Week in Review: 12th August to 18th August 2013

Ouch. Last week's trading was quite painful. I opened six trades, of which three lost. Since I'm using inverse reward:risk ratios for most of these trades, I finished in the red.

I still have one trade open on the NZDUSD, which is currently at breakeven. Rather than go through each trade, I'll post my losses and provide some comments.

TRADES

USDJPY - 1D - Hermes low volatility system

This was brutal. I spotted a low volatility candle on the USDJPY, 15th August, and put in a pending long on the break of USDJPY's high, and a pending short on the USDJPY's low. 

Both orders were triggered, but the market chose to be choppy that day. My short was first triggered, and price moved south until it was 2 pips short of my profit target. Then it reversed, took out my short stop loss, triggered my long, and reversed 4 pips short of my long profit target! And of course it took out my long stop loss. 

GPBUSD - 1D  - Var Daily Pinbar System

This trade was based on my 'Var' daily pinbar system. I don't use this system much because of it's historically steep drawdown. It uses a reward:risk of 2.5:1, so it's a low-probabiliy, high-reward system. I use a position size of 0.5%, which is very conservative.  

Anyway, this trade resulted in a loss. I spotted a small pinbar on the GBPUSD after the 13th August. I went short on the break of the pinbar's low, but it never went anywhere and took me out.

Because of the small position size, this trade didn't bother me much.

Upcoming week

There's a glut of signals that I've spotted over the weekend. Setups that interest me include the GBPUSD on the daily chart, and USDCHF and GBPJPY on the weekly charts.