Day 39

Day 39

Start Balance                             $16,016

Today's Profit Target                     $209.29 (Day 37)
Required Position size                 207,400 (JPY), 171,500 (USD)

Trades

1     +207,400K     EURJPY         2.7 pips         (0:42)
2     +103,700K     EURJPY       *4.0 pips          (0:29)
3     +103,700K     EURJPY       *-11.4 pips       (1:07)
4     +103,700K     USDJPY       *4.1 pips          (0:22)
5     +103,700K     USDJPY       *-5.0 pips         (4:35)
6     +207,400K     USDJPY       -5.4 pips           (4:29)
7     +85,750K       EURUSD      *-2.6 pips         (0:07)
8     +85,750K       USDJPY      *0.5 pips           (3:32)
9     +85,750K       GBPUSD     *7.6 pips           (0:05)
10    +85,750K      GBPUSD     *4.0 pips           (0:02)
11    +85,750K      EURUSD     *7.3 pips           (0:30)
12    +85,750K      EURUSD     *-4.7 pips          (0:05)

* half the full sized position. this is the equivalent no. of pips if the position was full sized.

Total                              1.3 pips     ( $36.45 )

End Balance                  $16,053

Project Status 

Day 39 end target  $16,613
3 Days Behind (dropped back 1 day since yesterday)
$560 behind schedule or 26.77 pips on tomorrow’s pip value.

Comments

I didn’t trade yesterday as I had a massive hangover after celebrating Liverpool’s champion’s league semi-final win so today I should have been feeling fresh and raring to go. I can’t say that I really was though. Confidence is still missing and I could only bring myself to put on 2 full sized positions out of 12, the rest where all half sizes.

This day was really a tale of two sessions, pre & post non-farm payrolls announcement. I didn’t start until late afternoon near the start of the European session and it should really have all been over on the first trade. Greed got in the way as I had 10 pips on the very first trade and a few minutes of opportunity to take it. However, I got greedy thinking I could get a lot more out of it and paid the price. I ended up selling it in two halves for a measly 2.7 pips in total after it starting retreating. After that I lost confidence and switched to half sizes which turned out to be a blessing as the 3^rd trade was a disaster and I lost 11.4 full pips on it. Apart from that big move there wasn’t a whole lot of movement anywhere as the markets where gearing up for the non-farm payrolls release. Up until the release I had held onto a very large position in USDJPY which looked the best chart technically but it didn’t move and I ended up having to close it out before the announcement for a loss. At announcement time I was down 13 pips.

I don’t normally trade NFP as it’s too late in the day really and with Oanda widening the spreads you can only trade after things have settled down. Besides that I think it’s really just a crap shoot and even too volatile for my scalp trades until any kind of direction looks established. But I didn’t start until late today, and because I was down at the time I figured I could see if I could trade it post announcement. I had also received an email invitation to a webinar sponsored by GFT, details below

Trade Non- Farm Payrolls LIVE with Wayne McDonell - FXstreet.com, FX Bootcamp & Trade the News sponsored this extraordinary event. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity to learn keys to trade this economic report and ask questions to experts while the market is moving!

Despite major problems with the audio on the HotComm s/w they used it was actually a very interesting and educational session. Wayne  didn’t provide exact entry or exit signals but talked through his approach and what he looks for in trading the news. I think I picked up quite a few good ideas from his talk. I didn’t actually follow his trade plan but apart from the regrettable last trade of the day I managed 3 successful trades post NFP. The NFP number was 88K which was way down on what was expected and way down on last month so it was clearly USD negative. The first trade I took 10 minutes after NFP and I got 7.6 pips in 5 minutes in the GBPUSD, the second I got 4 pips in 2 minutes shortly after the first trade also in the GBPUSD, and the 3^rd trade I got 7.3 pips after holding on to it for 30 minutes. As it turned out I’d got out near enough the top of the EURUSD and my last trade I tried to get in on what I thought was a retracement but it had run out of momentum and quickly moved down. So I ended up the day with 1.3 pips, which could have been better, the last trade was unnecessary as I should have been happy with 6 pips for the day at that time. But after being 13 pips down going into the last 4 trades I’m not unhappy. The most interesting thing was that 1.3 pips actually equates to $27 on my current position size but due to the length of time I had my JPY shorts open during the day I ended up getting $36 for the day, a full $9 was interest earned in having those positions open.

So the week in review. I got 40 pips out of 4 days trading, so that’s good. I made a new milestone with the bank up 60%. I had no losing days with 22 winning trades out of 35 for a win rate of 63%. I started the week 3 days behind and I finished 3 days behind. Quite satisfactory really considering the other things going on this week, Oh! Yes did I forget to mention that LIVERPOOL  are in the Champions League Final. Again. .