June 30 2009 Overlay and ES Trades

Prep was good today. As you could see this morning, I had a long bias and thought the market would break 924. I took a long right after the open that eventually got stopped out.

The powerful thing about the morning prep is that I have a premise and a course of action that is already clear and defined when my #1 premise fails. This is part of being a good speculator.

I am not waiting for lagging indicators to help me decide how to react. The preparation has been done via foward looking projections thus there is no internal debate or hesitation about what to do.

I took a late pullback short at around 11:15 EST USA and exited with a few ticks profit after having a 3.5 point excursion then reversed long which brought me back into the green for the day.

I do not often reverse nor take a few ticks profit but I had a powerful long entry timing mechanism I use at one of my key zones.

June 30 2009 Morning Prep

Price is pushing against the 924 line in the sand level. Structure is up. Look for an attempt to extend upward. Next level of resistance is 942. Major resistance at 950.

If 924 fails, look to find inside support at 912 or 907 and potential range to set up.

June 29 2009 Prep Overlay and ES Trades

Today was a massive 5 hour long break even + 1 tick for transaction costs. I was not onscreen for the inside Bid at around 912. This happens sometimes.

I took the short at the 924 zone and nothing happened all day. This could be pre-holiday trading already. I would anticipate a move at some point this week.

Prep was decent this morning. Did not nail the inside support exactly but it was an excellent roadmap for the day.

924 is the line in the sand for this market. An extension upward continues the uptrend and a failure will likely lead to a significant continued selloff.

June 29 2009 Mornig Prep

Prep is detailed this morning. This is a key area. Overall short term structure is up.

We still have not seen another test of 924 which I consider a line in the sand. Since we extended the 910 area a bit over the weekend, the structure tells me we should see an expansion attempt to 924 for a test. If this is going to happen, watch for potential inside support around 914-916. This is not illustrated on the prep. Just be aware of it.

However, by the book, I am looking for a potential range to set up 907-919. If we expand to 924 and hold, look for a retest of 907 and extension attempt downward. If 924 is tested and fails, continuation up.

Weekly Accountability Report 6/20/09-6/26/09

I am still working on the revisions for the accountability report. I want to make it so the blend of colors really represents progress or lack there of for the week. I am finding it difficult to convert my vision into a tangible report.

I am going to have to start doing a report on the progress of the accountability report revisions. This week is going to be very busy. We are hosting a small group of local traders in our office. I hope to find some that are as focused on the business as we are.

Remember that the accountability report currently measures Saturday through Friday. Last week was tough but progress was good.

Areas that were good this week included my analysis of the ES, morning preps, patience in trade execution, and time management.

Areas that need improvement are FX trade selection and exits. It is difficult because my main focus is the ES. I will find balance.

Most notable this week was the extreme accuracy of the morning preps. I have been reading the market very well. I need to press in the coming week and execute.

June 26 2009 Prep Overlay

Had a good read on the market today. The prep was very clear about inside support at 910.

We did not get the test of 924. Watch for it over the weekend.

I bought the area around 10:00 AM EST and had the confidence to just sit on the trade due to the premise in the prep.

It got a little dicey around 11:00 AM EST and many probably had difficulty staying in longs. It was a classic summer grind today and the dip down today was merely an AM stop run.

This was a good solid week. There were no home runs but lots of doubles and few strike outs.

Live ES Trade Result

It was a slow and grinding day. We had the inside Bid Zone nailed this morning on the prep and I traded it. It was a simple yes or no trade on my daily premise.

I would have liked to have seen the trade open up more but still caught over 4 points per contract on a very tight day.

It really turned out to be a day trade. There was no reason to get in and out all day today. The market was not going anywhere.

The prep has guided me through another tough day with some profits.

Live ES Trade Now A Day Trade

Been long since 10:00 AM. Check the prep. Called the 910 area of inside support. Traded accordingly. Will hold for afternoon. Looking for run to 924 area.

June 26 2009 Prep Posted

Good read on the morket this morning. I am looking for inside support to come in at 910. If it holds, I will be anticipating a drive up to 924 and test. If it fails, next areas of support are 907 and 886.75.

Be prepared to act if the price gets to 924 and does not roll off that area. There will be a fight there. If it extends, the bias of the market will shift to the long side.

June 25 2009 Prep Overlay and ES Trades

I have to give my prep a C - today. You can look back and see that the prep has typically been very clear and accurate. I had a good read on the market today but failed to illustrate my written premise text via the grey arrows.

This is actually very interesting and speaks volumes about the habits of a trader. I did my analysis and then inserted the text on the prep. I turns out that the text was correct.

However, when I went to draw the grey vizualization arrows, I "picked" a premise which was not completely inclusive of all the details the market structure was giving me.

In other words, I "thought" correctly but "visualized" poorly.

Then, I traded the visualization arrows with blind confidence in the area even though I was fully aware that 890 held and that I had an expectation of an extension upward.

I was correct with my analysis but executed poorly and lost on the first trade. That is not the only problem. While I was being stubborn about the short, I missed an excellent long entry around 11:22 EST at 903.50.

This kind of failure is fascinating when you look back in hindsight because it seems like it was avoidable. The reality is that it was not avoidable because it is actually what happened.

What does that tell you about the value of backtesting and hindsight??

BTW, I am always very critical of myself in attempt to consistently be improving. It is worth mentioning that I came back at the end of the day with a good long and was in the green today.

Failing and coming back repeatedly is what makes a good trader.

June 25 2009 Morning Prep

Good morning. Here is the delayed morning prep. There is major support below the market at 874. Price keeps finding minor support on the way down there.

I am anticipating a test of the 874 area. We could see a range for today 886.75-907. I will be looking for trades off these areas. If 904-907 area gets tested and fails, there will likely be an extension attempt to the downside.

If the overnight low around 890 holds, look for an extension attempt through the 907 area. This is a tough area. I am only looking for the prime setups off the tops and bottoms of my zones.

Good luck today.

June 24 2009 Prep Overlay

Today was a tough trading day if you were not long at the open. There was a lot of upward structure. Everything felt like it was going to up. However, the overall market structure of the past few days gave me plenty of reasons to attempt a short at 899 this morning.

It was a well executed trade that did not work out. All I can do as a trader is execute consistently. If I do that, I know I can win.

The prep had 2 scenarios today. I have not posted too many of these but they are fairly common. The market does not always have just one readable outcome that is clear. Today there were 2 that were equally viable.

The #2 scenario I described was almost exactly what happened. I traded both scenarios based on the structure that came in. Short at Resistance for a loss and short on a pull back after the morning extension failed.

Of course I would have liked to see the price come all the way back for 886 for a huge winner but it generally does not work out exactly how we want. The important thing is that I knew what to do and I could push the button with confidence when I had to.

Live ES Trade Result

Mixed result on the ES trade. I took 40% of the position off at 4 points profit (based on structure not profit) and the rest went break even. It was a very well executed entry. The exit was fair. It could have been better.

There was a bar that give me a pattern exit according to my plan at 15:42. I did not have the accompanying structure though. Part of trading is knowing when to be completely objective and follow your textbook procedures and knowing when to be SUBJECTIVE.

I decided to let this one open up with the understanding that I was risking a break even on the rest of the position. Over a sample size, if executed consistently, letting trades open up is more profitable.

There are many out there who say you should never give back profit in a trade or the you will not go broke taking profits. This is just plain bad advice that usually comes from somebody who is peddling a system or indicator.

I was down a little bit today in the ES. The week is still looking decent and the last 3 twenty trade samples have been some of the best I have had.

Live Trade ES Short at 897.00

Remember scenario #2 on the prep this morning. That is exactly how the day has unfolded and I am betting on my premise.

Took the pullback short @ 897.00. It was a bit of an early entry but I did not want to miss it.

If you were waiting for confirmation, a nice inverted Pump-Fake occurred after my entry.

My target area is around 886.50.

EURUSD Long Stopped out

The second entry got stopped out. There was absolutely no real support there. I have to take my entries consistently and that was one of them.

The obvious descending triangle won here. I often take the contrarian trade in these situations as I did here.

I will post anything else I take this afternoon. I think it will be interesting for everybody to see how I manage the rest of the day.

I will likely not be taking any more trades until after the FOMC announcement.

First Entry BE, New Entry 1.4013

Had a break even on the first trade. I like this area. I re-entred at 1.4013.

This is a lower probability trade against the short term structure down but I like the risk/reward.

Trade is taking heat now. Stop at 1.3994.

Let's see how it works out.

Live EUR/USD Trade long @ 1.4017

Trade had 25 pip excursion quickly. Now not looking so good. Likely outcome is break even. Going to post anyway.

June 24 2009 Morning Prep

There is an FOMC announcement this afternoon. I have 2 scenarios to watch for today.

Scenario #1 is for a range to form between 899 and 886.50 until the announcement. There will likely be a breakout up or down this afternoon. Major support is at 874 and major resistance is at 924.

Scenario #2 is at attack of 899 in the AM and an extension and grind towards 924. I do not think the market will make it up there by the announcement. If this scenario plays out, there will be a possibility of an afternoon selloff back down to 886.50 for a test and possibly an extension down.

Good luck trading.

June 23 Prep Overlay and ES Trades

We had a grinding and narrow market today. Many retail traders get whipsawed in this type of price action. Truly understanding market structure can help identify these types of conditions in advance.

There have been a number of new readers visit today. I would like to welcome you and thank you for joining.

The morning prep is created before the open without the use of software or indicators and is a key element to my personal trading.

Many like to avoid a grinding congestion but there are plenty of oppotunities when you are prepared.

I did not execute enough today. I had good read on the market but got onscreen a little late and was out of sequence early.

I still managed to catch a good long which captured a reasonable amount of relative volatility. The past two days have been slow and steady in profits. I will take that anytime if it is consistent.

June 23 2009 Prep Posted

Sorry about the delay. Very tight open today. Looking for a micro range between 886.50-895. Trading will be tight.

When this micro range does break I am not expecting much movement. Anticipate a minor expansion 9 points above or below the current congestion.

This could be the first day of real summer trading but remember that things can change quickly.

I will be looking for a more significant move over the next couple days. I will update prep if anything happens today.

June 22 2009 Prep Overlay and ES Trades

Here is the prep overlay for today. Be sure to check the Explanation Of Prep Overlays section if you are new here. I know We have at least 1 new reader. I spoke with them earlier today.

You can see the 899 key area we identified was tested and extended. The price action did not quite make it to 882 yet.

Since 924 was tested and failed and 899 was extended there is a good chance of this market gap-ping down to 882 overnight. Lets see what happens. I generally do not trade overnight premises.

My ES trades are posted above. I was stopped out of my 1st trade which was a long attempt. This trade was simply an attempt to catch a failed extension attempt. There was no reason for it other than extensions tend to fail.

It was a pure risk/reward entry. If you are wondering why I did not take the long entry at 899, which was my BZ (support), it was because I did not have confirmation on the entry.

I do not always wait for confirmation. In this case, I needed it and did not get it. The long I ended up taking had no confirmation but was a trade that if taken 10 times and won 3 times would be profitable in a sample. That is why I took it. That is trading.

Once structure is understood and a premise is defined, there are are number of ways to execute; or be executed on depending on the outcome.

I caught a late sequence short that I rode until the close. I was up just a bit today. No FX trades. Everything was constricted. It was not such a bad Monday.

Weekly Accountability Report 6/13/09 - 6/19/09

Weekly accountability report posted 1 day late. I do not have much commentary on this one other than the report itself.

I did want to address multiple questions I had this week about the "attitude" rating. I gave myself a "pathetic" rating last week.

I do not think "attitude" is the best way to desribe the experience I am trying to rate.

I 100% believe that I will accomplish my goals regardless of what obstacles I encounter. Instead of trying to explain what I am getting at I have decided that I am going to rework some of the ratings categories.

I know it can be an excellent sample of my weekly encounters. This current system is just not up to par with my vision. I will update this week.

June 22 Morning Prep

Good morning traders. Here is the prep for 6/22/09.

Key area today is 899. Look for a potential range to develop 899-924. As you can see, 924 held last week. This could be a major failure in the recent uptrend of the past couple months.

There are 2 scenarios to watch for. If 899 fails, the premise would be for the market to continue downward and test the 882 area.

If 899 holds, look for a test of 924. Also, if 899 holds, note that it would be a significant higher low on a more macro view.

June 18 & 19 Prep Overlays

Hello. I wanted to post some prep overlays so we can compare the morning prep analysis and projections to the actual price action that occurred.

If you are not familiar with the morning prep work I do or the purpose of the overlays, please see the key post area for the links entitled How To Use The Morning Prep and Explanation Of Prep Overlays.

Please review each screen shots in detail. They are in chronological order. You will first see the prep that was originally posted pre-market, then the overlay; which includes the original prep with the background made transparent over the actual price action that painted in for the day.

Remember that the lines on the chart are drawn without the use of software and are done PRIOR to the market open. I post these frequently to demonstrate that you can anticipate how the market will unfold based on structure only.

The prep is actually the easy part. You have to be able to push the button consistently to make money.

Explanation Of Prep Overlays

The prep overlays are used to compare the accuracy of the analysis and premise contained in the morning preps each day. I use this tool often in attempt to constantly improve the way I make forward looking projections.

The Process:

The prep overlay is actually 2 charts. The first is the original morning prep which is posted before the market opens. The second is an updated chart containing the original price action and the NEW price action that occurred between the original posting of the prep and the close.

The new chart is actually pasted on the original and the background is made transparent. This allows you to see all the contents of the original prep (zones, premise, grey arrows) with the new price action populated on the original chart.

If you look at the side of the charts where the price and time is at, you will often see the data slightly blurred because it is actually 2 sets of data laid over each other.

Black/Green Bars Vs. Green Bars:

You will see 2 different colored OHLC bars on a prep overlay. This is done for two reasons. The first is to demonstrate that the new price action lines up with the old so the reader can see that the same sample of data was used for both charts. The second is to illustrate the difference between the original price action and the new.

Remember that the original support/resistance zones, premise, and grey arrows are produced prior the the market open.

The black/green bars are the original price bars contained on the initial morning prep posting. The black are from the original chart and the green overlay highlights are from the new chart.

The green only bars are the new price action that occurred after the prep was posted. These are used to measure how the support and resistance zones held up.

A prep that was well done will have the green bars respecting the blue and magenta lines that were created on the original prep. You can also check to see if the grey arrows match the price but this can not be counted on for trades.

Please see chart below:

How To Use The Morning Prep

The purpose of the prep is to establish areas of support and resistance and a premise for the day. This information is key to being prepared to execute once the price approaches the defined areas.

Many of the procedures I use to create the prep and the context of the terms used are proprietary in nature. This means that I will not always publicly explain certain aspects of my work.

I believe the information that is provided will be extremely helpful to the reader and also contribute to the learning process. Projections are not trading advice so please use your own judgement.

The prep has 3 main components. the areas of support and resistance, the written premise/notes for the day, and the grey arrows.

The areas of support and resistance are specific price levels defined by blue or magenta lines where I expect the price to hold or extend. Ranges will often be established between these zones and clarified with orange arrows.

The written premise/notes for the day is generally in the upper right hand portion of the prep. It will contain key levels to watch and a range to work with for the day. There will often be a primary scenario and a backup scenario in case the primary fails. This will be a description of what I am actually expecting the market to do.

The grey arrows are my attempt to help you visualize how I project the price action moving forward. There will often be an initial projection and a secondary in case the price extends its range or moves sideways from a trending market.

The grey arrows are not meant to be traded. Even though they tend to be accurate, they are solely a visualization.

The morning prep is key to my success as a trader. It is prepared without the use of special software, proprietary oscillators, moving averages, or Fibonacci tools. Creating the morning prep is a skill that can be acquired.

Without the morning prep, I would be entering trades without context to the direction of the market or expectation of distance for the price to travel from my entry point.

Please see the chart below. The red arrows and text provide explanations for the key areas on the prep. It looks crowded but everything you need to interpret is here:

June 19 2009 Morning Prep

Hello Traders! June 19 Morning Prep posted.

Look for attack of 924 in AM and extension attempt. If 924 holds, it could be a grind for the rest of the day. Potential tight inside range 911.25 - 924. Today is quadruple witching options expiration so watch out.

Good luck trading.

June 18 2009 Morning Prep

Hello everyone. Here is the morning prep for today.

The ES has been trending down for the past couple days. I am looking for an inside range to confirm between 899 and 912. Fairly simple premise is sideways and watch for the breakout.

If inside support breaks look for a test of the 882 area where there is major support. If inside resistance breaks, look for a run back up to the highs.

The 924 area is key today. If that holds, we are still trending down and possible rolling over for a significant downside move. If 924 breaks, look for a retest of the 950 area.

Good luck trading today.

Grinding Today

Good evening. I wanted to thank everybody for your comments about the weekly accountability report. I am going to address many of the questions and comments in a post this weekend.

I had a virtual break even today in the ES and spot FX. I am going to post some morning prep here tomorrow.

Postings have been a little on the light side since I started this blog. I am still trying to find the appropriate rhythm. It will improve over time. I intend to start tracking a live account on a daily basis soon.

I went to a webinar today where the host was saying that trading was "easy" and made it seem like anybody could be making $1000.00 per day if they just followed his system. This really irritated me. I have never met ANYBODY who made a career out of this sort of nonsense. If you have, please contact me and I will publicly test the system or methodology for everybody to see.

I have a lot to say about this trend that is becoming more and more popular on the educational side but I am just going to give one solid piece of advice tonight for anybody looking for help: Please do not visit websites or chat rooms that have a pop up asking for your name and e-mail on their homepage. If you stick to that simple litmus test, you will likely avoid at least 1/2 if the traps many new traders fall into.

My opinion is there is no replacement for hardship and hard work. That is what molds a good trader. I can hold my own but I am still working on my skill. I will always be in that mode.

Weekly Accountability Report 6/6/09-6/12/09

Good evening. Here is the first Weekly Accountability Report (Click to enlarge). The concept does not exactly come together like I thought it would but we will see where it goes. I hope to gain some insight into my productivity and even be able to improve on certain aspects.

You can see that I had a good week with the ES. One of my best this year. Spot FX was just plain bad. I actually lost money this week in FX. I am still working on finding the appropriate time frame to structure and execute on. That is no excuse but an indication that this is a fairly new project and should get better in the coming weeks. My analysis started performing well towards the end of the week. I need to catch up on the execution.

I accomplished a lot this week but found myself very agitated about not doing better throughout the week. I am rarely content with anything but spent most of this week especially down. I still performed well but some of these measurements are not about production (IE- Attitude). You will likely see a pattern of this in the coming months. I am not easy to be around on a personal level unless I am accomplishing a lot.

We will see if there is any correlation between my "Attitude" rating and my production. I doubt it but I have been wrong before.

Weekly Accountability Report Explanation

I am going to start posting a weekly accountability report every weekend. This will be a measurement of the previous week's performance in a number of different areas.

It is important that I hold myself accountable for what I am doing. I am extremely hard on myself so it will be interesting to see how I grade my activity.

You can see on the scale below the best possible outcome is "GOOD" and the lowest rating is "PATHETIC". I anticipate spending a lot of time in "FAIR" and "BARELY ACCEPTABLE" territory.

This will mean that I am producing but there is room for improvement. Some of these ratings will be subjective due to the constantly changing trading environment.

Explanations of subjective ratings will be provided in the accompanying commentary. Please see the grid and notable points about the objectivity or subjectivity of the ratings system below:
Profitability: Measures both points captured and win/loss ratio. A GOOD rating requires a weekly profit of 20 points/100 pips per contract/lot and a win/loss ratio > 1.5/1. A fail rating does not neccisarily mean there was no profit. For example, I could rate myself "FAIL" for a profitable week while only capturing a very limited amount of volatitily the market offered.

Execution: Measures consistancy of entrires and winning %. A "GOOD" rating requires and winning % of > 55% and consistent repeatable entries. The other ratings will be quite subjective. This will include consistent use of entry timing mechanisms and structural analysis.

Exits: Measures the consistency of exits and the volatility captured vs. premise of the trade. For example, if there are too many breaks evens that ended up being wining trades or if too much open equity is given back throughout the week, a lower rating will be given.

Time Management: Measures how I allocated my time towards the many different aspects of my business and personal life. This will be subjective but a "GOOD" rating will require my belief that I made significant progress toward my primary objectives and could not have done much more considering the tasks at hand that week. This will be measured Sat through Fri.

Energy: Measures the level of physical and mental intensity that I was able to maintain throughout the week. This will be affected by items such as proper diet, sleep, motivation, and physical conditioning. Measurement will be taken Sat through Fri.

Attitude: Measures my mental state Sat through Fri. It Will tend to be weighted to how I feel on Friday about the work week and my situation in general. This is not about being "positive". I tend to be negative and there is nothing wrong with that. It is about how I FEEL about my situation at this point in time. I suppose this is a lagging indicator of sorts but think it should be measured.

Workouts: Measures whether I physically worked out all week or not. I think working out is key to being successful and take it very seriously. It costs me hours I could be producing to go to the gym or jog. This is a trade off. Measurement will be strictly objective. I will not wax eloquent on the "quality" of the workout. Good = 5 days, Fair = 4 days, Fail = 3 days, Pathetic = 2 or less days. Minimum 45 minutes to count. Measured Sat though Fri.

Jog: I would like to run a marathon within the next year. I jog once per week outdoors for distance and do various indoor runs/intervals throughout the week. The rating will be based on improving either distance or speed over the prior weeks run/jog. BTW, I consider anything anyhting less than 7 MPH average per mile to be a jog and anything over that to be a run.

Diet: Measures the quality of my diet throughout the week. I believe in low caloric intake but love to eat Mexican food. I have significantly more energy when on a restrictive diet which leads to more productivity but it can be taken too far and cost productivity. The rating will be based on how I manage intake. Measured Sat through Fri.

I may make changes to this report over time as needed. I promise to keep it fair and consistent.

Update To Previous Post: Live Trade Stopped Out

Hello again. The USD/JPY trade posted earlier got stopped out while I was at the gym. This is a recurring event this week accept the others were break evens.

Remember that these are only a fraction of my trades so any individual winner or looser is fairly insignificant in a sample size. Also, there is no FLUFF on this blog so nothing will be held back.

I have prepared an overlay to demonstrate original and projected trade outcome to actual. The black price action and zones are the original posting and the green price action is the actual taken moments ago. The orange arrow has been added to show where the trade got stopped out.

Some might ask why I go through so much trouble to demonstrate the mechanics of one of my loosing trades.

Live Trade Take Two

Good evening (morning in Australia and New Zealand). I am going to post another live trade that I am in.

The other last got stopped out break even after a 60 pip excursion. It was frustrating but I was going for a larger move. Same situation here. I have open equity starting to build but I am going to hold the position. My trading style is to let the trade open up and achieve its natural target. Does it always work? No. Lately, especially in the spot forex, I am getting constantly stopped out break even after significant open equity is obtained.

Many would have taken profits far sooner. That is OK. I personally prefer larger runs. I am currently not scaling out of the FX as I do in the ES. I will discuss this subject further in another post.

I have also posted my ES trades from yesterday and today. You can see I got stopped out twice in a row yesterday trying to get long the ES. I do not see too many bloggers posting their losses. I want to demonstrate reality here. Fortunately, I battled back for a reasonable profit on the day. Today, I started with a low tick stop out but re-entered and caught the move up. This is something that I used to struggle with. Just because you get stopped out does not necessarily mean the premise is bad. However, you have to know when to admit you are wrong (which happens frequently for me and most other traders).

It might not be good to post my live trades before they are over. Like when you put your feet on your desk when you think you have the perfect entry or start talking about how good it is and then it reverses and stops you out. This never fails to be true. I do not think anything I post is particularly better than the others. I am simply posting what I am doing when I write. This will even out in a sample size just like your trades should.

I am 0 for 3 this week with live executions I have posted for people (2 break evens/1 loss). I am not afraid to admit that. They are all good trades. I have got a couple bad ones too but I am not going to show those tonight.

Forex Trading Late Night

I have been trading spot forex in the evenings. I am primarily a futures trader but have found that there is good trading in certain currency pairs when I get home between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM EST (USA).

This is not only good practice but rather enjoyable. There are few professions I can think of that you do for 10-12 hours a day then go home and enjoy doing more.

I have found myself getting into trouble lately taking entries that have excellent structure on a 5 minute or 400 tick chart but no significant support or resistance on a higher time frame. These trades often accomplish 10-30 pips open equity then retest my entry point and often violently push through and run any reasonable stop I had in place.

This makes it difficult to manage win % and win/loss ratio. I seem to need at least a 15-20 pip stop in most cases which means I do not want to take profits that are much less than 40 pips.

This leads me to determine that unless you are somehow scalping in these markets, it is imperative to structure your trades on an hourly chart or higher THEN fine tune the entry with a shorter time frame chart.

The problem recently is that I do not see many entries on the hourly charts. Maybe some of you that watch the FX markets can concur. Everything is at the end of a massive action or reaction move. I can not find much longer term support or resistance.

So I am up at midnight taking fairly low probability trades for the sake of seeing some ACTION and getting frustrated with the results. I started watching FX because there are many pairs so there has to be more good setups right? Not exactly. Most of the spot FX pairs have a direct negative or positive correlation with the indexes. This means that most currency pairs either move with or inverse to the indexes. So I may see many more setups in the FX but most are frankly just noise.

I still think you can establish a good edge in the spot FX and when you are right and the volatility can lead to huge profits. However, you must be MORE selective with your trades. Watching as many pairs as I do tends to make me less selective which explains why my FX performance has been less than adequate over the past week or so.

I suppose writing about this is good training for me. I have just outlined why my FX trading is grinding a bit lately. Much better than any red/green arrow system or "robot" everybody is trying to sell.

I have posted a USDJPY short im in right now 4:22 PM EST USA. We will see if it opens up. Also, a couple good ES sequences from the past week.