Weekly Trading Update - 09-13 May 2011

With regards to my forex trading, it's been a rather lacklustre week this week. My main 4 hour trading system (see right for more details) did manage to squeeze out a decent profit thanks to one good trade on the GBP/USD pair, but this was negated somewhat by the Forex Morning Trade system, which had a rare losing week and ended up losing 40 points in total. The full results of this early morning trading system for this week are as follows:

Monday: no trade
Tuesday: no trade
Wednesday: -40 points
Thursday: +40 points
Friday: -40 points

Going back to my 4 hour system and as I say, there was just the one trade on the GBP/USD pair. This pair is now in a downward trend (according to the Supertrend indicator on the daily chart), so I was looking to go short on a downward EMA crossover on the 4 hour chart.

This occurred on Wednesday afternoon and I was initially cautious about opening a short position because the crossover candle was pretty long, but I did eventually decide to take a position. I waited for a pull-back and went short at 1.6360.

I had to leave it running overnight so I set my target price at 1.6300, but thankfully this wasn't triggered and I could revert to my usual strategy the next morning. So I ended up closing half the position for 50 points and letting the other half run, moving my stop loss to break-even. The price then dropped sharply and I decided to close the position once it was 100 points in profit.

There have also been a few downward EMA crossovers on the USD/JPY pair but I really think we are close to the bottom for this pair, so I decided not to take any positions.

As regards my share trading, I have started building positions in BP and dabbled with a few spread positions in Tesco, but there's not much else to report. It's frustrating seeing the FTSE meander between 5800 and 6100. I wish we would see a big breakout one way or the other so I could either bank some big profits or pick up some juicy bargains.

Anyway that's just about it for another week. Have a great weekend.

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Weekly Trading Update - 23-27 May 2011

It's been quite a profitable week this week on all fronts. My share trades did well, the Forex Morning Trade system generated a profit of 92 points, and my main 4 hour forex system (see right for more details) generated a decent return as well. (I also traded a few breakouts on Wednesday which produced a small profit as well, which you can read about in my previous blog post).

I should mention that despite the fact that the Forex Morning Trade system produced a nice profit this week, I have decided to stop trading this system for now. It has had a few more losing weeks in recent times, and to be honest I am getting fed up of getting up so early every day. So this will be the last time that I report the results from trading this particular system:

Monday: +40 points
Tuesday: no trade
Wednesday: 0 (break-even)
Thursday: +40 points
Friday: +12 points (closed manually because didn't want to take a loss)

I may return to this system at a later date and will still keep on eye on the results, but I am putting it to one side for now.

On to my 4 hour system now, and it found some decent trading opportunities this week. There were two trades in total - one on the GBP/USD and one on the USD/JPY pair.

The first was on the GBP/USD pair on Monday morning. The EMAs crossed nicely downwards on the 4 hour chart and I went short at 1.6178 after a slight pull-back. I then closed half the position for 50 points and moved my stop loss down to break-even. I then closed the second half of the position at 1.6100 in the end, which was extremely cautious but I didn't think it was going to fall much further at the time.

There was actually another downward EMA crossover on Wednesday morning, but to be honest I was so busy trading the breakouts that I mentioned in my last blog post that I didn't even notice. Not to worry though because it would have been a losing trade anyway and the breakout trades generated a total profit of 23 points if I remember correctly.

The other trade (on the USD/JPY pair) occurred on Thursday afternoon. I was reluctant to enter a short position after the EMAs crossed decisively downwards on the 4 hour chart, simply because the candle was so long. However I did eventually decide to open a position and went short at 81.40.

I managed to close half the position at 81.00, and having moved my stop loss to break-even, I am still waiting for my second price target of 80.60 to get taken out. I'm just going to sit and wait to see what happens for the rest of the day. It's essentially a free trade anyway, which is the major benefit of moving the stop loss to break-even after you close the first half of the position.

Finally it's been a great week on the shares front. My spread betting account is in a very healthy state after banking profits in Barclays, Lloyds and BP and my main investment portfolios are not doing too badly either with Lloyds the only share currently in the red. However I'm planning to hold on to those for about 5-10 years anyway.

I bought some shares in Vedanta this week at 2080p, but other than that I'm still most interested in accumulating shares in Barclays, Lloyds, BP and Tesco for the medium-long term.

Anyway that's enough for this week. I've waffled on far too much already. Have a great bank holiday weekend.

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Weekly Trading Update - 16-20 May 2011

Well it's been another mediocre week this week. My main 4 hour trading system did generate one winning trade, but the Forex Morning Trade system, which lost 40 points last week, is set to have another losing week. I am still waiting for today's trade to reach it's conclusion (I need the price to go up to 1.6275 to hit the 40 point profit target), but at the moment it is either going to lose 80 points or 120 points (it turned out to be 120 points). I will update you with the result of this trade later, but these are the results from using this particular day trading system so far:

Monday: -40 points
Tuesday: -40 points
Wednesday: -40 points
Thursday: no trade
Friday: 0 (break-even)

As you can see, this is not good at all and I am now seriously considering whether I should continue using this system. It had a tremendous winning run for many months, but the GBP/USD has been difficult to trade this year (with the ADX staying below 20 for much of 2011 so far) and this is reflected in the results with more losing weeks than last year. It would also be nice not to have to get up at 6.15 every morning, which is another reason why I am considering abandoning this system.

The annoying thing is that I made money using all my own systems. My 4 hour system found a nice winning trade on the GBP/USD pair. This pair is now in a downward trend according to the Supertrend indicator on the daily chart, so I went short when the EMAs crossed downwards on the 4 hour chart, eventually opening a position at 1.6184 on Wednesday evening after a slight pull-back.

I had to wait a while but it eventually hit my initial 50 point target the next day, where I closed half the position. However after moving my stop loss to break-even, the price bounced back and quickly took out the second half of the trade at this break-even point.

There were also a few good breakout trades for this particular pair (where the overnight trading range is very small compared to the average daily range). I went short on Wednesday morning after the price broke below the range and below the pivot, and rode it all the way down to the S1 line for around 53 points, and this morning I went long after an upward breakout and closed the position at R1 for around 24 points.

Not every trade worked out though because I placed a similar breakout trade yesterday and had to take a 35 point loss after going short at 1.6151.

Finally as regards my share trading, it's been a great week overall. After a very nice rise in BP yesterday and today I have managed to bank some decent short-term gains, and I was automatically closed out on my main Barclays position for 10 points this morning as well.

So overall I finished up on the week but the Forex Morning Trade system cancelled out some of these gains unfortunately. Even if it only loses 80 points, which is looking likely, it has still had a really bad week. I think I will possibly trade it for one more week before making a final decision as to whether I will carry on using it.

Anyway have a great weekend and I will speak to you again soon.

(If you want to check out my main 4 hour trading system, you can access it for free when you subscribe to my newsletter. Simply fill in the short form above).

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Weekly Trading Update - 30 May - 03 June 2011

This is the first week that I haven't traded the Forex Morning Trade system and I have to say I've enjoyed the extra hour or so in bed. I just looked at the charts for this week and I think it would have lost 40 points using the original settings, so I think I have made the right decision as it doesn't seem to be as profitable as it used to be.

My main 4 hour trading system didn't generate any decent set-ups on the major forex pairs this week, but I did manage to find a trade on the FTSE 100.

The Supertrend indicator was red on the daily chart (indicating a downward trend) so I was looking to go short on any downward EMA crossover on the 4 hour chart. I don't trade this index very often, but it had just rejected the key 6000 level a few times and looked like an excellent shorting opportunity.

The EMAs looked like they were crossing downwards on Wednesday afternoon after a double dose of poor economic figures from the US, and after a slight pull-back I went short at 5930. My plan of attack was to close half the position for 40 points and the other half for 80 points, and I did eventually manage to achieve this goal after the price hit 5850 yesterday afternoon.

Other than that I think I placed 5 separate breakout trades on the GBP/USD during the week. I don't really feel like discussing each of these trades separately as it will take forever, but they were all based on low overnight trading ranges and subsequent breakouts occurring after 08.00, when the London market opens.

You can check them out on the 5 minute chart if you want. There were two breakout trades on Wednesday morning (one long and one short). With the first trade I closed half the position for 10 points before being stopped out at break-even, and with the second trade I closed the entire position at S1 for around 20 points after poor manufacturing figures had just been released.

There were another two breakouts on Thursday morning. The first one didn't come to anything and I took a loss of 20 points, but the second one generated a nice profit as I closed half at the pivot points for around 14 points, and the other half at 1.6400 for around 32 points profit.

Finally there was a decent breakout opportunity earlier today on this pair as well. Unfortunately because I always like to end the week with a winning trade, I was a little too cautious and decided to close half the position for 10 points and move my stop loss down to break-even, which was subsequently triggered. The annoying thing was that I was targeting the S1 support level as my exit point, and the price did actually hit this point relatively easily.

Elsewhere my shares haven't really gone anywhere, except for Lloyds which has been woeful, and I am now just sitting on the sidelines mainly. There are a lot of potential bargains out there such as Barclays, Lloyds, Aviva and BP amongst the large cap stocks, but ideally I want the FTSE to fall to around the 5750/5800 area before buying into any of these.

Anyway that's all for this week. If you want to check out my main 4 hour trading strategy, you can access it for free when you subscribe to my newsletter via the form above.

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Weekly Trading Update - 02-06 May 2011

Well it's been a fascinating week on the markets. I'm sitting here watching the oil price getting absolutely hammered, and am tempted to buy a crude oil ETF for the long term with the current price just below $95, but ideally I would prefer it to fall to around $90.

Anyway back to the forex markets and it's been a fairly quiet week overall. My main 4 hour trading system didn't actually generate any trades at all. There was one on the EUR/GBP pair which would have worked out well, but this occurred on Bank Holiday Monday (and on the day it was announced that you know who had been captured) so it would never have been considered, even if I had been at my computer that day.

Thankfully the Forex Morning Trade system had a return to form and generated a total profit of 80 points, as you can see below:

Monday: no trade (bank holiday)
Tuesday: +40 points
Wednesday: 0 (break-even)
Thursday: no trade
Friday: +40 points

This system does have the occasional losing week, but on the whole it has been extremely profitable. Mark Fric has made a few adjustments recently, but I am still using the original settings of 40 points for the stop loss and target price, and moving the stop loss to break-even when it is 24 points in profit. This seems to work really well so I see no reason to change it at the current time.

If you want to find out more about the Forex Morning Trade system, you can do so by clicking here.

With regards to my share trading, I've had slightly mixed fortunes. I made the decision to close out most of my positions with the FTSE trading close to the stubborn resistance level of 6100. I closed multiple positions in Tesco at 410p for some very healthy profits (with the aim of buying in lower) and closed my positions in Barclays for a small profit.

I am left with one long term holding in Tesco and another long term holding in Lloyds, which actually dropped a lot this week. However I think they have tried to issue all the bad news at once, so it should hopefully be onwards and upwards from here on in.

It's nice to be sitting on a pile of cash at the moment as there are quite a few bargains around. However I think I will try and be patient because the Supertrend indicator has only just turned red on the FTSE 100 daily chart and the Smoothed Repulse indicator has just crossed below 0, which suggests that there could be a lot more downside to come.

Next week should be very interesting and it's actually a full five day week for once. Bank holidays are all well and good, but when you work for yourself they can be quite frustrating because you cannot earn any money. Anyway have a great weekend and I will speak to you again soon.

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