Trading has been difficult lately. Probably because I'm learning and don't know what I'm doing. It's nice to think it's just because the market is being a pain, but then again, the market will always be doing strange stuff, so I just have to deal with it and hopefully learn something.
I've taken to watching 5 min charts for long periods of time, and then missing any moves or being too scared to trade when I think I spot something interesting. Frustrating.
I've nearly given up on my breakout strategies. They work ... sometimes. It's easy to see where the breakouts have occurred after the fact. It's even easy to see them as they occur. But getting stop loss and take profit levels right is damn near impossible. When you can see a trade happening right in front of you and still can't get it right, then what do you do?
Anyway, pessimism over for a few minutes, let's look at a few charts. While no excuse for failing trading, they may explain a little some of the troubles lately.
Daily EURUSD chart
The EURUSD is getting itself into a triangle wedge shape. It refuses to go below 1.30, but seems unable to break higher, either. No movement means no trading opportunities. At least, not many good ones that I'm able to capture.
Daily EURUSD chart with Ichimoku Kinko Hyo
On the Ichimoku Kinko Hyo chart, we see some hot cloud based action. Price is almost poking it's nose out above the top of the cloud, but not quite.
Other currency pairs aren't giving much clue as to direction either. GBPUSD has been rallying, AUDUSD diving, and USDCAD consolidating. Bah.
One good thing out of all of this is that I've been learning about range and swing trading. I'll keep practicing. Perhaps I'll have a good strategy at some stage.
