Pitchfork Goldmine!

No need to double-post, but if you have a chart and questions, you can post here. I will do what I can to answer them in the context of this thread.

All the best,

FX4

Okay traders....

Weekly wrap-ups are now posted on the blog. Added black gold (oil) for those who may be interested. We'll see how it behaves around those fork lines.

Enjoy!


FX4

Shorted EU today...charts are below. First entry was a bit early, but closed in profit. Took the second short entry after price started to move away from the WL. Second chart shows PA when I exited. Did not send a signal though. Still warming up a bit after the holidays.

Hope you have had a good trading day thus far.

FX4

Hi Traders,

Thought this was an interesting read for those who really want to succeed. This came from Forbes.com. Parts I thought were of great interest I made the text bold. All goes to show that success doesn't just happen: it requires extreme focus and hard work. All the best in 2012 as we all try to go beyond our efforts and results in 2011!

10,000 Hours
Matt Barney, Infosys

How often have you been told that experience is the best teacher, and that most of leadership development is all about what you’ll do next? It turns out that rule of thumb is roughly right – but only when it comes to concerted, deliberate practice. The work of Ericsson is seminal in helping us engineer better kinds of performance and development. He and his colleagues have done dozens of studies on what distinguishes novices from experts, and consistently find that it takes about 10 years or 10,000 hours of concerted practice before one becomes an expert (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). They’ve found this to be true in every field they’ve ever studied, from musicians, to writers, scientists and my friend David Day suggests this applies to leaders as well (Day, Harrison & Halpin, 2009).

But only deliberate practice actually develops this expertise. It takes much more than 10,000 hours to achieve the highest levels of eminence, such as a Nobel Prize (Ericsson, Prietula & Cokely, 2007). With Ericsson’s musician studies, for example, expert musicians had studied for 10 years also practiced for 25 hours per week, three times more than the less accomplished musicians – and amateurs only practiced 2 hours per week (Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer, 1993). The elites who serve as the teachers and admired role models of gurus have invested multiples of decades in themselves to be able to perform at such incredibly high levels.

And practicing easy things you’ve already mastered isn’t going to grow you either. There is plenty of evidence that experts become proficient by consistently practicing at ever-more-difficult levels of achievement. This is a key reason I’m convinced you can’t do good leader development – to match the right level of challenge to the leader – unless you have good, Rasch Measurement-based assessments of leaders.

Doesn’t this make good intuitive sense? If everyone were investing considerable, deliberate and sustained effort to grow their proficiency levels at their own personal “sweet spot”, then leaders like Steve Jobs wouldn’t be so incredible rare. When I coach leaders, I remind them that if they can’t do something well, or at all, they better invest time and effort to grow it, or not be surprised with their subsequent disappointment. How much time are you investing in your own development?

References

Day, D.V., Harrison, M.M., & Halpin, S.M. (2009). An integrative approach to leader development: Connecting adult development, identity and expertise. New York: Routledge.

Ericsson, K.A. & Krampe, R.T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Pychological Review, 100, 363-406.

Ericsson, K.A., & Lehmann, A.C. (1996). Expert and exceptional performance: Evidence of maximal adaptation to task constraints. Annual Review of Psychology, 47, 273-305.

+12 pips on Usd-Chf. This was a scalp. Sent a signal on this one. Could go lower, but want to see some more action first. Bulls still in the area.

FX4

Hello traders,

The weekly wrap-ups are now posted on the blog. Lines from last week worked out quite well on those 10 pairs, metals and oil. Let's see how things will play out this week.

Take care,

FX4

P.S. Welcome back to those traders who took last week off.

Up about 20 pips on Usd-Cad. Signal chart attached.

Shorted because of resistance in the areas of the SHs and the WL, eventually being confirmed by resistance along the red U-MLH.

Closed with +24 pips. Closing chart is attached. A little bullish sentiment beginning to kick in. Decided to bank my profits .

FX4

My apologies. Decided to delete the post on the Reverse Double-Dutch Fork Trading Strategy as it may be too advanced for some and also may require more explanation on my part than I have time for at the moment.

FX4

Hey May I ask a question


I have attached a chart ... My question is

1) Would you mind telling me whether the pitchfork in the chart is correct or not ?

It is ok if you just say YES or NO .. Up to u

Your fork is drawn correctly from a technical stand point, but, which way is price going? You are not reading the direction of price with your fork. If you think your fork is describing price action (and it is not), and you are trading with that belief, you'll keep getting stopped out. Now if you are using a counter-trending fork and you know that, and trade with that understanding, that's a different story.

FX4

That's exactly right...what you need to do here is back that fork up one swing each and get an upsloping angle in the direction of price...if you are looking for a downsloping fork you may want to back your A point all the way back up the chart and spread b and c the width there from top to bottom. You really don't want to drawn in an opposing fork though until some "significant" pivots are broken to the down side.

Shorted Eur-Gbp and things began working well (was up about 6 pips)...then came Spanish and Italian Bond Auctions...my trading buddy dug that information out for me. As you can see, price blasted off. The good thing is I felt good about taking the loss: no emotional heartburn. Charts are below. Why did I exit? Price violated my entry strategy.

Note: Had I seen it earlier, my entry would have been closer to the Double Top formation in the gold rectangle. Still a cautious short and short-term play as buyers could have stepped up at the green L-MLH.

FX4

Adjusted the anchor pivot of the larger green fork for another view. This one paints a better picture. Added teal fork as price progressed.

FX4

Just popping in to let readers know that the weekly wrap-up of the pairs I follow will be on the blog by the beginning of the Tokyo session today.

Take care,

FX4

Saw this as I was in the middle of getting some office things done. Couldn't resist the quick +10 pips. More focus, more pips right? For me that is how it seems to work. Getting better at clearing the calendar .

Charts attached.

FX4

P.S. US Bank Holiday today.

Shorted EU this morning. Got in a little early, so I was in for a wild EU push upward. Was up +11 pips before the up-move. Closed with a loss as I did not know how much push the bulls would be able to achieve. Lots happening in Europe these days...gotta be nimble and flexible.

Anyway, here are the entry charts and the chart as I was posting. The first red WL shown by the blue arrow was my first target. Closed down 31 pips. Placed two shorts later to recover the account.

FX4

Hello traders,

Had some internet connectivity issues that threw off my schedule a bit. The weekly wrap-ups of the pairs I follow should be on the blog by the London Session.

Enjoy and have a great week.

FX4

Hello again traders,

Did no trading last week...too much on my plate. Should be back this week.

The weekly wrap-ups should be up by the start of the London Session. Beginning next weekend, I will try to go back to having these up by Saturday at midnight EST.

Have a great trading week.

FX4

P.S. Started a very interesting discussion topic on how traders can overcome the heart-mind issues of trading. Having a system or method is a must, but if each trader does not develop themselves, I'd venture to say they'd never make it..unless they can find a robot that they can trust. Think you'll be surprised what you will read there. There's a link in my signature.

Still trading...but some very quick scalps. Will see how I can regroup for next week.

FX4

Hello traders,

Weekly wrap-ups of the ten currency pairs as well as gold, silver and oil are now posted on the blog.

Will do my best to get some more trades off this week.

Take care,

FX4