19th July – Profiting whilst I work, rest and play. Five wins from six trades = 9R profit

Hello traders,

After returning from a busy few days including a long and enjoyable evening at the London Trader’s Network Social event I was able to sit down this afternoon and take a look at the 6 trades I’d placed early on Tuesday and how they’d fared over the last 48 hours.

Several people at the event asked me to write about the positions I had open whilst at the event so here’s a quick breakdown of my trades.

Set-Ups

All the trades were set on Tuesday morning on the 4 hour chart.  They were all currencies that were presently in the STAM 1 environment and provided me with Price Action Based Set-ups.  There was some duplication of trades but I was happy to take them anyway.  The 6 trades (in order that they closed) were EURJPY, CHFJPY, USDCHF, EURAUD, GBPCHF, EURGBP.  I knew I had a busy couple of days ahead including a trip to London so I planned these trades with a set and forget mentality and just went for a 2:1 reward to risk plan on the trades.  I just set the orders, checked they were all correct and then left the market to do its thing. On the charts you’ll see the first purple line is where I got in and the 2nd purple line shows were I got out for either a loss or a profit.

1. EURJPY

EURJPY was in a STAM 1 Selling environment so when it pulled back I placed an order to sell at 97.01 with a target of 96.51 for a 2:1 R:R trade. Price triggered early Tuesday afternoon and exactly 50 minutes later it had hit target of 96.51 for a 50 pip / 2R / 1% proft . Nice.  I wish all trades were like this. The truth is that they rarely are.

2. CHFJPY

The CHFJPY was not a dissimilar set-up to the EURJPY (which should be no surprise to any experience traders). It was in a STAM 1 Selling environment and I took a trade off a pull back.

Price triggered the short order at 80.76 and like the EURJPY price dropped hard, in fact it got to within 3 pips of my final target before returning all the way and 6 hours later it hit my stop loss for a 20 pip  / 1R / 0.5% loss. As you can see price has since turned back down and would have hit my target had I not used such a tight stop.  Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Next.

So at the end of Tuesday of 6 trades 1 has hit target and 1 has been stopped out.  Come Wednesday morning I took a quick look at the charts and the positions in the morning before I left for a long day in London.  I checked all the stops and targets were in correct order (again) and left the trades to play out.  During my day I didn’t check in on my positions, I just went about my business and left the trades to get on with whatever was going to happen. When I returned home (at nearly 1 am) I had a quick check and two more of my positions had closed.

3. USDCHF

This pair was also in a STAM 1 environment but to the long-side.  I felt this was the weakest of the set-ups based on the daily chart however it met the rules so I took the trade. I had an order in at 9764 but it didn’t actually trigger till the early hours of Wednesday morning.  When I returned Wednesday evening it had hit its target of 9798 for a 34 pip / 2R / 1% gain. This was lucky as I think the sentiment is moving to the down-side.

4. EURAUD

The EURAUD has been in a STAM 1 selling environment for some time now and has offered a few beautiful opportunities to trade to the short side. Last week was a bit choppy bit the set-up was still valid so I took it. Short at 1.1932 and then by 1030 on Wednesday morning Price had hits its target at 1.18800 for a 52 pip / 2R / 1% gain.  Now as you can see this pair has continued to drop, in fact going nearly 200 pips past my entry.  Had I been at my desk / office then this would have been one to let run however as I stated earlier I was occupied between Tuesday and Thursday afternoon on other business so I just set tight targets of 2 times my risk. So I’m still very happy with the return.

So by the end of Wednesday I have now had 4 positions close for 1 loss and 3 winners.  Still two positions to go.

5. GBPCHF

GBPCHF has been in a STAM 1 Buying environment for some time and like the other trades when a pull back presented itself I was able to take advantage and join the fray.  I got long at 1.5295…and then price did nothing for pretty much two days. I admit that when I look at the charts  at lunchtime today I was tempted to just close the last two trades down as they were going now-where.  However when the next 4 hour candle closed it was enough to convince me to just leave the trades to play out…and I was lucky I did as price then hammered North early this afternoon and hit my target at 1.5367 for a 72 pip / 2R / 1% gain.

6.EURGBP

In the same way that GBPCHF has been in a STAM 1 buying environment, the EURGBP has been in a STAM 1 Selling environment for a while now.  When there was a slight pull-back there was an opportunity for me to sell into the dominant trend. I got short at 7850 and like the GBPCHF trade it really did nothing for the next 48 hours until early this afternoon when there was a sudden and hard drop where price hit its final target at 7808 for a 42 pip / 2R / 1% gain.

So 6 trades taken with a total of 5 winners and 1 loss for a total of +230 pips / +9R / +4.5% gain.  Not bad work from nothing more than a bit of patience (to wait for the set-ups) a small amount of management (no more than maybe 1 hour combined over two days) and resisting the urge to tamper and interfere (letting GBPCHF & EURGBP run out).

Hopefully the people at the Traders event last night now have a better idea of how I trade on a day-to-day basis. If you too want to know more about how I trade and how you could learn about such techniques then check out my Lifestyle Trader Day or drop me a line.

Until next time, trade well!

Paul