I stopped out at just above breakeven in Ozzie and didn't trade yesterday, 9 September, because I was out of town. But I went long again this morning at 8586, only a bit below the prior entry the other day. To say the pair has been unexciting the past couple of days is an understatement with its narrow range. This area in the 8500 range is significant historically (e.g. 8525 (June '07), close of 8517 (July '07), low of 8554 (Dec. '07), low of 8512 (Jan '08). If you go back further on the monthly chart into the 80s it was also a confluence area. My Gann calculations also bring me into this area. So the pair is bound to dither about here until it finds a direction one way or the other.
When I first started trading I found this enormously frustrating--50 to 100 pips up; 50 to 100 pips down. Sure you could take these small gains and that's perfectly appropriate if it's your style and/or if you believe you're in a rectangle. But I sense the Ozzie has a bigger move coming, in part because this area has such significance.
But for now, there's no bigger move taking place. Sometimes traders forget (or maybe suppress) that the market moves because certain people think a price is at a point to buy and others think it's at a point to sell. When these points are close togather the market is stagnating. And who likes that? It's especially galling when you have a strong belief that the market is going to move in one certain direction. We have a strong need to be right, after all, especially when we're operating in a world where uncertainty causes a lot of stress.
In Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Jessie Livermore said the trader, "cannot make the stock do what he wants it to do.) (p.226). This is true. You can only wait and let the market show you what it's going to do. And then you need to be ready to move and take advantage of that.
The market will do what it will do. Stay present; stay ready to move with it.
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