Gold Trade Review
I've transitioned to identifying structural opportunities on higher timeframes. As expected, I spotted and capitalized on fewer signals. This was also partially due to the chaotic price action observed over the past month. As August is coming to an end, I'm still seeing choppy price action and a lack of directional plays.
Over on the daily timeframe, gold rallied to 1,808 highs before forming a pinbar on August 10th. At this point, I haven't formed a bearish bias. I started looking for opportunities on the downside after price closed below the 1,784 neckline.
Shortly after my initial entry, I scaled into this position by taking two more entries. In hindsight, this was probably a bit too aggressive. This may have been due to my impatience after sitting out for so long and having the trades that I did take fall flat.
However, that doesn't mean they're non-existent. I recently scaled into a series of positions in XAUUSD (gold).
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| Gold 1-Day Timeframe |
Over on the daily timeframe, gold rallied to 1,808 highs before forming a pinbar on August 10th. At this point, I haven't formed a bearish bias. I started looking for opportunities on the downside after price closed below the 1,784 neckline.
I finally spotted an opportunity on the 1-hour timeframe when price broke through an intraday neckline.
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| Gold 1-Hour Timeframe |
Shortly after my initial entry, I scaled into this position by taking two more entries. In hindsight, this was probably a bit too aggressive. This may have been due to my impatience after sitting out for so long and having the trades that I did take fall flat.
However, I still exercised sound judgement when managing these trades. After price failed to make lower lows on August 18, I exited my position entirely. When price made a "bounce," I was conscious and fearful that momentum would likely die off.
After I went flat, the uptick that I was so fearful of started trending downwards again. In fact, price would've hit my 1,751 take profit if I had held the position. Looking back at this set of trades, the most difficult question to answer is - was I correct with my close decision?
So far, I think yes and no. It was correct in the sense that I did see price pushed to a new intraday high. At the same time, price did not make a new lower low. One thing I failed to do was look at the higher timeframe as that is more indicative of structure. On the daily timeframe, price wasn't touching any significant historical levels nor was it showing any indication of reversing.
This is something I'm going to have to keep in mind for future trades. If I am looking for more structural moves, both my entries and exits have to utilize the higher timeframes.