March 15 – March 20 2020
How did these do?
AUDUSD – Monitoring the four hour chart, we had basing at support which is bearish. Price broke support and needed to wait for the bear flag on the 18th for any entry. Price dropped 448 pips from bear flag lows.
EURUSD – We had expected weakness coming into the 1.0930 price zone. We had a lazy pullback after support break which was a standard breakout pullback trade. 304 pips potential from bear flag lows.
GBPUSD – Price had come into a support zone and as noted on the setup chart, we wanted shorts. We needed some price pause in the downside. We got that with a one day pullback on Monday. We did see the failure test of highs on the Sunday and stood aside. In hindsight, that was the perfect entry. Had to wait for the breakout and pullback which happened on Tuesday. Price breaks lows of flag to rack up 590 pips before stalling
NZDUSD – On the setup chart, we noted to watch for basing at support on the four hour chart. Support broke and pullback occurred. Break of bear flag low kicked off 444 pips to the downside.
USDCAD – On the four hour chart (where we suggested a short trade), we saw a failure test of highs on Wednesday which started a 389 pip CAD recovery to the downside
USDCHF – We were considering shorts only because of the momentum in the initial decline of price. Price roared through the level we would look for shorts.
Unprecedented. Stunning moves in the FX markets lead to over 3700 potential pips in last week setups. Some of the setups went exactly as noted on the setup chart. Others evolved when one move failed to materialize. Yes, failures of expected moves often evolve into another move you can trade. All entries are the same ones you’ve read about for years on this website.
Could you have gotten all of these pips? No. Too much overlap in the pairings but you should have been able to bank more than you usually do.
For this week, we may see the USD give back some of its gains which makes many of these trades counter to the momentum moves. I am only looking at USD pairs for this weeks update.
GBPUSD is a standout with a huge drop last week. USDCHF has the cleanest pattern of all setups. Generally, we’d look for extended markets to give back some but these are not normal days. The coronavirus updates change rapidly and with those changes, markets shake up. Where we are looking to go opposite momentum, we will be using four hour charts as always.
For some of you, you may lighten position sizes. Take the gift of large momentum moves and grab the profits. The four hour charts are great to watch for swing traders when considering the daily setups. Above all, do not just enter a trade without a trigger. We use breakouts into pullbacks, enter at bases below resistance and above support, and even trend line breaks.
Any question, please put them in the comments.
If you are looking for other ways to trade markets in times like this, my pal Mike is putting together an Options trading webinar “LIVE” on Monday. Check it out here.