Currencies:
The USD has seen a strong pullback, which was made aware to you in the previous blog post as we had hit an area of interest. We have seen big pullbacks across the board; GBP/USD has pulled back 145 Pips this week, USD/CAD has pulled back 200 pips and EUR/USD has pulled back 85 pips. We are monitoring price action as we are pushing into another area of interest now which could see the bullish strength step in again. However, the previous daily candles on a lot of these pairs were very strong, so we will need to be weary of this if we execute a long on the dollar. Our overall bias is for more dollar strength for now.
Upcoming fundamental releases we have are:
Wednesday, August 25th
- USD, Durable Goods Orders(Jul)
- Nondefense Capital Goods Orders ex Aircraft(Jul)
Thursday, August 26th
- USD, Gross Domestic Product Annualized(Q2) PREL
Friday, August 27th
- USD, Fed’s Chair Powell speech
- AUD, Retail Sales s.a. (MoM)(Jul)
Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin is seeing a slowdown at the 50K mark, we could experience a pullback from this level to then push us up and break us out of this level. We will be monitoring this closely. Some ALT coins are still pushing up as they catch up with the rest of the crypto market, such as NEO/USD which has done +20% so far this week.
Traders Tips: Perseverance
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.”
– Thomas Edison
As we have spoken about in previous blog posts, this trading journey that we are all on is also a massive journey of personal development. The amount of psychological levels which we must break through in order to reach our goals is crazy, and it allows us to really find out what we are like deep down.
We have all been conditioned for the way ‘normal life works’, through the schooling system, normal jobs and even the way society operates. This conditioning is where we are told to believe that your input is very closely tied with your immediate output. And for the most part this is correct, for example the more hours you work in a job at the supermarket then you will get paid in proportion to that time. You input more time and your output is more money. But this is where trading (and entrepreneurship in general) is completely different, this norm is not relevant to us.
You could be working on your trading for 2-3 years and not produce those results that you were hoping to see. You’ll sit there and question what’s the point in this. You have set yourself expectations to meet and you haven’t done that… despite putting in hours and hours of your time into it. This hits us hard because we are used to and conditioned to want essentially instant results – unable to delay gratification.
Now what happens to our thinking and psychology when we set ourselves these goals, and even though you are a few months/years deep you haven’t achieved them? Motivation drops, energy levels drop, negative self-talk increases, doubt increases, and you question if it’s really ‘for you’ – but 99% of the time this is an excuse you will tell yourself to make yourself feel better.
Now this is completely natural for us to feel these emotions and to think these thoughts… we are human after all. If you are in pain, then naturally our response is to stop what it is that’s causing this ‘pain’ – and giving-up is the scape goat for this.
Now that we have highlighted the problem… What is the solution? What is the way out?
Perseverance through belief.
I am currently reading a book called ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’ by Dr David Shwartz. In this he talks about how belief is a critical element of achieving big goals. He says, “Defeat is only a state of mind, and nothing more.” He also goes on to say “The combination of persistence and experimentation is a winning formula for success. Stay the course but try new approaches to figure out what works best”.
So, the solution is simple, recondition your way of thinking to a new approach… one where you think big and have the BELIEF that you will get there. This cannot be wishful thinking. Action must be a big part of the plan (obviously) – but once you fix your mindset then the rest will fall into place.
“When you believe you can do it, the how-to-do-it will follow. The how-to-do-it always comes to the person who believes he can do”
It works both ways; if you think you can’t then you won’t, and if you think you can then you will. It really is that simple.