Sample Category Title

EUR/GBP has formed ascending trend line confluence that is suggesting a further uptrend continuation. The POC zone 0.8900-10 is a possible bouncing spot where fresh buyers could turn the price up. Deeper retracement might target 0.8885-95 and that is also the zone where buyers might be waiting. The first target is 0.8930 followed by 0.8962 on a successful break of 0.8935.

W L3 - Weekly Camarilla Pivot (Weekly Interim Support)

W H3 - Weekly Camarilla Pivot (Weekly Interim Resistance)

W H4 - Weekly Camarilla Pivot (Strong Weekly Resistance)

D H4 - Daily Camarilla Pivot (Very Strong Daily Resistance)

D L3 – Daily Camarilla Pivot (Daily Support)

D L4 – Daily H4 Camarilla (Very Strong Daily Support)

POC - Point Of Confluence (The zone where we expect price to react aka entry zone)

The Australian dollar rallies for the third day and hit session high at 0.7433, supported by strong Australian building data, with weaker than expected China PMI data, showing no impact. The pair eased in early European trading but holds above 0.74 handle and keeping near-term bullish bias. Strong momentum supports the advance which also broke above a cluster of daily MA's, generating bullish signal. Close above broken Fibo barrier at 0.7428 (61.8% of 0.7464/0.7370 fall) is needed to confirm bullish stance for extension towards key n/t barrier at 0.7464 (25 / 26 July tops), reinforced by falling 55SMA. To keep bullish bias intact, support at 0.7400 (10SMA) needs to stay intact.

Res: 0.7433, 0.7442, 0.7464, 0.7483
Sup: 0.7400, 0.7385, 0.7370, 0.7359

Cable stands at the front foot on Tuesday and pressures previous day's high at 1.3152, to extend gains towards converged 20/30SMA's (1.3169/75) which guards channel resistance at 1.3219. Daily techs are slightly improved and supportive for further upside, but bulls may stall on approach to bear-channel resistance as overall trend is negative. BoE rate decision on Thursday is in focus for stronger signals, with wide expectations for dovish hike, which would further support sterling. Markets are expecting 0.25% hike on Thursday The central bank needs to raise borrowing cost in order to fight low inflation, despite weaker than expected growth. On the other side, sterling could be hit if the BoE opts for unchanged rates, as overall bearish picture is weakened by Brexit concerns and BoE on hold would add to negative outlook. Bullish scenario needs break above channel resistance line, as well as lift above falling 55SMA (1.3257) to ease persisting bearish pressure, however, stronger bullish signal could be expected on extension above 1.35 barrier (Fibo 38.2% of 1.4376/1.2957 fall). Negative scenario sees break below 1.3082 (27 July low) and 1.3055 (Fibo 61.8% of 1.2957/1.3213 upleg) as a trigger for extension towards psychological 1.30 support and key point at 1.2957 (19 July low).

Res: 1.3175, 1.3219, 1.3257, 1.3292
Sup: 1.3112, 1.3082, 1.3055, 1.3000

Repetition!

Yes, you read it right. Repetition!

Ever wondered why in the field of medicine, the doctors and surgeons at the top of their game often specialize in a single field? We take it for granted that Roger Federer can never fill the shoes of Messi on a soccer field and neither can Messi fill the shoes of Fedex at Roland Garros.

Some of the most successful people, be it sports, music, science and even trading often specialize in one thing. Bill Gross is called a Bond guru for a reason. When you think about stocks, Buffet often comes to mind. Sure, both the icons may have had some success dipping their hands outside their field of specialization, but they wouldn’t be at the top of their game, if not for their specialization.

Repetition is a psychological process recognized since the age of time. The process of repetition is so obvious that we often tend to ignore how powerful it can be. Not only can repetition help you to improve your process, but it can also subconsciously help you to find familiarity. Imagine being a crowded room and you suddenly hear a familiar jingle on the radio. The first thought that comes to your mind is the brand name that ad-jingle is associated with, having watched or heard the same ad over and over again.

Now imagine this same sense of familiarity when you are watching the markets. A familiarity of trade set up, born over endless hours of repetition can not only make you more confident in your trades but also keeps the emotional factor in check.

How can repetition help in your trading?

Traders in general often come with short attention spans. The urge to make money keeps many traders hopping from one currency pair to another, one trading system to the next, one trading course to another and so on. Of course, traders are not the only ones to be blamed. In this day and age of information overload, the financial media too hops from one big story to the next, making it hard for those without self-discipline to ignore the noise.

Amidst all that noise, sticking to a process and doing the same thing over and over again can help you to keep your focus. This process of repetition, when applied correctly and with the right mindset, can help you to even turn a trading system around as your subconscious mind kicks in. Your trading becomes more effortless, and you will notice that trading becomes a more natural phenomenon. Even the losing trades will not affect your trading psychology that much and your confidence grows by leaps and bounds.

Getting started with repetition to improve your trading

1. Pick a trading system. It can be anything that you are fond of, or believe in. Even a straight forward two moving average system is more than enough
2. Start a personal blog. Use any of the free resources available. From blogger.com to wordpress.com or even Google spaces.
3. Every day at a certain time apply the trading template to one instrument for starters (pre-market or early Asian trading is ideal)
4. Write down what the market is doing, how the indicators are lined up and what you think the markets will do for the day
5. If you are just starting out, stick to an intraday time frame and slowly evolve this method to a daily time frame
6. Write down the target levels and why you think the market will behave the way you outlined
7. Also, write down an alternative plan
8. Repeat this every day and build a continuous story. Build a follow through from your previous day’s analysis. Acknowledge that you were right, acknowledge that you were wrong, but base it on the facts. For example, “EURUSD did not rally to 1.120 yesterday despite the 10 EMA crossing over 20 EMA. The price fell to 1.10 instead. Draghi’s speech sent the euro lower” or “EURUSD rallied to 1.120 yesterday as expected. Draghi’s speech push the euro higher for the day”. Perhaps in a few days, you will likely know why prices behaved differently to what you expected.
9. Within a few weeks, you will start to notice that a simple trading system such as using two moving averages can automatically turn out into a reliable trading system

This table should help give you an initial idea on how to start building a daily log, using the example of a moving average crossover system and combining fundamentals as well.

The psychology behind this method of repetition is very simple actually. When you look at your previous day’s trading analysis and acknowledge your mistakes, you actually make a subconscious effort into teaching your brain to start filtering out certain patterns or markers that occur in the markets. Over time, what you are left with is a lot of confidence and self-realization, as you acknowledge your strengths and weakness, and your mind starts to automatically point you to a potentially rewarding set up as well as keeping you out of a doubtful or a weak move in the markets.

To conclude, bear in mind that Messi, Federer, Gross, Buffet did not reach the epitome of success in a year.. not even in two.

“Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth” – Mike Tyson

In the fast moving world of Forex trading, where high-concentration is required for extended periods of time and decisions must sometimes be made in a split-second, it is crucial to have a plan, a plan that you can trust and stick to no matter what is happening.

A well thought-out and clearly produced trading plan is an essential tool to have and not just for new traders either.

Producing a clear trading plan not only provides the key benefit of essentially having a written guide to tell you how to operate each day in the market, but it also means that you have taken the time to properly consider your goals, your ability, your strategy, and your risk.

So what sort of things should you include in a trading plan?

A trading plan is a very simple document. It can simply be a piece of paper or card on your desk that gives you the exact rules that you are allowed to trade by. It defines what you can do when you can do it and how you do it.

It doesn’t have to be too detailed but it should at a minimum cover several key components:

1. Entry and Exit rules for trades
2. Risk / Reward (where your stop losses and take profit targets go)
3. What you need to be wary of.

Often, but not always, a trading plan might look like a series of diagrams and example charts with a set of rules, followed by a checklist for entering a trade depending on the strategy.

The point of a trading plan is to add discipline to your trading, to remove some of the emotional subjectivity, and to ensure you follow the rules you know work for you.
Essentially, the core aspects of your trading plan should consist of clearly detailing the strategy you use to trade and the exact rules you should follow when trading.

You can also include rules about how you identify market conditions as being favourable for your core strategy and rules regarding your total risk and exposure such as, not taking more than two trades in one Currency and not risking more than 5% of your account in one week.

Your trading plan should also include key trader psychology guidelines such as how to avoid over-trading, how to handle retracements and other key scenarios which are likely to occur and threaten to disrupt your trading.

Top Tips

When constructing your trading strategy rule set it is important to really put some thought into it and consider things as fully as you possibly can.
Often, situations occur in trading that a trader will not properly be prepared for, and these situations present the greatest risk for deviation from your trading plan.

What are some of these situations?

• Price comes just shy of your entry price and starts to move away. Do you enter or wait and enter only if price comes down to your exact entry level
• Price just misses your take profit target and then starts to reverse. Do you exit or hold and exit only at the profit target?
• You move your stop to breakeven, prices comes back and triggers your breakeven stop only to then reverse back in the direction of your trade. Do you re-enter?
• Price stops you out but then reverses and trades back through your original entry price and in the direction of your trade. Do you re-enter?
• You are in profit heading into a news release. Do you move to breakeven, take half-off or exit fully?

These are just some of the situations that can occur on a daily basis and throw you off course, no matter how good you think your plan is. Much like an army general trying to contemplate the moves the opposing general might make, you must try to fully consider all of the situations that can challenge you each day and establish strict rules for how you will manage them. A lot of this will only come with experience, but it is certainly a worth while exercise to undertake.

Build a trade example journal by taking screenshots of trades that have gone badly and annotate them to show what went wrong and what happened in the market. Doing this will allow you to build a reference that you can turn to in times of uncertainty such as price just missing your target and reversing, helping you to have the confidence to make the right decision when it counts.

Use a trading journal! Each day you should journal your activity in the markets, keep notes on how you were feeling as price action and folded and what you thought was likely to happen. Keep notes on how you felt executing your plan and whether you were tempted to deviate from it or not and how you reacted to winners and losers. Keeping a detailed journal will help build your confidence in trading and as with the trade example journal, it well act as a reference for times of uncertainty. It will also help to highlight any weaknesses in your trading plan and perhaps offer new trading ideas if you, for example, you are regularly anticipating a certain movement occurring in a certain situation, it may become something you can trade.

The Greenback weakened against the European Single Currency, following the Advance GDP data release. The EUR/USD currency pair gained 11 pips, or 0.09%, to continue fluctuating in the 1.1635 area.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released Gross Domestic Product data that came lower-than-expected of 4.1%, compared with the forecasted 4.2% but better than previous periods.

The US President Donald Trump said: "Somebody actually predicted today 5.3 [percent growth]. I don't think that's going to happen…if it has a 4 in front of it, we're happy. If it has like a 3, but it's a 3.8, 3.9, 3.7, we're OK. These are unthinkable numbers. If I would have used these numbers during the campaign, the fake news back there would've said he's exaggerating."

Euro stays firm after some mixed economic data.

Eurozone all-item CPI accelerated to 2.1% in July, up from 2.1% yoy and beat expectation of 2.0% yoy. Core CPI also accelerated to 1.1%, up from 0.9% yoy and beat expectation of 1.0% yoy.

Unemployment rate, dropped to 8.3%, down from 8.4% and met expectation.

On the other hand, GDP growth closed to 0.3% qoq in Q2, down from 0.4% qoq and missed expectation of 0.4% qoq. Annual growth slowed to 2.1% yoy, down from 2.5% yoy and missed expectation of 2.2% yoy.

Also from Eurozone Germany retail sales rose 1.2% mom in June, above expectation of 1.0% mom. Unemployment dropped -6k in July, below expectation of -10k.

The common European currency has been gaining strength against the British Pound in a steep ascending channel since April. The channel pattern was formed on April 17 when the currency pair bounced off the lower boundary of the ascending pattern.

The monthly pivot at 0.8820 has provided a significant support for the exchange rate to shoot higher since July 3. Furthermore, the 100-hour simple moving average has guided the pair during this short period.

Technical indicators on both the smaller and the larger time frame demonstrate that bulls are likely going to continue their dominance in the market today.

The Pound Sterling has been trading in a medium-term triangle formation pattern against the New Zealand Dollar since the end of April. The currency pair tested its upper boundary on April 27 and reached the bottom border last June.

During the past few weeks, the exchange rate has been moving sideways along the 200-hour simple moving average.

Technical indicators on both the 4H and daily time-frame favour bearish sentiment. This might indicate that the GBP/NZD is likely to continue moving south for a potential target at the lower boundary of the triangle pattern during the following trading sessions

EUR/USD has diminished its trading range in between two trend-lines. It was previously expected that the Euro weakens against the US Dollar on Monday; however, the week started with strong bullish momentum which allowed the pair to dash through significant resistance formed by the 55-, 100– and 200-hour SMAs near 1.1680 mid-session.

It is likely that this cluster supports the rate today, thus adding bullish pressure. The pair should move towards a two-week resistance level at 1.1750. The 23.60% Fibo retracement is likewise located there.

If this area is surpassed, the Euro should eventually accelerate and aim for 1.19 within the following month. This scenario is supported by technical indicators on the daily time-frame.