USD / JPY

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sqa said:
At some level, there is no real way to unwind the Government's Debt without default and that's the entire problem now. It's made very little sense to invest in Japan for a rather long time. It's precisely what happens when you build a monster Debt-fueled Asset bubble, then prevent it from completely correcting itself. Same thing is in the process of happening in the USA & Europe.

I could not agree more. Since there is no real way to unwind debt they are hoping to find an unreal way, until they do they can only try to keep building the bubble and hope it doesn't burst on their watch. I wish them luck.
 
I lightened up a bit at 114.48's, in front of 114.50's as a half penny level. Want to watch how the pair acts above 114's... I really want to see a clean melt up and big blow-off / price rejection before I wrap up the rest (that or it hits my stop well in profit below 114's.

I've also started scalping longs on pullbacks since upside break keeps proving to work.

Pleased.
 
Jack said:
I lightened up a bit at 114.48's, in front of 114.50's as a half penny level. Want to watch how the pair acts above 114's... I really want to see a clean melt up and big blow-off / price rejection before I wrap up the rest (that or it hits my stop well in profit below 114's.

I've also started scalping longs on pullbacks since upside break keeps proving to work.

Pleased.

115.20, 116.80 & 119.00 are the next key levels to the upside. 119 being the big, big level to watch out for. (That one could take a while to leave)
 
I had only planned to ride this thing out to 115's... but it's been proving much stronger than I anticipated.

(I thought we'd get to where we are now by end of week, yet it's only Wednesday and here we are.)

Now I'm seeing retail bunch orders up to sell 115's.. which makes me pretty sure we'll take that level out sooner than later:

3kgdfSo.png

(That line has been growing steadily over the last 12 hours. Image comes from Oanda's public order book.)
 
Speaking of Oanda's order book, I love this view of sell orders getting run over with the announcement (and how in the day leading into the BOJ announcement, people were starting to stack their sell orders ~20-50 pips above price, as if to catch a top or get some sort of whipsaw trade off what the BOJ planned to say.)

BfLJ38h.png
 
110 was a pretty key high, but in classic ICT teaching: don't try to catch the Top or Bottom. ;)

Now, if only I had left my TP open and road it 500 pips, haha. (Was long before the BoJ announcement. I didn't expect it to run past 109.50 quite like that.)
 
Seeing the Current Order Book off Oanda, I wonder if 115 is just important because it's, well, a "5". Nothing really special about that one.

But, yeah, I fully expect 115 to get slammed hard. Though the UJ is odd about certain things. They might not slam it until NFP. Or even after.
 
Annnndd... there goes 115's.. :D

I got more off just in front of the level.. now I'm effectively in a 1:1 leverage trade just to ride out the last bit (as if I had a JPY based account and converted it to USD.. only it's a USD account and I'm just doubling up on USD by borrowing some JPY and selling it. I'm trying to get into more of these 1-5:1 type longer term holds...)
 
sqa said:
110 was a pretty key high, but in classic ICT teaching: don't try to catch the Top or Bottom. ;)

Now, if only I had left my TP open and road it 500 pips, haha. (Was long before the BoJ announcement. I didn't expect it to run past 109.50 quite like that.)

Most people didn't expect it. . hence the order book chart above of sellers getting run over; perhaps part of that was your TP. :p

At least you got something though.. getting a TP hit (when part of your plan) is always good regardless of how far it goes afterward.
 
My trading is mostly around fairly small chunks, on a weekly basis. At least for now. My TP was where I knew I could get out. There was a lot of reasons to suspect the Yearly high was in (Historic High is early October), but, obviously, the BoJ surprised everyone.

Still, being long from 108.91 would still be nice. :)
 
I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have started trading Real money sooner. My clarity in my trades has rapidly improved.

And/or we're in a hard trend and this is suddenly a lot easier than the failure issues I had back in August when this started.
 
lets take a look :eek:

hidden optimal trade level 119.00
H4 order block
institutional sweet spot 119.800
London Low?
or will it smash through it and become a Miti
 

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D1 OB @ 119.13.

They pushed it supremely hard going into NFP, and around 80% of the time (the last few years), you get heavy down-move post-NFP. (Likely due to the Fund Redemption Cycle and the Market Makers making money off that)

If H1 MS breaks to the Upside on UJ, there's at least a return to 120.80ish. Granted, depending where it breaks, 121.20 would be the upside.

Granted, USDX has a good bit to go to reach a likely reversal point, so I get the feeling we're getting down to that D1 Order Block. But a Short around 120.60 would be nice.
 
sqa said:
D1 OB @ 119.13.

They pushed it supremely hard going into NFP, and around 80% of the time (the last few years), you get heavy down-move post-NFP. (Likely due to the Fund Redemption Cycle and the Market Makers making money off that)

If H1 MS breaks to the Upside on UJ, there's at least a return to 120.80ish. Granted, depending where it breaks, 121.20 would be the upside.

Granted, USDX has a good bit to go to reach a likely reversal point, so I get the feeling we're getting down to that D1 Order Block. But a Short around 120.60 would be nice.

sounds good
i am long from 119.820
do you know what time Asia Japan market closes in Japan time? think it is 3.00PM
which is 5.00pm Aussie time
 
GdayFx said:
yea you were right, i didn't have much faith in it

I'm getting better at keeping track of my Market Structure, which is helping a lot.

Once it broke 120.05, that put us down on the H4, though it wasn't acting like the pop off the H4 Order Block was going to hold. That's one of those "know what the pair likes to do" insights. I made a large % of my Demo account increases by knowing to go Short post-NFP, when UJ has actually been on a Weekly Uptrend for 3 years, haha.

Though I got slammed hard when I suddenly had to learn to trade in an actual trending environment. :-\
 
Jack said:
I had only planned to ride this thing out to 115's... but it's been proving much stronger than I anticipated.

(I thought we'd get to where we are now by end of week, yet it's only Wednesday and here we are.)

Now I'm seeing retail bunch orders up to sell 115's.. which makes me pretty sure we'll take that level out sooner than later:

3kgdfSo.png

(That line has been growing steadily over the last 12 hours. Image comes from Oanda's public order book.)

Whoa thats an interesting chart. And then the next one you posted. I have so much to learn still.
 
Jack said:
Speaking of Oanda's order book, I love this view of sell orders getting run over with the announcement (and how in the day leading into the BOJ announcement, people were starting to stack their sell orders ~20-50 pips above price, as if to catch a top or get some sort of whipsaw trade off what the BOJ planned to say.)

BfLJ38h.png

I love this, you explain how you got this view?

edit: Found it, historical open orders.
 
From bloomberg:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-22/japan-margin-traders-record-yen-shorts-facing-swiss-oil-shocks.html

iKtQDNOgaVSM.jpg


Higher and higher % of speculative traders going short YEN (or long USD/JPY,) as price consolidates.

While I don't think, fundamentally, they are wrong on the trade.. we have all observed what happens when retail and other speculators get too heavy to one side.. it becomes a juicy prospect to shake them out.

I'm curious to see how this develops, I'd love to get in a long term / low leverage short yen trade to hold for a few months and a shake out of existing shorts might provide a good opportunity for that.
 
The "smart money" beat you to that trade. It setup on Dec 26th when USD-JPY decoupled from the USDX trend. (Note the lack of comparative trend Highs) But 115 to 116 is being defended. The Bank of Japan isn't increasing its exposure (more than it's doing monthly, already), but it's been clear for a bit that they'll keep it elevated pretty far. (Last year they were defending 100 to 101 really heavy, that's part of why so many were Long)

If you really do want to hold a short like that, either you've missed the entry (unlikely, but it is possible, we might have had a shot at 119 for the last time in a while) or it'll develop above 119 between February 4th and 11th. (I.e. right before NFP or the week after; Post-NFP Weekly Sell Scenario has worked out great for me, for months).

Downside targets at those Lows around 115.50, 113.80 (the Key figure in all of this) and [if 113.80 taken] 110.20 & 109.70.

This is Weekly Chart work, so doesn't bother me much giving levels. :)
 
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