Howdy Folks,

I hope you had a great trading week! Today’s post will walk you though a GBP/USD trade that started on Wednesday evening and ended only a few minutes ago. In my FX Street webinars I discuss a trade setup I call a bargain day. These bargain day setups often represent an opportunity to enter with an existing trend at a discounted price. Let’s look at the setup.

The Bargain Day

On Wednesday the market closed below the HMA which was trending higher. This represents a potential bargain day opportunity to get long with the existing trend at a discounted price. Usually I look for a trend trade opportunity and use Fibonacci extensions to calcuate a profit target, but in this case we I knew GBP/USD was dealing with major resistance on the weekly chart so I decided a retracement ratio was in order.

The Entry

Understand I’m a big support and resistance trader, I only use bargain days as a guide to warn me a potential support and resistance trade may exist. I prefer to work along the extreme edges of price but when I can’t do that I have to work with what I have. In this case, the support and resistance landscape was ugly. I decided to split a demand level around support shown last week and the round number of $1.65. The entry was long at $1.6520. For a profit target, I drew Fibonacci retracement ratios from the high preceeding the bargain day to the low. This morning the profit target was just missed. Knowing that GBP/USD is struggling with resistance on the weekly chart I decided to pull the trade for a profit of 131.8 pips.

If you haven’t been able to attend my FX Street webinar I hope this post helps illustrate what a bargain day is, and how I use them.

When is the Next Seminar?

I’ve had to cancel several seminars lately so I am working with FX Street to find a time that works better for everybody involved. Also, I’d like to get the seminar later in the day so people who work a day job can actually attend since they are not recorded. I will post on the blog when the next seminar is coming up so you can register with enough time. Right now, we are looking at 4pm Pacific which hopefully will be a bit better than 12 pm Pacific for folks in the U.S.

Have a great weekend!

Ryan

Howdy Folks,

Our currency of choice, GBP/USD, seems determined to make a run at previous resistance around $1.70. Today’s price action poked $1.66 and found enough demand to drive prices above $1.67 again. The immediate price trend as measured by my trusty HMA appears to be intact and poised to move higher, but entering now is too expensive for me. I’m cheap and I like a good deal. I’d prefer to see price closing against the prevailing price action trend as I have regularly discussed in my webinars on FX Street. The daily price is currently above the HMA while trending higher along the Bollinger Band median (20 SMA) on a lower time frame (4 hour). Not surprisingly, the market isn’t at an extreme of overbought or oversold as measured by the CCI oscillator. Without a dirt cheap entry price I’ll be out of this currency pair tonight. After the news is released tomorrow morning, it wouldn’t surprise me if $1.66 or $1.6650 is jabbed one more time before a move higher. If $1.66 falls however, the weekly resistance we talked about yesterday may be setting up for a move lower.

Charts below…

More thoughts tomorrow evening, best of luck to you intraday players!

Ryan

IMPORTANT NOTICE: These comments are for information purposes only. My opinions or other information contained in this post do not constitute investment advice. It should not be understood as a direct recommendation to buy or sell any currency contract or other investment vehicle. Forex trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.

Howdy Folks,

Big day today, equities up another 200 points on the heels of the G20 summit over the weekend. Apparently the markets like the idea of even more cheap investment capital being promised by the G20. GBP/USD, our currency of choice to cover in this blog had a great day as well, up about 150 pips by my daily candle’s range. The resistance at $1.67 has been broken and now we are trading around the key resistance pivot. I personally think a pull back is in the works before the pair moves higher on dollar weakness. I think a test of $1.67 would be appropriate, but nothing is a guarantee. As a bargain hunter today marks a day of in action.

The charts attached to this post are just some rough planing guides as to what might play out over the next few weeks.  Notice that GBP/USD turned higher along the 38.2 percent retracement ratio last week, this may put the 138.2 percent extension ratio in play if the GBP moves higher. If the resistance barrier holds, perhaps a move back to 61.8 percent is in the works. I think onward and upward is the likely path.

Best of luck, more tomorrow.

Ryan

IMPORTANT NOTICE: These comments are for information purposes only. My opinions or other information contained in this post do not constitute investment advice. It should not be understood as a direct recommendation to buy or sell any currency contract or other investment vehicle. Forex trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.

Howdy Folks,

I have a schedule conflict this week so there will be no webinar today. I have rescheduled the webinar for Friday, the 6th at 20GMT which is 3pm Eastern Time. If you would like to attend, please visit this link and regsiter:

http://www.fxstreet.com/live/sessions/session.aspx?id=aba67ad4-5fea-4b6a-8f46-bbdadb68be7f

Hope to see you there!
Ryan

Howdy Folks,

Opening gaps do not happen as often in the spot market as they do in exchange based markets but occasionally the Sunday open can hand us a nice trading opportunity. I think the best presentation I’ve seen on trading gaps in the spot market was done by Sam Seiden at FXStreet.com titled Professional Gaps vs. Novice Gaps in the Forex Market. If you would like to know the difference between a “novice” gap and a “professional” gap I encourage you to watch Sam’s presentation:

http://transcripts.fxstreet.com/2009/02/professional-gaps-vs-novice-gaps-in-the-forex-markets.html

This novice gap has offered approximately 100 pips since it formed one hour after the Sunday open.

Best of luck this week,

Ryan

Howdy Folks,

We had a great webinar earlier today, I hope you are able to attend next week. We are do  them every Monday, I’ll post the link on Friday. GBP/USD was stopped short at supply and sold off like a politician running from the truth on Friday. The currency looks like it is on its way to test breakout resistance as support near $1.61. Nothing specific to zero in on today, GBP/USD is running in the middle of the range, perhaps something better will appear tomorrow.

Howdy Folks,

October has not been kind with my schedule and webinars! Last week I had some internet issues before the webinar and this week I have a schedule conflict so there will be no webinar today. We will resume on the 26th of October.

Thanks,

Ryan

Howdy Folks,

There were no decent bargain day opportunities this week however patience with the GBP/USD paid off late in the week. On Monday I posted a chart which marked a range between $1.61 and $1.58. Given recent price action my bias was to short the top of this channel near $1.61 and that is exactly what I did.  I suspected nothing dramatic would happen on GBP/USD until after the BoE rate statement Thursday morning. The immediate result was a GBP rally but I didn’t believe it had any teeth because the BoE didn’t throw any surprises as the RBA did earlier in this week. I setup a classic support and resistance trade using broken support and the round number $1.6100. I sold GBP/USD at $1.6110 using entry orders. My profit target was the 61.8% ratio and I took 190 pips off this morning. There was more in this trade but a profit target is a profit target.

I hope you had a great trading week!

Don’t forget Monday’s webinar! You can register at this link by clicking on “Register for this Session”

http://www.fxstreet.com/live/sessions/session.aspx?id=9f2cb6df-bd6e-465e-9b5f-9763e8c3a86b

Have a great weekend!

Ryan

Howdy Folks,

Another great webinar this afternoon! If you missed it the next one is Monday at 19:00 GMT as usual. GBP/USD is rather boring to talk about tonight. The market appears to be waiting on data from the manufacturing sector and Halifax’s HPI report tomorrow morning. The pair continues to range between $1.6100 and $1.5800 with $1.6000 smack in the middle. With no bargain day and little price action there isn’t much to do with this pair today. Range traders will likley continue playing both sides until we finally get some direction out of this pair. Nothing for me to do right now except let time pass and see what happens. Thinking out loud for a momement, it might be interesting to see a bargain day setup near the bottom of this range. Don’t forget the BoE releases their rate statement Thursday morning.

Best of luck,

Ryan

IMPORTANT NOTICE: These comments are for information purposes only. My opinions or other information contained in this post do not constitute investment advice. It should not be understood as a direct recommendation to buy or sell any currency contract or other investment vehicle. Forex trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.

owdy Folks,

I have finally finished my book! I’m going to take advantage of my new free time and get back to blogging! I have really enjoyed our webinar chats and I’m looking forward to blogging here regularly again. Today being Sunday I’d like to share some planning thoughts on GBP/USD before the week gets started. Last week the story was consolidation after the breakout following the Fed’s statement. $1.6100 held resistance while $1.5800 held support throughout the week. If we measure Fibonacci extensions using the high / low preceding the breakout we find the market turned at the 50% ratio and reached the correlated 150% extension last week. This leads me to suspect some upside potential for GBP/USD over the short term assuming the selling is over with for now. The BoE has a rate statement scheduled for Thursday. If I had to guess, I’d say the pair is bid up early in the week and sent lower later in the week of course I could be totally wrong. If $1.58 falls early it appears the ride down to $1.53 could be swift. The fundamental calendar for dollar is light this week with only ISM, Unemployment and Trade Balance data expected. Regardless of direction, price action will ultimately lead the way.

Monday’s Webinar Link

I’m looking forward to the webinar tomorrow. I did a special webinar last Friday and we had a huge crowd of folks in the room! I hope you can join us tomorrow for our regular chat about support and resistance, “bargain days” and trading around your day job. The webinar starts at 12:00pm Pacific / 19:00 GMT. You can register via this link:

http://www.fxstreet.com/live/sessions/session.aspx?id=5261c7d5-80f6-4f06-9b99-6539c8505cb2

Click on “Register for this Session”.

Best of luck this week, more tomorrow.

Ryan

IMPORTANT NOTICE: These comments are for information purposes only. My opinions or other information contained in this post do not constitute investment advice. It should not be understood as a direct recommendation to buy or sell any currency contract or other investment vehicle. Forex trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.