Some light at the end of the tunnel

Well the downward trend of my sorry account continues. But there is hope. Overall I have traded more wins than losses, just my losses were BIG ones. I have been playing 1 or 2 weekly plays (eg EURUSD going for 100 pips down and 300 pips up over a 5 to 10 day period. And this looked really good....until some big news hit, in this case it was Spain and Portugal went bazooka's and may go into fiscal crisis. This caused a massive swing and stopped me out.....it always feels personal when this happens as the stopping out is often right at the tip of a trough. Its not personal, the market doth not know me.

However I have made about 7 or 8 shorter plays (3-4 hours using the 15 minute charts) where I have won 80% of them. This is predominantly due to a combination of factors. I am using both Fundamental and Technical principals for my orders, I have a money plan and an exit plan. I shall explain further :

I have been watching the AUD JPY pair closely over the last 2 weeks. There seem to be multiple powers aligning (remember I am an FX idiot, this is simply my learnings and thoughts, do not without your own research and belief take this as a hot tip)   :

1) The JPY is being actively supressed by the G7 (legal market manipulation....shakes fist)
2) Japan and Libya have settled down, well not really, but the 'theatrical' shock of it all has....and the market has priced this in (to some extent). AUD is a bit of a prospectors currency, thus in times of risk aversion (war, massive natural disaster etc) people flee from the AUD, this to some extent has diminished this week.
3) The AUD is a commodities play, when commidities do well....the Aussie does well

That being the case I have been doing the right thing and following a trend. I have with this used some very basic TA, looking for the reversal trends as a way in and a way out of the trend, taking short term profits, rather than leave my order running for 5 days with a 300 pip target and 100 pip stop loss (which has hurt me). The problem with the very long plays is I have to risk too much of my measily account. Whereas if I chase the short term wins, I risk less and of an evening I can make more than the gross swing by playing all the reversals.

So the entry point is on a typical buy signal after a retractment, the exit point is on simple sell signal at the end of a surge. In both cases I wait for confirmation (missing a bit of profit). I then run a 30 pip stop loss and a 75 pip take profit. Once I hit 30pips of profit I tighten my loss so I cant loose.

If I am actually watching the trade (as in not eating or looking after my pesky children, working etc etc) I look for signals of change and close the order). Otherwise I let it run.

So far 8 trades, 6 wins and about 200 pips of profit, almost making up for my 2 big losses. I will persevere with this approach over the next week and report back.

The graph below shows me following a trend and jumping in and out on signals (and in each case waiting for confirmation)

Till next time, pip pip