EUR/JPY continues to wind through a symmetrical triangle that may ultimately spell a further slide for the Euro when the breakout finally comes. Right now price lingers at the upper descending trendline, mulling over whether to advance above or fall back from the 61.8% fibonacci retracement level @ ~117.85 (for 121.50-112 back on 01/18-01/20). That said, there’s an alternate upper descending trendline (this is starting to sound a bit too Elliott Wave) made of touches at 121.50 on 01/18 and then ~120 on 02/08-02/09. That lies at 119, where the 76.4% retracement for the above interval lies.
EUR/JPY: 3H
There is an ascending triangle abutting against this level, however, with the horizontal trendline with a few pips of 118. A break here would also move the pair above the 194 EMA on the 3H which (on my chart, at any rate) has hemmed in the pair on the upside intraday.
EUR/JPY: 15M
GBP/JPY is also moving through an almost-culminated ascending triangle within a larger symmetrical triangle that is apparent on the 1D (not shown) with a descending upper trendline currently at 136. This overlaps exactly with the 76.4% fibonacci retracement level for 140-122 (closing values for Jan 6, Jan 25).
GBP/JPY: 15M
I’ll trade either way as it comes (e.g., EUR/JPY’s trendline tag compounded with the 61.8% retracement level offers a bearish scenario, potentially), but I think upside breakouts are probable overnight on both pairs: a break held above 118 on EUR/JPY; likewise for the 133.75 level on GBP/JPY, targeting ~119 and ~136, respectively.
0020 ET 02/19: Against expectations, the lower ascending trendlines have broken, so I’ve deployed some shorts (also on AUD/JPY) using the close below those lines on the 15M as the trigger line. Some hammers are forming on the current candle, however, corresponding with support at the 144 EMA on EUR/JPY and the 61.8% retracement level on GBP/JPY. Probably giving the shorts room to run for the time being….
0615 ET 02/19: Well, it seems my initial conviction was correct and by actively monitoring the aimless warbling around midnight talked myself out of some legitimate calls. And to think, I even noted the hammers forming…. Stopped out at BE on GBP/JPY, EUR/JPY, -48 on AUD/JPY, -57 on GBP/USD. Thus the vicissitudes of requiring at least some sleep before getting up for work in the morning.
0340 ET 02/20: A little late for any new reflections but I’ll state it anyway: “Damn.” Across thousands of trades those listed here are of minimal consequence, but reverting from assurance on a sound technical basis to tentativeness is not a choice that just sloughs off as trivial. Was the rationale that got me into the trade invalidated, or is it that I set up a longish daytrade/potential swing trade and then almost whimsically decided to reverse it on comparatively scant evidence?
The second scenario. I daytrade well when I do it, but that is not my usual or favored m.o.. Taking a trade in one mode and then revising it in another while retain initial expectations is simply foolish; and I’d like to think I’ve come far enough to know when I’m doing this as I’m doing it. The “analytical fog” that accompanies disorderly revisions is easily identifiable, but oddly impairing of judgement. But then, calling up disciplined rationality to burn that feeling off rather than leaving it to cower beneath the mist in a corner is one of my own most difficult struggles as a trader.
Anyway, as my best childhood friend used to remind me after one of those devastating high school break-ups: “Andrew, hay mas peses in el mar”. One time he even wrote it in Japanese Hiragana on my fogged-up windshield (he could also do an almost endless succession of front hand-springs in a row…which is somehow related…); but that time it was to remind himself. I never washed the interior car windows back then, so it really became a humidity-activated sticky note that appeared occasionally for a couple of years. Apparently it worked. Ingenious, really.
