Yesterday’s Trades Today; Today’s Trades…well….

Keeping good on this morning’s promise: the following trades were entered just prior to 2130 ET last evening, time stopped at just before 0730 this morning.

Long:

AUD/USD: .7849; TP @ .7889: +40

AUD/JPY 74.38; closed @ 74.72: +36

EUR/AUD 1.7576; closed @ 1.7601: -25

GBP/JPY 152.76; closed @ 153.27: +51

CAD/JPY 82.45; closed @ 82.71: +26

EUR/JPY: 130.75; closed @ 131.51: +76

Short:

USD/CAD 1.1338; closed @ 1.1309: +29

.

What else?

Today’s timeline:

0726: Long GBP/JPY @ 153.31.  Closed at 0853 @ 153.73: +42

0731: Long GBP/CHF @ 1.7704.  Closed at 0853 @ 1.7701: -3

0732: Short EUR/GBP @.8578. Closed at 0853 @ .8567: +11

0752: Long CAD/JPY @ 82.95.  Closed at 0853 @ 83.13: +17

0859: Long GBP/JPY @ 153.77.  Closed at 1023 @ 154.46: +69

0909: Long GBP/USD @ 1.6463.  Closed at 1023 @ 1.6447: -16

1145 Long GBP/JPY @ 154.32.  Closed at 1347 @ 155.09: +77

1251 Long EUR/JPY @ 133.07.  Closed at 1347 @ 133.32: +25

1406 Long GBP/JPY @ 155.04.  Closed at 1609 @ 154.86: -18 (time stop after 1600)

1406 Long GBP/USD @ 1.6432.  Closed at 1609 @ 1.6422: -10 (time stop after 1600)

2207 Short GBP/JPY @ 154.35.  Open.

2208 Short EUR/JPY @ 132.45  Open.

2209 Short CAD/JPY @ 84.07 Open.

Overnight Trades for 07/14/2009 Closed

Entries for these trades were listed over at Twitter in the middle of the night.  Here’s how things shook out:

Short:

EUR/GBP @ .8594; closed at .8576

EUR/AUD @ 1.7777; closed at 1.7686 (entry not given on Twitter; entered in two legs at 0406, 0417 ET)

Long:

GBP/JPY @ 151.04; closed at 152.04

CAD/JPY @ 80.68; closed at 81.38

AUD/JPY @ 72.87; TP @ 73.87 at 0752 ET

AUD/USD @ .7837; TP @ .7887 at 0716 ET

GBP/CHF @ 1.7629; closed at 1.7676

GBP/USD @ 1.6243; closed at 1.6326

EUR/JPY @ 130.26; closed at 130.37 (lost ground here while asleep on ZEW disappointment)
Except as noted, I closed all trades just after NY open at 0807 ET.   Will reevaluate and reenter, probably after US equity session opens.

Overnight Trades for 07/13/2009 Closed

The carnage I mentioned will have to wait for another set of trades: those four trades I threw up on twitter went as planned, more-or-less.  By that I mean: my only regret is money management on exits in this instance: late at night and tired, I settled for generic stops on two of them, rather than evaluating S/R more closely to determine appropriate objectives.  I decided to close  out the remaining two (G/J and E/G) bleary-eyed and groggy this morning, giving little time to evaluate but preferring to take profit to flatten things out.  Left some pips on the table in both cases as a result.

In the order placed:

• GBP/USD: SHT 161.50; TP @ 160.50. +100 pips
• GBP/CHF: SHT 1.7527; TP @ 174.27.  +100 pips
• EUR/GBP: Long .8640; closed manually @ .8689: +49 pips
• GBP/JPY: SHT 149.09; closed manually @ 147.71: + 138 pips

Not a bad night.

The Week in Review

“Week In Review” – I remember having very good intentions about this at the beginning of the year. My adherence to that commitment has been…minimal. So, in the spirit of all those reviews I did not blog in the past, here we go:

07.05.09 – 07.10.09

A few statistics:

• Trades: 100 trades; 50 round trips (round number not by design)
• Pairs traded (in order of frequency): GBP/JPY, EUR/JPY, GBP/USD, CAD/JPY, GBP/CHF, EUR/GBP, EUR/USD
• Win ratio: 37/50; or 74%
• Max. drawdown occurrence: 3.4%: caused by 3 simultaneous trades that stopped out as a basket with adverse GBP exposure (GBP/JPY, GBP/USD, GBP/CHF)
• Net return on equity: 23.1%

Stream-of-consciousness reflection:

Unreality? I’d like to succumb to the idea that too much went right too easily for the week to be much more than fluke. But these weeks do happen, and I can’t pin all or most of what goes well on happenstance and the stars aligning. When just about everything goes off well and you’ve been trading for years, not weeks or months, you know whether it was you or not: this week it would be a lie to say it was not me. Most trades went into profit without looking back, and losses were cut on those that didn’t with a dispassionate acquiescence rather than lots of torturous back-and-forth. Diet, sleep, contentment at home and a feeling of accomplishment in other areas is very helpful.

Maturity. It’s easy to speak of maturation as a trader in a great week. But, I don’t mean adherence to methodology, trading without emotional dissonance, etc. What I do mean: accepted losses without regret. Willingness to take profits without giving in to my nagging compulsion to achieve round numbers (I’ll take 98 pips off the table rather than waiting against my good analytical judgment for 100 pips). Patiently trust the legitimacy of my own analysis, waiting for the market to come to my orders rather than rushing out to meet it. These are behaviors and attitudes with which I struggle. Positive momentum early on can derail or reinforce: in this case, it was the latter. Now, if I can learn to reiterate those psychological habits every week, rather than almost randomly, that would constitute significant progress.

Singularity of analysis? I have deep respect for a handful of trader-bloggers and analysts online. TLT comes to mind, especially after his recent interview. Actually, no: the interview has nothing to do with it (just a plug); but his intelligence, holistic approach to the markets and level of organization do. However, our trading styles are very dissimilar. Then, Kathy Lien comes to mind as a trader-analyst: very insightful and trades (actually trades!) well as a result of it.

I find them (just two examples) helpful to read because they do what I do but nothing like the way that I do it. Ideas and analysis that are too close only muddy the waters; but where ideas and analysis are in the same universe, I find they edify. And that’s good, because I’ve always worked best where there’s camaraderie and autonomy in equal measure. So, I ignore just about everything that goes on around me (this goes back to that primary v. secondary source distinction I made here).

Off to enjoy what remains of the weekend outside with my family. Check me out on Twitter in the meantime….

Bank of England Slashes Rates, GBP Falls

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), the British equivalent to the FOMC has cut the UK’s overnight lending rate from 1.0% to 0.5%. Apparently this is the lowest rates have been in several hundred years, going back almost to the inception of the bank in 1694. Accompanying the rate cut, the BoE following after the Federal Reserve announced it will begin engaging in quantitative easing through the purchase of $75B medium and long-term gilt over the next several months to combat deflationary pressure.

GBP has responded this time around in intuitive fashion: GBP/JPY, GBP/USD and GBP/CHF have each sold off 125-200 pips since London opened, while EUR/GBP has rallied 80 pips as it continues to wind through a symmetrical triangle begun 4 weeks ago.

Next up in just a few minutes the ECB will make their own announcement….

2009: Week 2 in Review

The second full week of trading for the year at an end.

Retail sales way down, foreclosures way up, a block in the Senate narrowly defeated to grant Obama the second $350B from the TARP ahead of his inauguration next week, Citigroup broken in two, Bank of America bailed out again ($45B now) citing “severe dislocation in capital markets” (I think there’s a macro floating around for that phrase), Greece downgraded from AAA, Spain, Ireland, Italy under review for a downgrade….

On the other hand, this week brought with it some excellent trading opportunities. While I did sustain an abnormally high 5.8% drawdown after a spate of bad calls early in the week, net performance ended well into the black, bolstered by longs on GBP/JPY, GBP/CHF, USD/JPY and GBP/USD (EUR/GBP did stop out with a -54 pip loss) closing out in profit overnight.

Flat going into the weekend. Pundits are calling for Friday rally in stocks after the BoA capital infusion/backstop. The world continues living in fiction.

EUR in Focus

Some general notes:

EUR/USD: after an almost wholly undeterred 2000 pip run, the pair found respite on Thursday. Poised now to break the lull and turn northward with renewed momentum?

Symmetrical Triangle - Resumption of Uptrend?

EUR/GBP: even more noteworthy for the historic high tagged yesterday well above .95. No clear chart pattern, but the pair is pounding out support at the 78.6% retracement level of 12/18’s low/high around .9415. Time to cover the short, reverse?

EUR/GBP: basing at .9415 for another leg up?

EUR/GBP Short

After a discussion with TLT and Jules drew my attention, I picked a short entry on EUR/GBP: .9497.  The hesitation in the .9450-.95 zone looks appealing as at least a short-term ceiling to pivot off of.  Targeting .9375-.94 initially, then .9320, followed finally by .9265.

Also, posting trade details provides an excuse to include this: The National – All The Wine:

Yen Crosses In Focus Overnight

GBP/JPY backstroked downstream without much hesitation all day today, meeting and exceeding the short-term targets around the 205.50 and 205.00 levels mentioned above. Extending to 204.24, it’s now hanging out in the 204.50 area, where I’ve got +200 locked in 20 pips away, which I may back up a bit at the Tokyo open to give some line. Further downside in the works for our dear Guppy? My initial signal holds during this mild pullback – now to hang on to the trade while we weather the oversold-choppy lull. Next stop 203.92, where I plan to reduce the position by half. We’ll see if Tokyo has other plans.

Elsewhere, EUR/GBP is exactly where I opened it: -2 pips on the spread, but things will be heading up. Patience pays great dividends, on this pair especially. I’m also eyeing a short entry on AUD/USD, but nothing actionable coalescing there until I see a break of .9395.

What else in SA1? A GBP/CHF short @ 206.11 opened @ 1719 ET: +5 at the moment…. Also, a 1/4 USD/JPY short taken @ 104.68 and a 1/4 AUD/JPY short taken @ 98.61, both down a few pips. Looking at CAD/JPY, as well. The “1/4″ means I have an intent to scale in, and that my present position sizing represents 1/4 of what my money management parameters allow me to commit. Modest positions I may add to, then.

Aside from some releases more of a domestic concern to the Japanese, their economic/monetary docket is passing through a dry spell. That said, I don’t expect much volatility overnight, but do maintain a tentatively bearish approach near-term on the Yen crosses mentioned. I’ll report back if that conclusion shifts positive.

Guppy Swimming Down?

GBP/JPY has been sideways in a 120 pip range since mid-morning ET Monday. I took a short position yesterday evening @ 206.78 in SA1 and since the band has tapered a bit, yielding an amorphous quasi-symmetrical triangle. Unsure of how that’ll play out, but I’m anticipating a near-term break to the downside, at least back to the 205.52 area and perhaps to 205. Currently @ +63

I also took a EUR/GBP position yesterday morning @.7882 in SA1 – also moving sideways except for a pop around the London open that came up short of my initial TP. A bit early on the entry, but I didn’t allow any room to scale in on an average down. Currently @ +5.