Monday, February 8, 2010
Feb. 8, 2010
During my travels over the weekend I was either stopped out or took an early exit on all of the trades I was in. I didn't enter any trades on Sunday however I began watching the Eur/USD, USD/CHf, EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY and the NZD/USD for entry signals. I hit a buy entry in the USD/CHF @ 1.0739; I have a stop in place @ 1.0650 and I am looking @ 1.0825 as an initial target with a possibility of 1.0875 as a final target for this trade.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Tuesday Feb. 2
Un-cooperative markets today. trends are still in place but prices have moved against my trades all day. Trends still seem to be in place. I will just hold on as long as the trends still hold and struggle through the correction. I will be traveling for the next few days and won't be watching the markets most of the day. Stops are in place, hopefully they hold.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Feb. 1 trade update
Going into the evenings session things look to be turning around. The down trend in the EUR/USD has strengthened a bit and is pointing strongly down and the prices are coming down currently at 1.3918 with MACD on the hourly turning bearish.
USD/CAD price is turning bullish as well as %R and MACD on the hourly chart, although the price has a ways to climb to hit my original buy price of 1.0681. It is trading at 1.0615 as I write this update.
USD/CHF is showing signs of turning around with the hourly MACD showing signs of turning but not quite oversold yet.
I will see what the night holds as the market makes it's way around the world.
USD/CAD price is turning bullish as well as %R and MACD on the hourly chart, although the price has a ways to climb to hit my original buy price of 1.0681. It is trading at 1.0615 as I write this update.
USD/CHF is showing signs of turning around with the hourly MACD showing signs of turning but not quite oversold yet.
I will see what the night holds as the market makes it's way around the world.
Monday Feb. 1 2010
Today's action in the Forex market has been one of those tough days. The overall, longer trend indicates that the EUR/USD pair is headed lower. And that is how I have been trading the pair. Last week I managed to exit 3 trades on the pair to lock in profits of 109, 117 and 152 pips, respectively, after slight pull backs and then re-entering the pair when the price resumed the direction of the trend and I had some sort of supporting indicators to confirm the action. I have never liked maintaining a trade over the weekend, which I will have to deal with if I continue my current trading methods. Anyway, on Sunday I re-entered this pair at 1.3878 and again at 1.3879. Today, although the trend is still pretty strongly pointing towards lower prices, the market has crawled upwards and is currently sitting at 1.3930. Now, I have stops in place at 1.3975 which for a longer term trade is a bit tight, well above the 200 moving average on a 30 minute chart and a bit below the same average on a 1 hour chart. It can be nerve racking for me, being newer to longer term trades like these to watch the pullbacks. In fact it was that reaction to the pull backs why I exited the trades last week. Everything pointed (still does) to a continuation of the price coming down. But, man it is hard for me to watch.
In the past most of my Forex trading has been short term, quick in, quick out, try to grab 10-20 pips type of trading. That required a higher percentage of profitable trades because the stops that I used on those trades needed to be fairly wide when compared to the exit targets. Plus it could be frustrating to take a quick 10 or 20 pip profit, maybe even after a slight retrace, only to watch the market take off another 50 or 100 pips with out getting another entry signal. So I began trading on a longer time frame to try to catch larger moves. This required an overhaul to my trading methods and thoughts on many levels. And that is something that I am still working on. If I had control over my emotions I should have stayed in the 3 trades last week and still been in them today. I would have stayed in the trade until I confirmed that the trend was weakening and changing, upon that signal I would have reversed my position and scaled back into the trade to ride the trend in the opposite direction. But as the saying goes............"easier said than done".
As for the other trades that I am in at the moment. They are all in the same boat. I bought the USD/CHF at1.0608 and it is currently at 1.0558. I bought the USD/CAD at 1.0681 and it is currently at 1.0613. On the shorter term charts they are all starting to claw their way in the correct directions so I will sit, watch and wait for the trends to resume. I did exit the small NZD/USD trade that I had going for a small profit and have yet to get a signal to re-enter the trade.
That will be one of my next personal battles to deal with..........OVERTRADING.
Hopefully my next posting will be a profitable one!
In the past most of my Forex trading has been short term, quick in, quick out, try to grab 10-20 pips type of trading. That required a higher percentage of profitable trades because the stops that I used on those trades needed to be fairly wide when compared to the exit targets. Plus it could be frustrating to take a quick 10 or 20 pip profit, maybe even after a slight retrace, only to watch the market take off another 50 or 100 pips with out getting another entry signal. So I began trading on a longer time frame to try to catch larger moves. This required an overhaul to my trading methods and thoughts on many levels. And that is something that I am still working on. If I had control over my emotions I should have stayed in the 3 trades last week and still been in them today. I would have stayed in the trade until I confirmed that the trend was weakening and changing, upon that signal I would have reversed my position and scaled back into the trade to ride the trend in the opposite direction. But as the saying goes............"easier said than done".
As for the other trades that I am in at the moment. They are all in the same boat. I bought the USD/CHF at1.0608 and it is currently at 1.0558. I bought the USD/CAD at 1.0681 and it is currently at 1.0613. On the shorter term charts they are all starting to claw their way in the correct directions so I will sit, watch and wait for the trends to resume. I did exit the small NZD/USD trade that I had going for a small profit and have yet to get a signal to re-enter the trade.
That will be one of my next personal battles to deal with..........OVERTRADING.
Hopefully my next posting will be a profitable one!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Curreent Trades
Here are the trades that I am currently in:
(Please note: THESE ARE TRADES THAT I AM IN. I AM NOT AN INVESTMENT OR TRADING ADVISOR, NOR DO I OR WILL I OFFER INVESTMENT OR TRADING ADVICE. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRADE THESE BASED ON THIS INFORMATION!!!!!!!!!!!!
TRADING FOREIGN EXCHANGE OR STOCK OPTIONS IS RISKY AND MOST PEOPLE LOSE MOST OR ALL OF THEIR TRADING ACCOUNTS)
I have been selling EURUSD over the past week as early as 1/26. Taking profit at 100 pips+ and adding on pullbacks. trying to follow the downward trend in the pair.
I bought a micro USDCHF contract tonight testing the strengthening trend on that pair. I will add to it if the trend stregnthens a bit more.
I bought a couple of micro USDCAD contracts on 1/29 to see if there is much strength in that trend, if there is I will add more mini contracts.
I was able to grab over 300 pips last week on the EURUSD. This new trade is to confirm continued weakness in the trend.
Last week I got the GBPJPY wrong but as I had just entered the trade using a micro contract it didn't cost me much to discover that my analysis was incorrect. I find that it helps me to follow the adage of "cut your loses and let your winners run"
(Please note: THESE ARE TRADES THAT I AM IN. I AM NOT AN INVESTMENT OR TRADING ADVISOR, NOR DO I OR WILL I OFFER INVESTMENT OR TRADING ADVICE. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRADE THESE BASED ON THIS INFORMATION!!!!!!!!!!!!
TRADING FOREIGN EXCHANGE OR STOCK OPTIONS IS RISKY AND MOST PEOPLE LOSE MOST OR ALL OF THEIR TRADING ACCOUNTS)
I have been selling EURUSD over the past week as early as 1/26. Taking profit at 100 pips+ and adding on pullbacks. trying to follow the downward trend in the pair.
I bought a micro USDCHF contract tonight testing the strengthening trend on that pair. I will add to it if the trend stregnthens a bit more.
I bought a couple of micro USDCAD contracts on 1/29 to see if there is much strength in that trend, if there is I will add more mini contracts.
I was able to grab over 300 pips last week on the EURUSD. This new trade is to confirm continued weakness in the trend.
Last week I got the GBPJPY wrong but as I had just entered the trade using a micro contract it didn't cost me much to discover that my analysis was incorrect. I find that it helps me to follow the adage of "cut your loses and let your winners run"
Intro
Hi,
My name is Mike, aka Helicopter Mike. I am a full time helicopter pilot (hence the nickname) with a number of other interests. I have been flying since 1978, full time since 1990. After so many years of flying it has become kind of like just a job. Don't get me wrong, I consider myself very fortunate to do what I do, but the thrill of flight is gone for the most part. When people start flying everything revolves around building flight time. I stopped logging time six or seven years ago, the last time I looked I had well over 12,000 hours. It has been a fantastic career in that I have been to places I would never have seen any other way and I have quite a bit of time off and that allows me to pursue many things that interest me. Some of these interests are as hobby's and some of them are geared more towards profit and possible next career development. Along that line is what this blog will focus on.
I began trading in the 1980's but was done after a few years. Then I picked it up again and over the past five years or so I have been trading. Trading a number of different markets. I have traded Futures, Stocks, Options and Foreign Exchange. I began developing an interest in trading after picking up a book. I can't quite remember the title, something about a stock traders first million or something along those lines. But, the more I read, the more interested I became. This was in the early 19080's and over the years that has remained my only trading education, pick up a book and try to apply what I learned from the book. To fund the various accounts that I have had I have had to get creative, such as saving all of the change I received after purchases, etc. That is one rule I have always followed, "Never trade with money you can't afford to lose". And that has worked out OK since by the time I read, learn, plan, practice, test, adjust, test again and MAYBE implement something new into my trading, I have plenty of time to scrap a few bucks together.
Currently I am trading spot forex and stock options, with most of my daily activity being the forex market due to the nature of these markets and my trading style for each of these markets. Of these two markets, I have been trading forex quite a bit longer and this market has some things that I really like that other markets, including stock options, don't have, such as 24 hour trading and more liquidity than just about anything else available to trade. I can also trade forex cheaper that other markets which makes trying out a new technique or indicator in a real time environment much more viable.
In any event, due to my activity levels in each market, most of what I will write about will be on forex, but when an option trade comes along I will detail those trades as well.
Until next time!
My name is Mike, aka Helicopter Mike. I am a full time helicopter pilot (hence the nickname) with a number of other interests. I have been flying since 1978, full time since 1990. After so many years of flying it has become kind of like just a job. Don't get me wrong, I consider myself very fortunate to do what I do, but the thrill of flight is gone for the most part. When people start flying everything revolves around building flight time. I stopped logging time six or seven years ago, the last time I looked I had well over 12,000 hours. It has been a fantastic career in that I have been to places I would never have seen any other way and I have quite a bit of time off and that allows me to pursue many things that interest me. Some of these interests are as hobby's and some of them are geared more towards profit and possible next career development. Along that line is what this blog will focus on.
I began trading in the 1980's but was done after a few years. Then I picked it up again and over the past five years or so I have been trading. Trading a number of different markets. I have traded Futures, Stocks, Options and Foreign Exchange. I began developing an interest in trading after picking up a book. I can't quite remember the title, something about a stock traders first million or something along those lines. But, the more I read, the more interested I became. This was in the early 19080's and over the years that has remained my only trading education, pick up a book and try to apply what I learned from the book. To fund the various accounts that I have had I have had to get creative, such as saving all of the change I received after purchases, etc. That is one rule I have always followed, "Never trade with money you can't afford to lose". And that has worked out OK since by the time I read, learn, plan, practice, test, adjust, test again and MAYBE implement something new into my trading, I have plenty of time to scrap a few bucks together.
Currently I am trading spot forex and stock options, with most of my daily activity being the forex market due to the nature of these markets and my trading style for each of these markets. Of these two markets, I have been trading forex quite a bit longer and this market has some things that I really like that other markets, including stock options, don't have, such as 24 hour trading and more liquidity than just about anything else available to trade. I can also trade forex cheaper that other markets which makes trying out a new technique or indicator in a real time environment much more viable.
In any event, due to my activity levels in each market, most of what I will write about will be on forex, but when an option trade comes along I will detail those trades as well.
Until next time!
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