Same Trade Twice | Forex Market Day Trades | December 5, 2023

Welcome to today entry into my Forex market technical analysis trading blog. Today, I’m talking through a few trades I made on December 5th, 2023; two of them being essentially the same trade. Read on to see how the price action for these currency pairs moved, and how the trades ultimately played out.

On the 2 hour chart, price had been in a downtrend for several weeks, but was on a bit of a bounce. The bounce lasted for a couple days, but this morning, it seems to be failing at a pretty strong key area that also happens to be where the upper band is.

On the 15 minute chart, price looks more like it’s in an uptrend. But that’s a given, seeing the rally on the 2 hour chart. Over the last few hours price had been pushing down, though there were a lot of fairly wild swings. Within the wild swings I saw what I would consider a bear rally, so I looked for entry orders.

Entry – 1.35609

My initial target offered only a 1 R:R. But, I used the logic that: if this is pushing back down, I’d expect it to continue it’s downtrend, which would push this to at least the prior swing lows (if not further than that). Given that logic, an exact 2 R:R (by doubling my risk, and not specifically picking a price target) was well within those parameters. I set the order and now I’m monitoring.

Oh, additionally while RSI was sloping down but above 50 on the 15 minute chart, it had pushed below 50 on the 5 minute chart.

After setting my entry order, price actually spiked up to where my stop loss was. It only, really, wicked up there though, so I left the order alone. About a half hour later, price did push down and it did so enough to trigger my entry into the trade.

Exit – 1.35834

Price got about 5 pips into profit before it reversed hard and pushed up to my stop loss. I don’t think this was a good trade from the start. Price was very choppy, and I prefer more smooth movements. On top of that, even on the 2 hour chart, price wasn’t coming out of being overbought, it was just close to that level and starting to head down. I’m starting to thing that I should use the RSI more as an indicator than the Bollinger Band.

I also need to be more cognizant of key areas. I need to stop taking trades into them, essentially. It’s hard to trade around support/resistance without trading through those levels. If that makes any sense. The support level that I’m shorting on is a resistance area of a range immediately preceding it, and it feels like I’m hoping price goes through a resistance area and a strong range in order to hit a target.

But at the same time, it’s not in my parameters to trade the bounce long in that scenario when the overall trend (2 hour chart) is down. Maybe I should only be trading the trend direction of the time-frame I’m looking at, and forget my top-down analysis. Or maybe I need to be more patient and find pairs where multiple time-frames show the same direction. Maybe my mindset overall needs to change.

That’s trading, though. I’m going to continue sticking with my current system for now, because I like where I’m at, and try to implement some small tweaks to be better around those key levels.

My initial analysis here was overall short; and I saw a nice low Base on the 15 min. chart. Price is coming off of the upper band and coming out of overbought on the 2h chart, looked for entries on the 15. Additionally, I selected a target with a similar outlook as the last trade — a 2 R:R (based on pips, not a key area) looked more than viable, especially if the return to the overall direction happens, so I used that as the target and set the entry order.

This trade and EUR/AUD pushed down at the same time (which makes a ton of sense, they’re basically the same pair), and I wasn’t able to cancel one of them if I wanted to. Them being the same pair, I figured the patterns were in play in both, so I was fine with both triggering. I’d essentially double my wins if they push in my favor.

Entry – 1.921

The initial pattern wasn’t bad — it only took about 10 minutes for the trade to trigger, and price pretty quickly pushed to .5R. From there, though, it rallied, and pushed up to roughly -.5R. Honestly, I didn’t love the rally, but I wasn’t too worried about it because it looked like a bearish retest to me. It’s trading, though, so I was ready for anything.

Exit – 1.92101

After the quick spike, price made another push down, this time reaching 1R. So I was able to move my stop to break even. That was about all it had, though. Price made another rally from there and sopped me out at break even.

This is one of those frustrating one’s where price ultimately ended up pushing to my target. Looking at the chart the next morning, and while price had pushed high enough to stop me out, it made the strong push down that would have been a full 2R win. Even if I had traded this on a higher time-frame with a wider stop, it pushed enough that it would’ve probably made money.

On one hand, it’s nice to see that I’m picking directions relatively well. But on the other hand, none of that matters if I can’t capitalize on the moves. I didn’t lose here, though, I broke even. So that’s good.

I thought this and Pound-Aussie looked similar this morning, so having an order in both, I may cancel one depending on what triggers first. If they both make strong pushes, though, I might keep both. The main differences between these, though, are A) there’s more of a bear-rally that I’m shorting in to, than a base B) My entry/stop levels look a bit cleaner here and C) I hit my R:R by selecting a target first and then my entry/stop, rather than simply doubling my risk.

Overall, I think this will be a better trade, but we’ll see how they play out. They both triggered at roughly the same time. Didn’t really have the opportunity to cancel one if I wanted to.

Entry – 1.64567

It’s funny, I initially thought that this would be the better trade, but it ended up being the one that made me more nervous.

Price pushed down to within about 3 pips of 1R, but with only a 13 pip risk, I told myself that wasn’t close enough. I let it ride, even though it started to rally. Price continued to rally, and it no longer made sense to move my stop. Price was either going to reverse and head back to the downside at some point, or I was going to take a full loss.

Exit – 1.64567

Price rose until it got to within 3 pips of my stop, but my stop never triggered. Fortunately for me, price made another strong push down, and this time made it to within 1 pip of 1R. I moved my stop when I was only 10 pips in profit again, though. That was it’s bottom for the time being, and from there price continued to rise and stopped me out at the exact price I got in.

This is essentially the same trade as the previous one, and had essentially the same outcome. I liked the trades, though. I liked the overall directions, the patterns, and the R:R offered. In actuality, I only expect to hit big on about 10% of my trades, so I’m largely happy to walk away with a break even instead of a loss. Here’s hoping I catch the next move!

Conclusion

I’ve been wondering, since I’m taking a longer-term outlook, should I focus more on currencies with slightly lower volumes; with the expectation that there will be lower volatility in those pairs. I don’t want something with less than, say, 10K or 20K in volume, but I can maybe start with pairs lower than 100K. Something to keep in mind going forward.

Overall, I like my work cadence over the last couple weeks. I like my trading plan and my process each day, and I’ve been a lot better about updating this blog in a timely manner. I need to be better about waiting for great setups, rather than taking the trade because it’s “my favorite setup of the day” and I just want to get into something. It’s something I’ll definitely be mindful of going forward.

Thanks for reading. Let me know in the comments what you thought about today’s trades, and if you were able to capitalize on something else. And stay tuned for more Forex technical analysis and trades!