Silent Service Method

I know you take s&r from weekly but on eu I am short biased, a key level for me is the 4620 level (daily cluster). I would like to see that broken and a small retrace with follow up.

Your analysis on this pair and the yen gives me some confidence.

Good Short - I was also long the USD but vs. JPY and that's been a nice one, now i'm just grappling w/ how best to manager the trade. Not sure I want to leave it open over the weekend or not... We'll see what happens...

To be honest, I am planning on holding onto this trade for a long time. So for me, closing over the weekend isn't a thought.

Thanks for the compliment. I am thinking this is the start of something bigger.....but then again, I could be wrong?

Good call on the Euro
I was too patient on this one thinking of shorting all week just looking for too high level

Yeah, not a bad idea given the way the weekly is shaping up on USD/JPY (Looks like a nice pinbar off support). Patience is a virtue I'm working on...with some success...

No worries.

Here's a simple way to do it......

Have a friend or your spouse change the password on your trading account. Have them give it to you in 30 days.

It's been a while since I've been on here, but I'll tell you what, it's good to be back.

I was short on E/U all fall and it finally paid off! I did however close my position today...I AM short e/u but am nervous about how quickly it fell over the last two weeks...I am at least looking for a "dead cat" bounce to re-enter after the start of next week. I see good support @ 1.4600 but even stronger resistance @ 1.48/49 <--- this is where I'd like to get back in...

I go into more details on my blog if anyone is interested...

Good to see you still active and posting Clockwork!

With the accross the board rise in the USD, fall in gold, etc., what does it all mean for equities? A big part of the rise in the stock market was dollar driven, with the inverse relationship and all. So perhaps we should tighten our stops, or even sell? I am going to opt for watchful waiting with tight stops.

Johnny,

This isn't really an answer, but I'll take a stab at what you're asking.

The second question (short or tighten stops on longs), is it in reference to equities or forex? Dollar strength will be good short opportunities in FX, but at the moment, stocks are showing a weaker level of correlation than usual (as I write stocks are going up and gold is going down).

There have been a number of days when stocks and bonds have moved in lockstep, and also stocks and the dollar. If gold and equities find themselves moving in opposite directions, we have another "shift" we should pay attention to.

So to try and answer, in regards to FX, we will definitely be able to find new long-dollar opportunities, but should consider each one on it's own merit. And in regards to equities, we need to watch and see if today's correlations still hold, and can be used for decision support, or if certain relationships are re-arranging themselves.

I hope this isn't too confusing, I just had my first cup of coffee.

Being cautious is certainly not a bad idea. However, I believe we are seeing a fundamental shift in the USD, and what it means for everything else. (Don't worry, I am still a technical trader.....lol)

What I mean is that the USD is gaining strength as stocks are today, because of the strength of the United States. It appears we are better off than we thought, and may actually lead the Western world out of this recession.

China cannot do it alone. If the US is truly waking up, the world will follow. Anyone here remember last year when they all said the rest of the world is "decoupling" form the US? How did that work out for you? So it's probably safe to say as we go up - the rest will eventually.

Europe has some serious issues with Ireland, Spain, Greece, and Italy all having possible debt issue. The UK isn't too far behind the continent in that regard. Really....by default the USD will win in this situation.

Believe it or not - the USD and stocks can both go up.

Chris

You can just call these the PIGS for short:

Portugal, Italy/Ireland, Greece, Spain

As bad as we may think things are here in the states, there are a lot of issues in other countries as well... So whenever you hear someone talk about the oncoming "collapse" of the dollar, make sure you ask "Versus what?"

Exactly.

LOL. I just noticed that I have officially been "vouched". Which is somewhat scary considering what I've just been through. I'm going to share my little story here in hopes that it benefits someone else, somewhere down the line.

About 2 weeks ago I took an over-leveraged position (2 actually) long gold. It was like money falling from the sky. Those on the public forum do not know that I am trading a $300 USD account, and that trade made $80. One of the worst possible things that can happen to a trader is to be rewarded for an irresponsible move.

I was so impressed with myself that I tried to repeat my glorious new M15 strategy. And wiped out about 30% of my account over 9 days. Now, $100 dollars is a pretty cheap lesson in this world, but 30% is 30% no matter how you slice it, and it's forced me to realize that all the strategy in the world in completely meaningless if you lack the discipline to adhere to your plan.

The hardest part about this experience is that once I turned off the live platform and went to demo, it was clear that there were not any good trades I wanted to take, so I just watched for a minute and then went and did something else. This tells me a large part of my mistakes were not driven by a flawed understanding of the charts, but by simple human greed, and that this is not something that can be overcome through practice in a risk-free environment. It's about my relationship with money, real money.
I had experienced the fast-money and loved every minute of it. Trouble is, you will lose it just as fast as you make it with leverage, and being rich tomorrow and broke next year is not part of the plan.

As much as I'd love to go on and on about how "bad I feel" about what I did, even the notion of such a statement makes it abundantly clear that "how I feel" plays too-substantial a role in my trading decisions, which as all the cliche's tell us, is the autobahn to poverty.

So here I am....stuck with a problem that only I can solve. Faced with a common dilemma, about which much has been written, and nearly all of it I could repeat verbatim, and which would be little more than a bunch of empty words on a page in some vain attempt to salvage my image here amongst my peers.

Discipline.

It's a small word for all that it means. And words without complimentary actions are nothing but lies.

At first, like any newbie, I was beat by the market, and by my own ignorance of it. Now I understand that I must truly master myself in order to progress to the next level.

I wanted to start simple, and so have decided not to place any live trades until the new year. This alone will be challenging for me because I am a fearless punter. Should I make it to January, I will have proven to myself that I can make a simple choice and see it through, and will begin real trading again with the understanding that no matter how well I seem to be doing, in this business, failure is like your shadow, no matter how far you walk, it's still right behind you, and all it takes is a few dumb moves to unwind all of your hard work.

Goals:

-Focus on good trades, good RR, and good %. Ignore the dollars.

-Document all trades. If I "don't have the time" to fully justify a trade, I probably shouldn't be in it.

-Spend less time looking at the charts. Checking in every 4-8 hours should provide more than enough opportunities.

-Work on decoupling my emotional responses from my PL.

-Never forget that I am only one bad trade away from decimating my account.

-Stop preaching, start practicing.


Best of luck to all you traders,

David

http://i45.tinypic.com/dbnnh2.png

This chart was one of my reasons for going long the USD against a few other currencies. (EUR and JPY)

Chris

And this post explains exactly why you got the vouch. I have been reading your posts in the private thread as well. I think 2010 will be a break out year for you, as long as you apply what you are learning. It appears to me you will.

Chris

Chart of the week updated on site.

Agree with that, Chris

... a pretty mature post by Low, indeed!

Cheers!