Welcome to today’s entry into my Forex market trading journal and blog. Read on for my analysis of the major currencies for September 25th.
I got distracted on social media for about an hour this morning, and now the market’s been open for about 15 minutes. I’m swing trading, though, so that’s not a huge deal. Especially if I hold overnight.
I need to make a change, but I’m not sure which direction is best. I feel like a lot of the breakouts I’ve tried to play have either been false breakouts; or I’m right about the breakout/direction, but the move isn’t clean and wild swings stop me out before the trade gets in profit.
I’ve got two ideas for remedying this: 1) I could look to take trades on longer time-frames. Enter on the 2h chart at the lowest, but shoot for the 4h chart; and start my analysis on the 1 week chart. Or 2) assume breakouts don’t happen and fade any move that looks like one. When price is up against a strong key area, assume it’ll bounce and reverse from there, not break and make a significant move.
Largely, I’ve been correct about overall direction, so I’m leaning toward the former right now. Being a Monday, it’s a perfect time to make a minor adjustment in the way I’m trading. I’m essentially going to go through the same process with a couple adjustments. First off, I’m going to start my analysis on the 1 week chart, drop down to the daily and look for entries on the 4 hour chart. 2 hour if I need to, but that’s the lowest I’ll go.
The other adjustment pertains to my RSW analysis. Instead of going through a full RSW each morning, I think I’m going to do a longer form analysis today and simply update it each morning throughout the week. I’ll refer to today’s analysis and only call out things that have changed. Knowing me, I’ll find a way to do a “full” analysis even when just doing updates, we’ll see. By starting things on the weekly chart, though, there shouldn’t be huge differences day-to-day.
Today’s Pairs
USD/JPY – Long
CAD/JPY – Long
Let’s dive in to the charts to find my bias for the week.
USD – Long
I decided to take a longer-term approach, rather than a “fade” approach, so I’m definitely bullish here. Starting on the weekly chart, price has been pushing up since the beginning of July, and it broke a couple of key levels. Since the beginning of September, price has been largely moving sideways, but has opened near the highs starting this week.
Price is showing a lot of signs of strength, so I’ll see what opportunities I can find on individual charts.
CAD – Long
This has largely been pushing up since March, though there was a sizable drop from late June to mid-July. Price largely moved sideways through July and August, and beginning September, started making another strong push up. Price broke June’s highs last week, but didn’t quite hold on to the gains, closing for the week right near those June highs.
This week, price has opened with strength as price is nearing the new swing high that was hit last week. It looks like there’s strength in CAD’s future, so I’ll take a look long.
EUR – Neutral
Price has been strong since September of last year — steadily rising, albeit with a good amount of swings and sideways movement. Price peaked early August of this year, and has been pushing down from there. Looking at the weekly chart, price hasn’t technically made a lower high or lower low yet, so the reversal is still too early for me to trade. Price could certainly bounce off of the key level it’s at right now, and continue it’s up-move.
I’ll leave this alone for today, and probably this week, but I’ll check to see how it’s moving over the coming days and maybe change my outlook.
GBP – Neutral
Similar to EUR, this has been strong (with some chop/sideways movement of course) for close to a year; but has been dropping over the last few weeks. This reversal, though (at least on the weekly chart) isn’t a downtrend yet as there isn’t a swing low or subsequent lower swing high.
Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong, but we’ll see in the coming days. I’ll stick to my rules for now and see how things play out.
JPY – Short
This has been weak since March, but it bottomed out at the beginning of July and made a push up from there. The up-move wasn’t that strong, though, and wasn’t really sustained, as price rolled over back to the downside over the next couple of months. Last week, price pushed down enough to take out the lows that were created in July.
There was a bit of a gap up at the open this week, but price is still down. It hasn’t quite gotten to the lows, but that might make for a better trading opportunity. I’ll take a look at individual chart here.
AUD – Neutral
This is a tough one this morning, and really, I’m not even sure where to start. So, I’ll just talk through what I see. Price has been steadily “stepping” down since April of last year (2022); with the last big up-move happening in mid-June. From that level, price has pushed down until it hit a low in the middle of August.
From there, price has been rallying, and it’s reached a key level that was the low of a range that occurred through April and May (before the spike in June); and has acted as either support or resistance several times going back to 2020.
So, on one hand, this has technically made higher highs and higher lows over the last month-and-a-half, and could be making one of it’s strong rallies throughout this downtrend. But on the other hand, this could simply be making a lower high in this downtrend here, at this key level, and price is primed to make another strong push down.
Since I could argue both directions, I’ll hold off for now, and revisit in the coming days to see if one direction or the other becomes more clear.
NZD – Neutral
This has had a lot of wild swings over the past year+, and has been quite unpredictable — especially this year. This bottomed out at the beginning of October last year, the rallied to it’s most recent highest point by the middle of December. Price has been pushing down from there, but like I said, there’s been a lot of wild swing within that movement.
Price started moving sideways starting at the end of July (of this year) until it made a strong spike, taking out a couple of key areas last week. I could even argue that a higher high and a higher low has formed over these last ~6 weeks — though it would be a bit of a stretch.
Overall, this has been bearish, so I’m not ready to trade it long; but there was a strong recent spike, so I’m not ready to short this either. It’s reached a pretty strong key level this morning, so I’ll hold off and see how it behaves over the coming days.
CHF – Neutral
Overall, this has been “up” since April of 2021, though there’s been some swings and sideways movement within that time. Price has been pretty vertical starting the beginning of this year, with the only sideways movement, really, coming between mid-April and mid-June.
Price pushed up from there until it peaked in mid-August, but has been pulling back from there. Looking at the weekly chart, though, lower lows and lower highs haven’t formed in this push down. It’s a strong enough push down that taking this long doesn’t seem viable, but at the same time, it’s not showing technical signs of reversal, so I’m not ready to short it. Especially after how strong it’s been over the last year+.
Once again, I’ll leave this alone this morning, and revisit in the coming days to see how it’s been moving.
Thanks for reading! I don’t have a ton of pairs to look at today, so hopefully there’s movement. Let me know what you see, in the comments below, if you see anything different; and stay tuned for more market analysis and trades!