As I begin my week reflecting on my trades for the past weeks, I also reflect on what turned out to be a very peaceful view from my office this week.  I must commend Cairo on their exceptionally calm and peaceful protests the past two Fridays!  What I was anticipating to be a large and potentially violent demonstration, actually turned out to be a few thousand protesters voicing their views, in what resulted in a relatively peaceful gathering (photo below taken from the balcony of our building).  According to The Egyptian Gazette, only 8 people were killed in clashes Friday week, across the whole of Egypt.  This is a huge improvement from the 1,000+ who have sadly lost their lives over the past few weeks, and many of these have unfortunately been in our “front yard”

Regrettably over the past week, the emphasis appears to have bypassed protests and moved on to disruptions through bombings.  The Egyptian Interior Minister was very lucky to survive an assassination bid last week after a bomb was detonated near his house in Nasr City, Cairo.  Although I never heard, nor personally saw the devastation after this blast, Nasr City is our neighbourhood – this is all just a little bit too close for comfort!  Sadly, reports were that 2 people died and 24 were injured in this attack.

I hope to be able to report on some brighter news from my neighbourhood next week

Enough of what’s been happening around “my office”, let’s get down to business and discuss the results from within my trading office…

The two trades I had my eye on in my previous post were the AUDJPY and EURUSD.  I took both the trades (based on the reasoning discussed in my post).  This was the outcome…

AUDJPY

I set the order to short this pair at 88.71, just prior to going to bed.  This is the perfect time to set an order for an “end of day” trade, since the daily candle had just closed in London.  My technical analysis was telling me sell the AUDJPY, with the indications being that this was a high probability set up.  My order was triggered the next day, and my predetermined target was subsequently hit on day 2.  121 pips profit (over a week’s worth of profit) achieved in 2 days from one order that I set and left.  This little gem of a strategy is perfect for those of you who are too busy to be checking computer screens all day and/or who work full time.  About 15 mins work analysing and setting the order for this pair, which resulted in a week’s worth of profit!  Brings new meaning to the “4 Hour Work Week”

EURUSD

The second trade I took that week was the EURUSD, for the aforementioned reasons in my previous post.  This was a trade which didn’t go according to my plan.  Oh well, you can’t win them all, and especially when it comes to Forex!  Losing is part and parcel of trading and should always be factored into your strategy.  The idea is to try and ensure that your winning trades reward you with at least double what your losing trades take away from you.

Thank God I had my stop loss in place! If not, I could have been in a much worse position (as indicated by the last candle).  A stop loss is mandatory in every single one of my trades and this has ended up saving my butt many a time. It’s there to save your butt also – make sure you utilise it!!

The up arrow indicates where I entered the trade (at the green dashed line) – after the pullback to the break of the triangle.  The down arrow is where my stop loss safely got me out of the trade (red dashed line), before I potentially could have ended up losing my shirt on the next candle.  The gold dashed line was my predetermined target.  I entered Long at 1.3391 and was stopped out at 1.3350 = 41 pips loss

Overall, at the end of the 30 August trading week, my total profit was 80 pips.  Not bad, considering this was realised only from two trades.

With the threat of a strategic strike on Syria, Non Farm Payroll, interest rate news and numerous other “red flag” news announcements, I chose to take a voluntary week off last week.  Sometimes the best trade is no trade at all.  It is a good idea to be well aware of when these important news announcements occur and to sit on your hands if need be during these times.  A great website which details all economic news and exactly when these news announcements are due out is:  http://www.forexfactory.com/  Checking this website should form a part of your daily trade planning strategy.  It’s an excellent resource – use it!

Bring on the 4 Hour (or less) Work Week this week…

Happy trading!

Jackie

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As life is reverting back to some form of normality here, it’s time to get my trading back into my normal routine also.  My trading plan for the week ahead is as follows:

AUDJPY

Daily Chart / End of Day Trade / Short

I love this “end of day” strategy.  The set ups may not appear frequently, however, when they do you can usually set your order and walk away.  Great for those working full  time and who may only have a small amount of time for trading. The ideal set up for this strategy is depicted in the chart below – the pair is trending, the previous day’s candle is a doji which is located within the upper 2 envelopes, the 5 ema is below the 20 ema and the 200 ema.  As soon as the daily candle closes, I set my order – green = entry, red = stop loss, gold = target

ie Entry at 88.71, Stop at 89.48 and target at 87.50

I see there is no news due out over the next day which could affect my trade, I set my order as above and walk away.

EURUSD

4 Hour Chart / Long / Triangle Break

I will be looking for an entry long after the break of the triangle on the 4 hourly chart – around 1.3380.  I will wait for a pullback to this level before entering.  This area is also a weekly pivot point.  My stop will be just below the 55 ema with my target being the recent high.

These are two trades which I have on my radar for the start of the week.  If I have some other trades lining up for the latter part of the week I will provide further details in another post.

Bring on the pips!

Happy trading

Jackie

The post Trading Plan for the Week Ahead… appeared first on View from the Forex Office.....

Sunday is a day when I generally reflect on the past week’s trading and plan ahead for the coming week.  This has certainly been a somber week of reflection and a week which I hope, for the sake of the Egyptian people, is not repeated.  Wednesday 14 August 2013 is a day which will play out in my mind for some time to come.  As a State of Emergency is declared across Egypt, I reflect on my day in the office that day and share with you my actual views from the office.  My office (aka home / hotel apartment) is located approximately 2 km from Rabba Al Adiwya Mosque in the Nasr City district of Cairo.  The same Rabaa Al Adiwya Mosque that has been the main location for the pro-Morsi supporters sit-in for the past 6 weeks.  The link from Google Maps below shows just how close our home is to the Rabaa Mosque:

http://goo.gl/maps/9QU5j

Scarily, my office view on 14 August consisted of thick black smoke billowing from the Rabaa Square area, cars in a nearby parking lot up in flames after being torched, and people running for their lives in the streets below as they tried to escape the ubiquitous bullets. The inundation of gunfire which was eventually to tragically end the lives of at least 700+ men, women and children in the neighbourhood that day.  This was the unfortunate scene for the entire day, since as I sat outside in the hotel courtyard for breakfast I was accompanied by the sounds of nearby gunfire even at that time of the morning. Retreating up to my office after breakfast, I was greeted with yet more gunfire echoing off the high-rise buildings surrounding the hotel.

The skype call from my mother and the rest of the Auckland South Breast Friends breast cancer support group was a welcome distraction.  When possible, the group will call me via skype during their monthly meetings so that I can still be a part of their evening of friendship, fun and support (when support is needed).  My beautiful mother, Annette, is one of the co-ordinators for the Auckland South group, having been a breast cancer survivor for almost 20 years. And although I had joined the group in support of my mum quite some years ago, I become a fully fledged and legitimate group member when I became a “bossom buddy” myself 4 years ago, upon being diagnosed with breast cancer also.

To be honest, I was unaware that the Breast Friends meeting was even on that night.  When I saw my mothers call come through, as it was earlier than our usual chat time,  I had assumed that she had just heard the news about the military “clear-out” of the protesters in Rabaa Square and the death and destruction that had resulted.  At the time when mum and the group called me, gunshots were going off thick and fast.  I, therefore, apologise ladies if I was a little distracted at that particular time!  Although I have heard gunfire in our area before, it has never been in the middle of the day, resounding through the streets with such constant and frequent abandon.  Ladies, I am sorry if this destructive background noise was a little overwhelming.  It certainly was for me too!

Below is actual video footage taken by yours truly, from our hotel, on that fateful day…

As we are reflecting on the week that has just passed, now is the time that I reflect on the trading week also.  A midst all this chaos, I managed to enter 2 of the trades that I had on my radar from last week…  AUDUSD & EURUSD.  Here’s how they played out…

I sold the AUDUSD at .9153.  My entry, being on the 4 Hour chart, after the close through and pullback to the 200 ema.  I took this trade as there were multiple reasons:  resistance above, 78.2% fib just above, whole number, and 200 ema above.  Half the trade I closed at 30 pips profit. The 2nd half closed upon hitting my target at .9080 – 73 pips profit in total.  You can see on the chart why I chose this target – it was 55 ema, 50% fib and had the bollinger band holding price up – with these road blocks in the way, I was expecting the price to falter here, so an ideal target area.

My second trade was the EURUSD, in which I had set up an order to sell at 1.3277.  I set an order to sell this pair at this level because it was at the top edge of a weekly triangle, which was also the 200 ema on the weekly chart and 55 ema on monthly chart ie. plenty of reasons to “hold the price down”.  I set my order 13 August and it was triggered the next morning.  Trading in a conservative manner, I took half my profits at 34 pips, moved my stop to entry and left the remainder of the trade to run.  Although my target of 1.3179 wasn’t quite reached, this trade still had a total potential of 70+ pips profit before price retraced.

In summary of my abnormal and very chaotic trading week,  I still managed to take 2 of the trades which I had suggested you look out for in my previous post.  107 pips profit in total for the week.  I’m happy with that, since 100 pips is generally the weekly target for most traders.  Job done for the week, and in the space of 2 days

Hoping that next week brings calmer days for Cairo without the death and destruction of this week.

Stay safe my fellow Cairo readers!

All the best

Jackie

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