(I am constructing this post primarily to transfer it over to my personal blog, where most of my entries now have to do with spiritual stuff and only rarely return to the topic of trading…)
Numerous times in the past I tried my hand at swing trading, testing this idea or that, only to confirm that intraday trading was where I needed to stay if I wanted to continue experiencing consistent success.
However, this week and last I began toying with the idea of incorporating a week-to-week trend line I recently settled on into my Multiple Simple Moving Average Envelope Forex trading system (along with its corresponding envelopes) and when I began doing so yesterday using 60-minute charts instead of 5- and then 15-minute charts, the results were very much to my liking.
Thanks to some subtle/nuanced modifications to my system’s strategies stemming from some experimenting I did using a Collective2 trial account during the first half of January, I’d already increased the average number of pips I collect per trade from about 5 to perhaps somewhere around 15, but the use of the weekly trend line on a 60-minute chart looks like it could easily lead to some of my trades reaping as many as 30 to 50 pips.
Though the approach would at long last enable me to swing trade successfully, I will nonetheless continue to experiment with using it exclusively for day trading in that this technique makes it all the more apparent how the currency pairs have an irritating habit of making moves of up to 50 or more pips…and then suddenly dying…going virtually nowhere at all for the next several hours or even couple of days until the following trade session or next major economic event.
I have little appetite for getting stuck in trades for such periods of time, waiting for the next major leg up or down. Moreover, my account is too small for me to feel comfortable putting myself in the position of having to weather 30- to 50-pip drawdowns. Better I should wait for “price” to wander 50 or so pips in the “wrong” direction, and then execute a trade just as it reverses direction to rejoin the dominant trend(s), offering up dozens of pips in the process in just a matter of a short hour or two.
Numerous times in the past I tried my hand at swing trading, testing this idea or that, only to confirm that intraday trading was where I needed to stay if I wanted to continue experiencing consistent success.
However, this week and last I began toying with the idea of incorporating a week-to-week trend line I recently settled on into my Multiple Simple Moving Average Envelope Forex trading system (along with its corresponding envelopes) and when I began doing so yesterday using 60-minute charts instead of 5- and then 15-minute charts, the results were very much to my liking.
Thanks to some subtle/nuanced modifications to my system’s strategies stemming from some experimenting I did using a Collective2 trial account during the first half of January, I’d already increased the average number of pips I collect per trade from about 5 to perhaps somewhere around 15, but the use of the weekly trend line on a 60-minute chart looks like it could easily lead to some of my trades reaping as many as 30 to 50 pips.
Though the approach would at long last enable me to swing trade successfully, I will nonetheless continue to experiment with using it exclusively for day trading in that this technique makes it all the more apparent how the currency pairs have an irritating habit of making moves of up to 50 or more pips…and then suddenly dying…going virtually nowhere at all for the next several hours or even couple of days until the following trade session or next major economic event.
I have little appetite for getting stuck in trades for such periods of time, waiting for the next major leg up or down. Moreover, my account is too small for me to feel comfortable putting myself in the position of having to weather 30- to 50-pip drawdowns. Better I should wait for “price” to wander 50 or so pips in the “wrong” direction, and then execute a trade just as it reverses direction to rejoin the dominant trend(s), offering up dozens of pips in the process in just a matter of a short hour or two.
Last edited:
