Central Banks & Big Players

just saw a EUR/USD breakout a few seconds ago

Limit Buy got canceled...I think because of the big Spread :-(

SAME FOR ME

This is the live chart of a failed German IFO trade.

Don't try to analyse it too much. All it means is that my orders (buy and sell) got cancelled even before taking effect because of the exceptionally big spread with oanda. Last time the spread wasn't that big. Then, I took the first direction manually and got faked in the bot.

Here is a successful way this could have been traded (2 techniques)

1. random direction taken before trade (12 pip SL before)

2. limit-buy, limit sell orders again but with bigger SLs (10-12 pips)

Good luck next time and thx oanda for the huge spreads

And I thought I was alone

I'm partly to be blamed for cutting it waaay too close. Supposed to be 7 pips above and 7 pips below the current price. I mis-counted and put in 5 pips above and below. Turned out my Shot order was filled first, and when prices shot upwards, my Long order cancelled out my shots.

There you go... don't feel bad. A multi-year experienced guy like me screwed up too! We'll get it next time. The importance is to appreciate and realize the opportunity laying behind these news. It's possible to profit. I'll be more generous next time. Limit-buy and Limit-sell at about a 10 pips range, 10 pip SL. Or random 12 pip SL entry before news comes out!

We're aiming at a major resistance level

Next month will be better, hold on to this, it's gold.

Thanks Tony! I totally agree with you. We got the general concept there, we just need to fine tune it to get the optimal balance.

It doesn't help when from month to month your broker behaves differently!

I'm gonna give this a shot: German Buba President Weidmann Speaks

If we stay below the resistance, might have a strong move up

That is something we just don't have an answer to. There is one issue that might be of concern to those of us who are dealing with a broker with their own dealing desk.

Essentially they are on the other side of the table, but they have access and can see everybody's limit orders and stop losses. At any point of time, the broker has to accumulate enough "stock-in-trade" to fill orders that are coming in. You want to buy, they will sell and vice-versa. So there's nothing to stop them from momentarily widening the spread, play with slippage to catch whatever weak stops that may be available at any price points. This is just so they can fulfil trades without going to their liquidity provider. This situation is analogous to playing poker when one of the fella at the table can see everybody's cards.

I'm not implying that O does this, but it's just the dynamics of the market and our strategy have to factor in such things so that we can ride the wave without getting cut off by the broker on the other side of the table. That was one of the thing weighing at the back of my mind, and was why I was playing around with no stop losses - just manual (mental) stop loss and manual order entry before I stumble into your thread. It's just a defensive strategy which I think helps me some of the time.

Another thing which I thought of, is the no hedging rules here. If hedging were allowed, I would had come out profitable in the end, albeit with a little less.

i think the gov't basically control everything about how the FX goes. you see US central bank, JP central bank all controlling the currency flow. We just need to follow their move and invest =)

On The German IFO trade ...

I straddled price by 5-6 pips with Limit Orders about 5 secs prior to release. I didnt put an SL. But as soon as my buy got executed and i was up about 10+ pips, i closed out for a nice profit. I believe you need to put a large enough initial SL so your order goes through, but then quickly change that as needed as the trade develops. Also, you need to perfect the technique of adjusting and setting the limit orders just befre the news. Also, i saw a slippage of .7 pips, which is very acceptable to me with Oanda.

Yes, that's exactly what this game is all about. Before I stumble into this thread, I was searching everywhere for the holy grail, the right combination of indicators that gives me early signals and not subject to whipsaw much, if at all. I studied price action and candlesticks with the hope of figuring out the market. In the end I realised it futile. We can at best tell what the market was doing up till the hard right edge, and even somehow shoehorn prices into some fibonacci lines, but nobody can really tell what is going to happen beyond the hard right edge.

In the end, it's the central banks, big banks, big players that's playing the market. Over here I learned to look at the 5 sec chart and nothing more, and follow where the money goes. When it comes to trading this is as pure as it gets.

Rainy days. The whole week was gray. Lost a few friends. The news all failed. Lost just a little bit of money though. I feel like time has stalled. Next week, there are no or almost no tradable/preferential news. I feel gray, even my dress shirt is gray today. Hm. Patience