dingo.forex

It's hard to establish good stops and projected targets in this thin market. Today we've seen a big run up on the Euro and Pound, and then a large recovery move. I trade short on the Euro off of the big 30min vtop candle and was surprised to pull in a some big profit really quickly. That'll be it for today, I really wasn't expecting that run-up at all. Glad I wasn't short before that. Like I said earlier this week, I won't be actively trading until after the new year. This market is just too thin for my tastes. Too easy to get screwed and I don't like to gamble with my money. If I see solid opportunities like today's then I might be taking them, but otherwise I won't be at the charts too much.

• SHORT EUR/USD for +38

I hope you all had a great Christmas. I hadn't planned to trade much at all this week but I decided to sit down to the charts for a bit this evening. I took a long on the pound for a nice little profit. We have New Home Sales coming out in the morning so I'll see about trading that report. Probably won't be a very volatile week, but then again we said that about Thanksgiving and we all know what happened there.

UPDATE(3:27am): I'm still awake, sadly enough. But I've put my time to good use as I've taken a short off that nice 15min vtop candle. Currently up 10 pips but I'm going to let it ride out further. If I'm analyzing correctly I believe we're going into wave 4 in elliot wave theory. Now I don't trade solely off elliot wave, but the fact that it's lining up with my short signal is a good sign. May be good for a nice ride south here. I'll update again in the morning.
UPDATE(9:03am): Stopped out of my short for -11. I had my stop at 75 and thats exactly what the price went back up to. Bah.

• LONG GBP/USD for +16
• SHORT EUR/USD for -11

Well it's 5 minutes after news time and the price is right back where we started at. Why is that you ask? Well we had some great news items today such as Durable Goods and Core PCE. Unfortunately for traders these events came out at the exact same time. Too much consflicting economic data at the same time causes uncertainty and whipsaws in the market. Not to mention we have to root through all the numbers and determine whats what in the over sentiment. Is it good for the dollar or is it bad for the dollar? Well one item is good and one item is bad, so which is more important? Very confusing to trade! So I guess what I'm getting at is no trade for me off the 8:30 news. I had a long GBP/USD last night above the pivot, taking profits at H3. But other than that I haven't done much today. Hopefully there's some end-of-week volatility yet to come for us before the holiday is upon us. Stay tuned for further updates!

• LONG GBP/USD for +11

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday. It was a low volatility day so stayed clear of trades for most of the day. So far tonight it hasn't been anything special either. The GDP number just came out on the pound at 0.7, which is exactly what it was expected at. So as you can imagine no deviation also equates to no volatility. Unfortunately for us. I did take a small long trade on the euro earlier and rode it up to the M3 line for a small profit. That's probably all the trading for me in the UK session. I'll take a look at things in the morning when the NY session starts.

UPDATE(11:10am): I overslept! It's such a hard thing to do, trading the UK and NY sessions both in the same day. Well anyways I placed a limit order short the Euro before I went to sleep last night with a TP at S1. My Metatrader price got to S1 but my broker didn't seem to so I'm still holding my short and we'll see where it goes.
UPDATE(11:48am): Alright I'm closing out my short Euro. I'm a bit upset my broker didn't close me out at S1 but thats alright, you can't win em' all. Still closing in a small profit. Probably sidelined for the remainder of the day.

• LONG EUR/USD for +9
• SHORT EUR/USD for +8

I would like to take a moment to point you guys towards a great tool that I use from MaXeY over at ForexFactory which helps greatly when analyzing news items for trades. It is an xls file which provides history and average movements for all the major economic news items. You will need an excel viewer to view the file. Credits go to MaXeY. You can follow the forum thread here.

Microsoft Excel Viewer
Economic Report v4.0

Consolidation followed by a breakout is always a wonderful sight to behold. I was downstairs watching a movie when my juice alert went off. I took a long GBP/USD from 9531 out of the consolidation with juice and it went sky high. As I type this the GBP is actually 160 pips up from the open. Amazing! Just shows you never know with forex, here we are in the holiday slump mode and out of nowhere we catch a move like this. I exited my trade a bit prematurely at the H5 cam line, as the price then continued up to the +1.50% fib level and stalled. It could potentially move higher, but I don't plan to risk it. We have Canadian CPI in a couple hours and US PPI and Housing following shortly thereafter. And then later this afternoon we have current account on NZD. I don't often trade the NZD but this report is one of the strongest, if not the strongest report for this currency. It only comes quarterly and when it came in September we saw a move of over 50 pips. So hopefully I'll catch a nice trade off of that as well. But nothing else for now. I think I'll try and catch a couple hours sleep before the CAD news.

UPDATE(9:08am): Canadian core CPI came out at 0.3 on a 0.2 expected. Not nearly enough to give us the volatility for a sell on USD/CAD. PPI and housing numbers are out now, and the PPI alone is astonishingly good for the dollar at 2.0%. Unfortunately the European currencies are holding on for now and aren't relinquishing their hold over the dollar today. I did take a short on this, but ended up getting stopped out at break even. Sidelined for now.
UPDATE(5:30pm): NZD current account news came out at -4.6B which was better than expected and caused a good move north on the NZD/USD. Unfortunately the spread was at 15 by the time I decided I wanted in. So no trade for me. Thats all till tomorrow.

• LONG GBP/USD for +92
• SHORT EUR/USD for +0 (stopped out)
  

56k beware. The image is 1920x1200 resolution. I trade on a 24" widescreen lcd monitor. For those who are interested, this is what my trading setup looks like. This is via Metatrader 4 Alpari and it uses a lot of custom indicators, some of which I've modified even further to suit my preferences. I do not place trades via this software, as my broker is Oanda. I do, however, use this for all my analysis. I'm certain it will look very confusing and a bit overwhelming at first, but everything on it has a purpose for me. Some of the items you should see are: Murrey Math lines, Camarilla lines, pivots, mid pivots, trend channel, Fibonacci retracement levels, 12/89/200 EMA's, trigger lines, 12/89 cross arrows, the juice indicator, GMACD, DIGISTOCH, and 12/89 cross readings from multiple time frames. Obviously quite a lot, and I use all of it on a daily basis. I trade a formula known as the Stratoblaster method, and I trade in an online conference room with a great bunch of guys who all trade this method. If you haven't heard of it before you can check it out at http://www.stratofx.com

Big time consolidation during the UK session as the Euro struggled around it's pivot. I was looking for a break south to S1 at 3030 and we got the breakout but didn't quite catch S1. At least not yet, it's still early. I booked profit of 21 at 3062 on 0/8 support. I'm not likely to take it further south than this but we'll see. More than likely price will hang out down here and wait for PPI tomorrow. Hope you all make some money today. You have to take what you can get during the holidays!

• LONG EUR/USD for +21

I was hoping for that negative dollar news so that we could head up to the 3350 area. I really didn't want to go short here, but the number was very pro dollar. 1.0% versus an expect 0.1% is hard to argue with. I ended up getting into the trade on the confirmed break of S1 for the EUR/USD. So I only banked 13 pips. Unfortunately I also gave 3 back when I attempted to re-enter after the 1/8 line and the market stalled at 3200. Oh well, still positive. Hopefully there will be more opportunities to trade as the day progresses. Thats all for now.

• SHORT EUR/USD for +13
• SHORT EUR/USD for -3

Well I stayed up most of the night and through the morning hoping at least one of these big news items to give me enough volatility for a trade. And of course, it never came. But I did catch the move on FOMC news this afternoon and it turned out to be profitable. The interest rate remained unchanged at 5.25%, but hawkish statements afterwards drove the EUR/USD back down to the pivot for a very nice bottom. After that, the ride was obviously to the north and I jumped in when it started to take off. My target was 3306, which it hasn't hit yet. I did, however, book profits when we hit the H3 cam line. I'm still waiting for a re-entry signal, but it may not happen this late in the day. Anyways, that will probably be it for me today. Retail Sales tomorrow morning on the dollar. Hope you all made some pips.
UPDATE: No more trades, but here's a link to a great analysis of the fed statement compliments of babypips.

• LONG EUR/USD for +29

Well as I expected there wasn't much volatility today. Everyone is waiting for the big news which starts tomorrow. I was hoping the Euro would make a run up to the 3300 area, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. At least not today. I scalped a small trade north for 6 pips, but thats it for the day. I had hoped that the break of the pivot at 3251 would confirm the ride up to 3300 but I suppose it just happened too late in the day. Maybe tomorrow, we'll see.

• LONG EUR/USD for +6

Well it's Sunday night, and nothing forex-related to post until tomorrow. Here's an interesting story to hold you over. Viganella is a small town of less than 200 people that lies in a valley within the Alps. Each year the sun disappears behind a mountain leaving the town in almost complete darkness for 84 days straight! Well after nearly 800 years of enduring this, someone decided to do something about it. You have to wonder why after the first 3 month blackout they didnt just decide to stop building the town and move elsewhere. Click the link below for the full story. There's a ton of great news releases this week, with the exception of tomorrow. So hopefully I'll make a trade or two that I can post tomorrow, but the big stuff won't start until Tuesday. Good luck trading this week guys. Cheers.

Viganella, Italy

A fairly mediocre NFP report today. My fundamentals trigger was not high enough to hit for a short, and my technicals told me I was only looking for a long. Predicted number was 100k and I was hoping for a 50k deviation from that on my short EUR/USD trigger. At only 132k it was not enough for me to take a confident short trade and as you can see by the price action today it wasn't enough to push the market for very long. Price spiked down to support levels and bounced back up. It has since recovered to the NY session open price. And damned if I wasn't just typing this and caught my reversal trade. My technical trigger was waiting for my reversal breakout and I got it. Just closed in profit for +21. Normally my NFP days hit over 70 pips, but I'll take what I can get during the holiday season. It looks as if it may push higher yet, so I'll be watching it for a re-entry signal. I'll update if I take any more out of the market. Thats all for now.
UPDATE: Caught a re-entry when it broke the previous high and rode it up to the 6/8 line for an additional +6 pips. Probably done for the day now. Hope everyone made some good pips and have a great weekend!
UPDATE: Wow! Glad I stuck around. Hope you guys caught that move south! I got in extremely late but still caught 22 pips on it. What a crazy day this has turned out to be. Our initial NFP move was only like 40 pips and then quickly reversed. Now we've seen a massive move north and south. The Euro bounced on our weekly pivot so I would think our move is at an end, but with the way things have been going today who knows!

• LONG EUR/USD for +21
• LONG EUR/USD for +6
• SHORT EUR/USD for +22
  

The body of CNET editor James Kim has been found. He and his family found themselves stranded in the mountains of Southern Oregon. Jim left to get help and eventually succumbed to hypothermia and died. His family was rescued, but James himself was found too late. Since he and his family went missing the tech community has been following the progress of the search very adamantly. The Digg community alone has rarely seen such popularity in news stories. Today I found a link on Digg that allows you to see the path he took when he went for help. The images are via GoogleEarth.His death comes as a great tragedy, and he will be missed.

James Kim found deceased

Not too much going on today, and things have begun to flatline in anticipation of the NFP release as I stated yesterday. I took 2 M1 scalps short on the EUR/USD just to pull some profit for the day. I only scalp the Euro when it comes to the M1 chart. The reason being that my broker offers a 1.5 pip spread on the pair, so it's extremely easy to make the spread and get to break even. Very good when you're only looking to take a quick 5 pips out of the market. NFP tomorrow!

• SHORT EUR/USD for +6
• SHORT EUR/USD for +11

Haven't been trading too much since we have NFP coming up on friday. The market tends to be less responsive in anticipation of NFP day. I did take a trade on the AUD/USD this evening. It was the Aussie employment report which came out much better than expected. The report numbers combined with the bounce off 1/8 and the retrace to and from the 2/8 MM lines gave me a guaranteed ride north on the pair. I was in before the news and took a good profit. That's it for today. If I don't post tomorrow I will definitely have a post for NFP on friday.

• LONG AUD/USD for +26

I traded the US session this morning. Bernanke spoke at 9:00am, but I didn't trade his comments. The ISM Manufacturing number was expected to be weak, but it came out even weaker than expected at 49.5. So I went long on EURUSD off of that number. Unfortunately the spread ate me for 10 pips. But I still managed to exit positive 16 pips. As I type this the EUR is currently trading at 1.3320 after breaking the big 3300 level. I wouldn't be too surprised if it continues north from here, with as bad as that ISM number was for the dollar. I will, however, be looking for re-entry signals in both directions given that the EUR is at the 8/8 Murray Math line and has yet to penetrate M4 resistance.

• LONG EUR/USD for +16