Channel Trading Failed Today

I put in 3 trades today during the US session after the Housing Report release that were Anti-dollar but all of them failed to push towards my target.  I managed to recoup some of the losses with another trade placed when the price fell back into the channel so I'm not too disappointed.  It could have been much worst but I wound up losing about 45 pips today.  I'm even for the week.  

On another note, I was reading about fibonacci and stumbled upon a site that includes some fibonacci tricks.  Some of these tricks really only apply to stocks because they relate to gap trading but I found the parabola hunt interesting.

http://www.tradingday.com/c/tatuto/fivefibonaccitricks.html  

Popularity: 2%

Come into my trading room

I was interested by some of Alexander Elder's comments in his book, "Come into my trading room." For those of you who have never heard of him, he is a professional trader who at one time was a psychiatrist.  

He states that a successful trader needs to stand apart from the crowd and one way to do so is to be unique in choosing your timeframes.  I've always used the 60-minute, 180-minute, 240-minute, and the Daily timeframes.  Elder says that it pays to use uncommon parameters for charts and indicators.  Most traders use the default timeframe configurations in their trading software but since thousands of people use half-hourly charts, why not be the minority that use 25-minute charts.  The benefit to this also is that you may get signals a little faster.  

I was reading more about his Triple Screen Strategy not really because I'm looking for a brand new strategy to use (I'm always open-minded) but because it stresses the use of multiple time frames for entering and exiting positions.  I've always treated each timeframe as a totally separate entity mostly because it simplifies entries and exits and also because I adopted this style after reading Raghee Horners first book.

Elder seems to have a lot to offer in the way of trader psychology and money management.  I'll continue to post anything interesting if I come across it.

Popularity: 3%

3 For the Day

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Big Losses are hard to take.  Rob Booker Helps You Recover

US Trade Gap Narrows More than Expected due to decrease in Chinese Imports

Check out Amateur Trade System Results at Collective 2

 

 

Popularity: 1%

Are Moving Averages Most Profitable Technical Analysis?

Thanks to Craig for this interesting post:

Here is an interesting research paper you might like to read (http://reports-archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/2003/CMU-CS-03-123.pdf).
This
guy did statistical studies on the major TA's which everybody uses &
used genetic algorithms to try and breed trading stratergies using TA
combinations. Some interesting results, e.g.

1. MA's are by far the most profitable TA
2. Some common strategies are so bad that turning the buy signals into sell and vice versa produces quite good results!

Seems
to me trading is a bit like surfing, you watch the ocean and learn to
pick the good waves, but you can't ride a wave until it has actually
developed.  But experience allows you to size up the good rides
early. This analogy also applies to timeframes, beginner surfers spend
a lot of time thrashing about in the shorebreak fighting over slop, the
old hands wait patiently for the big ride out back.
Nothing more or less.

Popularity: 2%

My performance per Currency Pair

I decided to take a look at all of my trades since day one and find out which currency pair has been most profitable for me.  The results were interesting:

USD/JPY: +3720
EUR/JPY: +2400
GBP/JPY: +1370
USD/CAD: +890
NZD/USD: +470
USD/CHF: +420
EUR/GBP: -70
AUD/USD: -130
GBP/USD: -$410
CHF/JPY: -650
EUR/USD: -$1430

History says to stay away from the EUR/USD pair.  I had a feeling that the USD/JPY was my best friend.

Popularity: 3%