-60pips), all of which closed.

I'll review them more closely later today and report back.

Good morning :)

Update

My apologies for the late update, I've been busy & sick. Didn't play any Sunday gaps, as posted last week. Watched a couple but didn't look like too much action. I still need to review all of them.

This will likely be a no trading week. I've been getting over a cold, have had net problems at home and am out of town Thursday. Viva Las Vegas, if you're in that town, drop me a message and we'll meet up for some good times.

Have a good week and best of luck with these markets!

No weekly balance change

Made a couple of pips this week but not enough to move the balance any.  Have a good fourth!

Weekend outlook - Gaps

I think I'll go ahead and take this weekend off for Sunday gap plays. With the fourth coming tomorrow, the markets will be thin going into the weekend so...that in addition with any gaps just sounds like additional risk - no thanks :)

G/U limit cancelled

I'm looking to stay out of the fundies mess that will be coming tomorrow with the NFP.

More E/U short recap, limit long set on G/U

E/U short was closed early...we made higher highs overnight on the hourly & broke through my little short term resistance levels. We did dip a bit from there but did not visit yesterday's lows and then hopped up again to make new highs. I'm not a fan of this and will stay out for now. +12 pips is an easy ticket out.

Also, I forgot to mention that I set a limit long on the GBP/USD @ about 1.982 yesterday afternoon. We came down close a few hours ago, to the 1.985 support level and then bounced upwards. 1.985 looks to be sitting right about on the uptrend that is shown on the hourly, so it would have been a good time to go long for a quick play...but! I think I'll stick with 1.982 for now and may look to buy in again at a bit lower price. S/L right now is set about 1.974 I believe, a bit wider than I would like to have it but I think that price could swing a bit below the support (198ish) yet not exactly breakdown. T/P is set at 199.8. Risk/Reward @ 1:2, not counting any further staggered longs.

Good morning :)

E/U short closed early for 12 pips

Short EUR/USD @ 1.582

S/L set above 1586, T/P to 1568 and may pull it up.  Easy play.  Either resistance holds or it doesn't.  The screenshot shows my short entry and the short term resist levels.  There is some news coming in the next couple/three hours which will make or break this trade.

Still watching, limit order set just above 1.98 on G/U