I rarely sleep….I never have. And these days as a full-time currency trader, its more than reasonable to assume – I never will.
It’s a problem I’ve been struggling with for as long as I can remember. No matter how minute, no matter how distant – any, and everything that makes even the tiniest of sounds (god forbid anything repetitive) has me hooked. Counting the intervals in between, doing long division, tapping my toes or clicking my teeth. I’ve got drum beats going behind the drip from the tap, symphonies playing with local birds, a quick estimation of speed from the passing kid on a skateboard – all the while wondering “what’s the story with that damn fan in the living room?”.
Needless to say I am almost always awake and able to give the computer a quick check, should the need arise.
For the rest of you though – there are some very specific times when it really does pay to get to work. I like to be at the computer and ready to go 2 hours before the U.S session begins – and would usually plan to stay tuned throughout the morning – until the London session ends. Roughly a 4 hour period between 6:30 and 10:30 my time. Then perhaps a look after lunch, and the usual “2 minutes til close”. Currency wise – not a lot of “intraday antics” line up with U.S equities in the afternoon so…if you catch the overlap of the two sessions in the morning – you’re in good shape.
You can then chase tumbleweeds for the entire mid to late afternoon and well into the evenings until around 9:00 pm when a bit of news gets released but even then – usually nothing earth shattering. In general the Asian session is flat , and currency pairs are often observed “frozen in time”. I’ve read that a lot of currency trading strategies are build and designed around the open of London but in my experience – have never really had much luck with that. If anything I would just look to get at it an hour earlier (5:30 a.m) and go from there.
Oh yes and of course – I’ve got to make time to work on this confounded blog and there’s that damn spaceship I’m building on the rooftop. Anyways hope it helps…
Well looks like we’re sharing the timeframe we spend on the screen daily. My thoughts exactly. You know this blog, as it grows, could be a monster to manage then you’ll be here 24/7.
By the way, missin’ you over at Garys site. whats up with that?
Hi Graham…sorry for the late response – not sure how I missed your comment.
Yes – It’s getting busier around here daily – and I think its great. Busy – but good to see it growing.It’s tough over at SMT – in that…its not my blog – and speaking freely doesnt really work over there.I’d chime in a lot more often if I wasnt met with such disagreement. I don’t subscribe to Garý’s trading strategy in any way shape or form – and that also makes it hard to “not sound negative” – if it’s working for people there (I stll can’t figure out how) good enough.
Perhaps Ill pop over n “stir the pot”…he.he…Gary is great and I do appreciate his efforts.
So, are you talking about trading currencies from 6:30am EST to 10:30am EST? I am a subscriber from SMT and enjoy your posts. I would like to learn more about trading currencies and learning through your trades.
Hi Paul.
I am not suggesting that you “only trade” between those hours – only that those are the hours of the day when I will commonly enter or exit a given trade , that may have been active for several days. So….I don’t “scalp” or look to buy / sell in short time frames like that – but wd ill use these times of high liquidity to enter or exit. You see?
Glad to have you aboard – and I hope to help you with your trading.
I hear you – dont know what the word means…. always been a night person,,,,, it does catch up with you as you know….
Hey Schmed – more like a walking zombie at times – It does wear on you after a while.
I hope your trades are looking good – the short Yen’s (having re entered) still had a lil more to go – buy Im thinking about leaving them a lone a day or two after such a great run. Dollar shorts now looking great – but its cycle is getting close to putting in a low and a likely lil correction – damn thing.
I will likely just clear the deck / bank profits across the deck here this afternoon – and start again Sunday!
hi Forex, still enjoying your blog.
Just mentioning I closed a couple of positions i had (xgd.to) and those March 28 XLK calls at small profits.
Still have the GDX calls, unfortunately underwater there but coming back some the last couple days.
thanks, sleep well 🙂
hf.
Nice work man…..gold has been a real dog here since bottoming…now – just lookin to frustrate. I too may lighten the load pending what I see next week.
Hi FK,
Had heard that as well – preparing 2hours before US open, from USA traders – bit hard when you live in good ol’ NZ…. so no way I can play the game that way. Have to rely on the daily candles, and make estimates based on Asia and early London hours where the lows (for longs) are, and hope that the the stops there don’t get hit during my overnight….. It makes me laugh when traders in the USA complain about being asleep during the Asian trading hours….and are afraid of what will happen…. it’s always NY and COMEX that moves things…. so every morning when I wake up, it’s always “with interest” that I check what the USA has been up to…. (am not a 24hr owl like you obviously…). Right now I am not doing anything with the currencies, even though I can see what you are doing – busy enough (and have enough risk exposure) with only the gold & silver trades, and reading 600-odd messages per Gary’s blog-day (thank goodness for Thanksgiving day…. 😉 bit quieter now… # of messages surely is a great indicator of potential bottoms…. 😉
It feels like “waiting a lifetime” there at SMT – and I can’t find anything to read either!…SOS…BOW…sentiment etc….has done absolutely “zero” in timing this “bottom buy” – let alone the disaster of buying the options at the top.
I’ve had one of my best months this year – while those “waiting in the red” stil contemplate daily – when? when? – when can we break even! I just don’t get it. Sure when gold “finally” gets off it’s ass (as I too own gold related options) everyone is gonna make money – that’s a no brainer – buy gold its going up – no! But I will stick to my original thoughts that – they will likely miss the majority of the move. Just lookin at the math on the GDX options alone – now “hail mary” might get them to break even – and then it will be time for a correction downward anyway. I just can’t get on board “twiddling my thumbs”.
I have some position planning to do this weekend but this will have to wait until Sunday, We have PM’s exp. Tuesday but a lot of momentum currently in the sector. At some point we will need to stop and rest a little – I would think the dxy will need to bounce a little after the sell-off, maybe a little more room down to reach an over-sold level….
Sounds right on track Schmed – funny how it works.Likely just as people will be thinking “hey…things look to be headed up again – only makes sense that we’ll get a pullback – but a short/small on only!
News over the weekend seems to have given the U.S holiday shopping volumes the thumbs up so….thats good.
Otherwise…Im just gonna take next week one day at a time – and now being 100% cash on the currency side frankly – I hope the dollar pops fast and hard so I might catch a nice lil spike /wash out type thing to really load the boat short again.