I’m continuing to do things a little different this morning: not doing any RSW, and just looking through these 4 liquid, low spread pairs, for trading opportunities on the 5 min. chart. I’m still going to let the market “breathe” a bit at the open, but not as long, so I’ll start trading at 8:45 — 15 min. after the open.
The only thing, really, giving me pause here is that all of these pairs are USD pairs, which would mean I’m doubling my USD position if I take a trade in multiple pairs at the same time — which means, if USD reverses, I could double my losses. That also means, though, that my gains could be doubled if things continue in my favor.
That said, the charts aren’t all the same, so I don’t think that’s really that big of a deal. If I find myself getting stopped out back-to-back or something, I’ll adjust, but for now, I’ll keep experimenting. The market just opened, so I’m just about ready to dive in.
USD/JPY – Short
This peaked a few hours ago and had made a lower low and a lower high on the hourly chart. Price looked like it was basing a bit, so I dropped down looking for shorts. I pushed down to the 1m chart, and price had recently broken a support area, rallied back up to that level and was pushing back down a bit. I put an entry order at the break of the lows before the 1 candle rally and a stop at the resistance area above, about a 3 pip risk with a 10 pip TP.
Price triggered me in to the trade fairly quickly, but when then next candle opened, it pushed up a good amount and stopped me out. It was a tight risk area, so I can’t be too surprised, I just expected (hoped?) it would push down as quickly rather than up.
Clicking around and looking at charts, GBP/USD is the next thing that looks good to me. On the 5 min. chart. Over the last couple hours, price has made a double-top, and over the last hour has moved sideways.
Within this move sideways, price has stalled a couple of times (though it also broke a couple of times) a resistance area that held up earlier this morning and was support throughout the making of the double-top as well — which is the level I set my stop loss with my entry at the low of the current range. The target is in a reasonable spot with a 2.5+ R:R, so I opened the order. We’ll see how it plays out. If it rally significantly, I’ll cancel the order.
This did make an outsized move up, so I cancelled the order
GBP/USD – Long
GBP/USD made what appeared to be a strong reversal move to me, making a strong up move, taking out a couple prior resistance areas, pulled back a bit the made a strong push up. It had a 1 candle stall, which is where I planned to trade. I found an entry just outside of a resistance area, and a good stop at the next support below.
Actually, that stop area was only 3 pips away, so I pushed it to 5 to accommodate for the spread. I chose a target based on my risk and it was at the highs of the day, so it looked good to me, so I set the entry order. Price quickly pushed in my favor, making it to 1R within a couple of minutes (though I was ready to move my stop at roughly .6R), and I was able to move my stop to break even.
Unfortunately, though, that’s about as high as it went, and price pulled back enough to stop me out at that level. Not a huge loss, so I’m okay with that. Price is pushing back to the downside, so I might look to short this if it retests.
GBP/USD – Short
Price did rally a bit, making a 1 candle stall (on the min. chart, around some prior support) on the way back down. When I zoom out a bit to the 15 min. chart, I see some definite range-bound behavior this morning, and the highs it reached on the way up were the highs of the range, and the distance to the bottom is quite high — enough to make a good profit. With the short stall, I set an entry order and had a 2 R:R, so I liked it. Price triggered my entry nearly immediately, and almost as quickly pushed up enough to stop me out. I should have picked a higher stop level, probably, but I wanted the R:R to make sense. Just keep swimming.
The level I got stopped out at in the above trade didn’t scare me too much, it just looked like I got in a bit early (like I said, I should’ve made my stop a bit higher). Price pushed down a bit more, taking out the support area, then rallied a bit, giving me a nice bear rally to short again. Back to within the lows of the day offered a 2 R:R, so I set another entry order, which has now triggered. Now I’m waiting for price to continue down. It made an okay push in my favor, but it wasn’t sustained. I might be chasing here, we’ll see how it plays out. Yep, As I was typing that, price made a relatively strong spike and stopped me out of the trade. I’ll look elsewhere, but I might call it here.
EUR/USD – Long
EUR/USD is the next thing I’ve traded. I was looking around at different charts, and this looked like it was ready for a pop. Price had pushed up, and made what appeared to be a power reversal move to me, especially given the slow pullback (it took 3 candles to take back most of the push up from 1 candle). I set an entry on the break of the highs, with a stop at the lows of the stunted pullback. Price made a nice, strong push up that triggered me in to the trade, now I’m just waiting for ~.5 – .6R to move my stop to break even and hopefully make some pips! Price pushed up strong, I was able to move my stop to break even, but that didn’t matter because price hit my target for a nice 2R profit!
This clearly wasn’t my best trading days, but all we can do is work and continue to learn and try to be as consistent as possible. From that perspective, it was a solid day. Let me know in the comments what you thought of these trades and how you did today!