The One That Got Away?

To be honest, I don't really like the Asian Markets for this system. The Japanese have an expression called Chuutohanpa. Half-arsed. It is almost down to a flip of a coin to see if there will be enough liquidity to take a move to its proposed destination or if price just idles sideways until London gets in.

Yesterday was one of those days.

Here is the GBPJPY 1 hour. The entry would be about where the end of the orange arrow is.

The GBPJPY comparatively does have a larger range of movement. And now in hindsight I can see it bounced about in a 100 pip range before continuing. System trading is all about following the system in place. The entry was around the arrow point (technically about where that blue candle closed).


The designated Take Profit area also highlighted. So why didn't I take the trade at the entry signal, or an hour or two later once the top of the range was identified? Let's take a look at the other pairs.

The AussieYen :

 

No indication of which direction, if at all, it wanted to go. Last thing we wnat to do is step onto a slow moving conveyer only to have it suddenly switched to overdrive as soon as London comes in.

The EuroYen :

Same as the AussieYen. Not in a hurry to go anywhere, and very typical Asian Market movement. Don't get me wrong here, this doesn't mean you can't trade the Asian Markets. There are plenty of opportunities for good trading. Just, I personally don't like an entry signal taking 6-8 hours before the planned trade takes a move.

Back to the original topic...Was this GBYJPY trade the "one that got away?" I'd happily say no. The entry signal was about where the orange arrow on price was. Not the top of the range that formed over the next 6-8hours. Yes, you could argue that that was the price level at which the original trade was planned, but not the entry candle.

I'd say no again, even as I sat there watching candle for candle to see how the markets were going, the Aussie and Euro Yens gave no indication of continued movement.

Trading is about stacking the odds in your favour before placing the trade. This is why a lot of systems have 2-3 entry criteria. Unless all entry criteria are met, no trade is placed. it is a way of filtering out not just bad trades, but also filtering out trades like this that just leave you with too big a question mark as to whether it will play out or not.

Cheers