EURUSD
By Laetitia Vaval | October 11, 2007
I just entered a long EURUSD position at 1.4215. I realize this is probably not an ideal entry point I realize, but I’ve been away for a while and didn’t get a chance to trade before. The Euro tested an all-time high at 1.4280 almost 2 weeks ago and has now been in a steady uptrend for the past 3 days. It seems that it is either about to test this all-time again to form a double top or trade past this level and toward 1.43.
In the case that a double top forms, my upside is: 1.4280-1.42153 = 65pips. I must therefore place my stop about 35 pips below my entry point (1.4215) at 1.4180 in order to have a 2:1 risk reward ratio. If the Euro breaks that all-time high then it could possibly trade up to 1.43 and higher and in that case.
U.S. retail sales are being released tomorrow morning at 8:30, and it will affect my trade if it differs from expectations as the EURUSD is the primary currency pair affected. I’ll need to closely monitor the trade during the release since there will be a lot of volatility and my stop might be too tight. will update after the release.
Tags: eurusd, retail sales, wall street warriors
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Trip to Europe
By Laetitia Vaval | October 10, 2007
I’ve just come back from a two-week trip to Europe. Needless to say that I sure felt the weakness of the dollar. I usually love to shop when I am in Paris but this time around everything was so expensive that it took away much of the fun.
I also visited London for the first time, and despite having heard many times that London was one of the most expensive cities in the world, I still couldn’t believe how high the cost of living was. It seemed as if everything cost exactly TWICE as much over there than it does in New York. For example, a 1-week subway pass is about 22 pounds over there (which is about US $45 !! — twice as much as what it costs here). A simple subway ride is 4 pounds — US $ 8 !!! Food, clothing, transportation seemed to keep the same numerical value as in the U.S. ( 32 for a basic T-Shirt, 12 for a pizza, etc) except that instead of being expressing in dollars prices were in Pounds (i.e. more than doubled).
Even duty-free over there wasn’t all that worth it given the exchange rate…
It was really interesting going there at this time, right after my stay at FXCM. I never had really paid much attention to exchange rates in the past, but my trip was a first-hand demonstration of the current situation with the US Dollar.
Tags: currency market, dollar, fxcm, laetitia vaval, wall street warrior, wall street warriors
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Afternoon Trade
By Laetitia Vaval | September 21, 2007
I entered a short-term position (probably until tomorrow) position in CHF/JPY earlier today. I had noticed that it was trading in a range between 98.56 and 98.20. I got short “relatively” close to the top of the range at 98.483 (middle black line), placed my protective stop at 99.350 ( a previous support level — on the 1 yr chart. Since i’ll be holding this trade overnight i’m going to set a limit price at 98.00 (lower green horizontal line on the chart above). From the different colored lines you can easily see that my risk vs. reward ratio is not optimal in this trade. It seems to be about 2:1 (when it should be 1:2)…
Tags: currency market, forex, forextrading, jpy, wall street warrior, wall street warriors
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Canadian Retail Sales - part 2
By Laetitia Vaval | September 21, 2007
So the Canadian Retail Sales numbers came out, and I was completely wrong since they came out worse than expected (-0.8% vs. 0.0% expected). Of course, the USD shot up about 30pips and now I’m down about 25pips. That’ll teach me NOT to make my own assumptions about economic data!
Tags: dow, economic release, forex market, pips, retail sales, wall street warriors
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CHF/JPY results
By Laetitia Vaval | September 20, 2007
So i just got in the office and checked on my trades from yesterday. Especially, the CHFJPY trade that I “forced” myself not to touch once I had entered it in the system. So my limit price of 98.25 was reached and i made a 24 pip profit ($207). This really shows the benefits of letting the trade work by itself instead of “irrationally” closing my position as soon as it starts ticking a few pips against me. My only regret in this case is to not have set my limit higher because CHFJPY traded all the way up to 98.50 before trading back down to the level where I had bought the pair. Something to consider for my next trade.
Tags: currency trading, dow, forex, forex market, jpy, trades, wall street warriors
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Range Trading CHFJPY
By Laetitia Vaval | September 19, 2007
I just opened a position in the CHFJPY as I am looking to range trade this afternoon. The CHFJPY has been trading in a range between since yesterday afternoon between 97.92 and 98.30. I entered the trade (got long) at 98.01 about 8 pips away from the bottom range( I realize this might not be an ideal entry point given that the range is relatively narrow), placed a stop at 97.78 (2pips below the bottom of the range — including the candle wicks), and a limit at 98.26 (the top of the trading range). I am going to use this trade to really respect the stops I placed initially.
I’ve seen that one of my biggest problems is that as soon as a pair starts trading against me, I just close the position without even waiting for it to hit my stop and that has made me loose a lot of “fake” money since after I closed out my position, the pair would trade back in my favor. I also placed a limit at 98.250 as I will be stepping out to lunch soon and therefore won’t be in front of the computer for a little while. But my main goal for this trade is to leave it untouched until it hits either my Stop or my Limit prices. And to learn to control my emotions, because as I write the CHFJPY is trading against me and I’m tempted to just close out my position ! But I’m going to let it trade “by itself”. Will update in a little bit.
Tags: forex, forextrading, jpy, laetitia vaval, range trading, wall street warriors
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Trading The Pound
By Laetitia Vaval | September 17, 2007
Today, I decided to mostly focus on the Sterling and more precisely on the GBPUSD in light of the recent financial turmoil Great Britain has been facing. One of Britain’s largest mortgage lender, Northern Rock has seen its customers rush to branches to withdraw their money as response to the bank’s financial trouble. At 7:37AM EST I decided to get long ( I had a very short term frame — about an hour or so max): I got long at 1.9987 and held the position for 16 pip up to 2.0003 and sold my lot there, expecting to see a reversal and watch the pound trade down in light of the recent economic events. However, it traded up further up to about 2.00294.
Finally, the GBPUSD broke down and traded down very rapidly all the way down to about 1.9913. I sold one lot at 2.0012. I made one major mistake, i bought my lot about 20pips lower, and seeing that it kept trading down sold it again, then bought it back again 20 pips lower. All in all the GBP traded down about 100pips over a very short period of time. However, I failed to make all the potential profits I could have made, and got in and out, in and out of a trade again, wasting tens if not hundreds of dollars by paying the spread several times and by selling off several pips lower than where i had just bought back.
On the chart above, you can see the GBPUSD drop about 100pips between 9:30 and 11:30ish.
Tags: dollar, dow, forex, forextrading, gbp, wall street warriors
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Trading when economic data is released
By Laetitia Vaval | September 13, 2007
Today, I’m going to write a little bit about having a position open when major economic data is released. As I wrote on my previous thread, I opened a long position in the GBPUSD yesterday and decided to keep my position overnight. By doing so I made a major mistake: I didn’t check the economic calendar on DailyFx and therefore was not aware that the UK was releasing its RICS House Price Balance for the month of August at 23:01GMT. This indicator measures the costs of homes in the U.K. and was estimated to come out at 10.0%. A rise in house prices usually reflects an overall strong housing market and strong economy. However, this number came out at -1.8% much below expectations and even showed a decrease in the cost of homes — an indicator of an overall weak economy.
Of course the GBPUSD reacted to this disapointing news and dipped about 30pips below the level it was trading at before the release. Having placed my stop at 2.027, I was stopped out at 19:34 EST. The fact that I was not aware of this important overnight news release didn’t allow me to adjust my stop price since I should have foreshadowed that the GBPUSD would be fluctuating greatly following the release. So as I wrote earlier, I was stopped out at 2.027 — a 46pip loss. Of course, the pound traded back up slowly and peaked at 2.03440 mid-day today.
This mistake is in some way very valuable because it taught me to check which indicators will be released overnight, the consequences they may have on the positions I am holding and how to make the necessary adjustements to avoid big losses.
Today, I am trading the EURUSD and the USDJPY, and have to take into consideration that major economic releases will be coming out tonight regarding both the US and Japan. At 8:30 EST tomorrow morning, Advance Retail Sales - a major market moving indicator — will be released and could trigger a rather large move for the EURUSD if not in line with the 0.5% expectations for August. Japan will also be releasing some relatively important data overnight regarding Industrial Production — which could have a market moving impact on the USDJPY.
I’m going to hold my EURUSD position overnight, as I am looking to keep it for a longer period of time. I’m going to make sure I place a large enough stop, so that I do not get stopped out of my position if the US economic numbers come out better than expected. I’m going to place my stop at 1.3777 which was a good support level on 09/10/07.
Tags: dailyfx, dow, economic release, eurusd, gbp, housing market, pips, retail sales, wall street warriors
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The Second Day
By Laetitia Vaval | September 12, 2007
Today, I placed two trades on my demo account.
The first trade involved the GBP/USD pair. As you can see from the chart above, the pair has been trading in a range for a few days now. The wider range this pair was trading at can be set to 2.0358 - 2.0228. If you look at a shorter time frame, the range can be narrowed down to 2.0358 - 2.0281. I decided to trade that range, meaning to get long at the bottom of the range and short at the top. I got long the Sterling at 2.0316. I placed my stop 10pips below the 2.0281 support level at 2.0270.
Ialso had a long bias because the recent weakness of the USD and the relatively good unemployement news that came out in the UK overnight.
My second trade was buying the AUDUSD. On the 1yr chart (2nd chart), you can see that 0.8397 had been a resistance level in mid-April.
As far as fundamental analysis goes, the September Australian Westpac numbers came out above expectations during the night and indicated a 4.2% increase in consumer confidence since August. According to the Daily FX the Westpac number has a moderate impact on the market, however it might be partly responsible for today’s uptrend in the AUD.
At 10:18am, I got long the AUD at .8388. At 12:52pm, I’m up 32pips.
I placed my stop at 0.8277 and my limit at .0581. I placed my stop at the 50% fib level which closely matches the S1(daily) pivot level of 0.8273. My limit was placed close the nearest resistance level of 0.8600.
Tags: dailyfx, dow, forextrading, fxcm, gbp, pips, trades, wall street warriors
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