Close but no cigar

There was an "ok" amount of movement in the markets today, none of which really gave any time for me to find a plausible entry, but at least there was something. I came very close to entering 2 trades.

The first one was the GBP/USD. Yesterday I mentioned that I was looking to short the pair after seeing a nice retracement from a prolonged downtrend in the 4 hour chart. The pair also skimmed the 1900 level so a short trade was my plan of attack. I was waiting for signs that momentum would pick up in the dollars favor and at 8am I had my opportunity of attacking. But I was faced with a dilemma. Yes the technicals were giving me signs of an entry but with the plethora of US economic reports still yet to come out, I could be getting into a sticky situation. I decided that even though technical signs led to a short trade, the fundamental mysteries would still lead to a chaotic day. And that is exactly what happened. Although at the end of the next 4 hour candle, price did end up closing much lower than what would've been my entry, the high of that candle proved that my "chaotic day" news assumption was correct. Had I entered, I would've lost because the next candle spiked up high enough to where I would've placed my stop loss. I would've gotten stopped out and then to add to the pain, the price would've dropped and I would be kicking myself for getting spiked out. I was very happy with my decision to stay out of this one today. However, I am still not giving up on this pair. At the beginning of next week I will look for another opportunity to short this pair as all my technicals point to a drop in the Cable.

The other pair I almost entered was the USD/JPY. I've been talking about its recent 20 day high and how there would be a retracement. The retracement came as I expected, producing a 2 day low and now my only action was to wait and see if the pair could break its 20 day high which was at 118.14. Today, the pair got as high as 118.11 but unfortunately it wasn't enough to put me in a trade. I am still set to go long on this pair if the price breaks 118.14. We will have to see what happens next week. For now I put my trading gun back into my holster.

One pair that I forgot to mention yesterday is the AUD/CAD. I am actually in this trade right now and have been for a couple days. A few days ago I talked about consolidation in this pair and that I would make a breakout play. My short trade was triggered but we have yet to see any movement. The pair is still range trading but I'm ok because I expect a breakout move sometime soon. I don't really care if the trade goes against me because I put a stop and reverse on my long entry order so if the pair does decide to sky rocket, I will be stopped out of my short trade and automatically entered long. Let's just hope the breakout move is a nice one :)

As for the USD/CHF and AUD/USD--

The USD/CHF made yet another 20 day high today. I am not going to enter a pair until I see some profit taking and then a continuation of this trend. I am still waiting on this.

The AUD USD did retrace but still has yet to take out its 20 day low. If it does, I will go short on this pair.

There was an Alba breakout but it was in the midst of all the news events. I said yesterday that I would only start looking for trades after 10:00 am EST. Since the breakout occurred during news, I wanted to see if price could break that candle's (the 9:30 candle) low before entering. This did not end up happening so I stayed out. 2650 seems to be the new support as this is the 2nd time (I think) that the EUR/USD has tested this level after breaking 2700 without going any further.

All in all I'm excited that we saw some movement today and now that I'm on the brink of getting my feet wet I can't wait to see what happens. Next week should be a good one and I hope you all are getting your trading trigger fingers ready! Have a great weekend everyone!

-BP