Cycle Trading

btw, it looks like I'm back in the game! I've been pretty far removed from trading the last little while during a job change, moving twice, a ton of trips, a few girl friends, and what not.

Autumn is my favorite time of year to trade and especially during election years. I'm not sure how active I'll be posting here since there isn't anything new I'm doing and it'll probably take a few weeks to get my sea legs back.

geometry at work on AUDUSD 15 min

real time: eurusd 15 min scaled chart
original downswing will give us the square and the circle

sorry...I draw incorrect half diagonal....I attach new image with right half diagonal
I also draw Vesica piscis
eurusd go up from previus support

clean chart...only square and setup of vesica
now eurusd down after touching side of the square

5 min eurusd scaled chart for details....

THE BIG PICTURE:

audusd 1h chart:

Awesome thread JR. Someplace you mentioned that you have built a script to export mt4 CSV to wave59. Could you share it with me.
Thanks and I love your work

Very nice charts carbonmimeti!

My 2 cents added to the pot...

https://www.mql5.com/en/code/7673

DAILY USD/JPY

I've finally unified the price-time cycles to time and better charting which means fewer inversions.

Below is today's Nadex Binary Iron Butterfly variant (Lead Butterfly?) on the GBPJPY pair. Basically I put on 2 positions. 1 ITM and 1 ATM. Then I just needed price to close below both to get paid out. The yellow box is the area price needs to close below at expiration to collect a combined $72 per contract. If price closes in the box at expiration, I'd lose $26 per contract. If price closes above the box at expiration I'd be out $128 per contract. I had measures in place to close out before expiration that would have limited the loss to $72 per contract.

I entered on the red arrow at the forecasted high. Price dropped down through the forecasted time for the low. Price didn't matter as long it was below 141.40 for full payout. The primary forecast is on a 60 min. chart. The trigger forecast is a 24 min. chart.

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I was able to get a regular Iron Butterfly on between 140.80 and 141.40 plus and an ATM buy at 141.00 for $78 and $25 payouts per contract respectively on GBPJPY.

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Just closed a couple of ITM binaries looking for EURUSD closes above 1.05300 and 1.05340 respectively based on price having moved the average trading range to the low side and the price-time forecast showing a bottom. Payouts were $26 and $37 per contract.

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Currently waiting on expiration on an 11:00 AM expiration Iron Butterfly between 1.05400 and 1.0550 with a $73/-$27 per contract win/loss setup.

I added a hedge since the butterfly was going to finish as a loss. With the hedge, I still ended up with $20 profit per contract.

My butterfly for the 1:00 pm expiration didn't come to fruition on the upper wing. Cashed out the lower wing at $30 per contract.

I had a bunch of EURUSD trades yesterday. Shorted small into the low and then hit it hard going long and capped with an Iron Butterfly. Forecast was spot on.

The begging of the longs and butterfly entry targets:
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The end result:
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Currently looking for a pullback to go long again.
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Yesterday's S&P long:
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The end result and currently short:
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OTM Euro Longs closed at the top prior to expiry to collect profit.
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Forecast proved accurate.
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S&P Short was the bigger money make on the day. Price ran up to a pivot line and trend line and then dropped as forecast although a bit later. 2365 and 2362 were the put strikes. 2365 was at the ATM risking $50 to make $50. 2362 was OTM risking $30 to make $70.
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I also had a profitable GBPJPY going long and shorted Crude Oil on the Oil Inventory Report for profit. I'll post the GBPJPY screenies later. The oil trade was just based on daily range travelled and pivot points.

I've had an Iron Condor setup to expire at trading close today on the S&P since late Wed. The idea is that price is contained within a range for premium collection by using deep ITM options. Profit is max at the midline and then decreases $1/tick above/below the midline. This setup as a max profit of $68/setup.

Today had some decent swings and price is hovering right around the midline. $$ cha ching $$

The yellow box is where the Condor is at b/e. The red is where the Condor is at 1:1 r:r which for this one is -$68. Price touched by B/E points but never threatened to be a loser trade.

https://content.screencast.com/users..._20120223a.GIF

Setup for Iron Condors on Nadex is simple using the Apex Spread Scanner. Find the spreads that have premium, then sell the upper and buy the lower. The premium of both combined is the max profit. Max risk is the cost of the loser spread minus the profit of the winner spread. Which is extreme negative r:r. However, figuring out the B/E and 1:1 price levels and knowing expected ranges actually reduces the r:r to 1:1 or better if properly executed. I made a spreadsheet to do the math. Here are some pretty pictures:

The green +33 and +31 numbers are the premiums to be collected.
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My spreadsheet doing all of the work.
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The downside to Nadex spread Iron Condors is the cost of entry. Each "wing" is about $370 so for this trade the capital requirement was over $700. That's not the risk, though. My risk was only about $30 based on my stops. The upside is that the trade is completely non-direction biased.

Other instruments and spreads have lower costs. The currencies run about $250 per wing.

The other option for spreads is to do the opposite and trade directionally. Then the cost of entry is significantly lower. My directional spread trade shorting the S&P was only $30/contract entry. Since it's an option, the max risk is only $30.