Hi N and all esle,
There I was yesterday wittering on about thin markets when of course the good old US was on a public holiday (I had it pegged for next week for some reason), so ignore yesterday's rambles as I dont trade UK, USA public holidays. Got the "red face" blushes out of the way, so onto today's bun fight....
GU; Chop monster was around at the start here and got its bite marks on my backside as proof! First trade waited with sell stop at 64012 which nearly got filled by 08:15 bar and, after rising then falling again, was filled during 08:50 bar and price moved down then promptly reversed and took out my SL during 09:15 bar for 21 pip loss. Second trade placed buy stop 64207 after 09:25 bar closed and this was filled immediately by following bar. Price motored north but after the 09:35 bar showed secomd long wick in a row I decided to pull initial SL up to BE just in case, and sure enough market must have seen me do that as 09:45 kicked me out for a zero pip nothing! By now it looked like bias was down so I entered short on 10:10 bar at 64072, saw this bar end up weirdly then drop and then rise again but, unlike first trade, didnt seem threatening. Held position and encountered small gap around 10:55 bar (some news release?) which was also recorded on my other data feed and following this price wallowed about a bit but didnt have the energy to break free of the earlier 09:00 low print. Waited to see what the 11:25 bar start of flat move would bring with TS pulled down fairly tight just in case (!), but "felt" 11:40 bar downward push might be my lot for this trade so exited at the close for 44 pip profit. Hindsight (who damn well invented that word!!) shows I should have held on to the last trade until at least my usual midday cut off point, but I just dont have that wonderful hindsight thingy when trading real time.... Curses!
EU; Placed sell stop at 43874 and had to wait until 0915 bar for this to get filled after having seen price flirting with this (and nearly causing me to change my mind about direction) during early part of morning session. Once price gathered up a head of steam it never really looked like wanting to reverse, even with the small retrace for a few bars starting around 10:10, and after that second push down bar at 10:50 which broke the prior low print I decided that trade had been open long enough and came out with 62 pips profit. Could of perhps held out a bit longer for some more pips? I prefer to "bank" and move on myself!
EG; Got a bit confused with G and E relationship on first trade and made a big mistake of opening long after 08:50 bar and quickly found myself to be contra what G and E were actually trying to scream out at me! Position hit SL during 09:16 bar for 16 pip loss Second trade was a classic corrie one with sell stop at 87574 filled during fairly big 09:30 down bar, had a bit of a stagger two bars later, went down again and finally settled into a flat lined pattern so I jumped ship at close 10:30 bar for 13 pip profit.
Suffered a few bruises on earlier trades this morning until being able to find some direction and got rather tangled up with EG bias as well here, but thats the heat of the battle moments for you - ie the enormous difference between those two very simple words of "afterwards" and "during"!
Trade well and regards,
Simon.