Trading the EUR/USD at Boss Capital

June 17, 2014

Previously, I enjoyed trading at 24option until they closed down for United States residents. Then I went with TradeRush for a long while after that. But now that TradeRush is also closed to U.S. customers, I’ve decided to go over to Boss Capital for the moment. It seems to be a popular destination for binary options traders residing in the U.S. at the current time. The industry is very fluid with respect to where U.S. traders can and cannot trade with all the associated trading laws involved and whatnot. So for now, Boss Capital is where I will trade. I’ve also heard good things about Redwood Options. I may look into them, in addition. But for the sake of seeing how withdrawals go first at Boss Capital, I’m simply doing smaller trade amounts. I also haven’t traded for quite a while, but trading really isn’t a skill you lose entirely after a decent layoff, I believe. So long as your emotions are in check as they were before and your general way of going about the markets is similar, your money management is in line, and so forth, you shouldn’t be too concerned with being “rusty.” It’s kind of like driving. After a while it becomes second-nature and it’s not really a skill you would tend to lose after an extended layoff.

Also, I should note that I am slightly altering my trading schedule. Typically, I would trade during the European session and maybe a bit of the European/U.S. market hours crossover (e.g., 3AM-7AM EST). But based on how my schedule is shaping up this summer, trading during the New York morning or afternoon hours might be more amenable.

Today’s market was very unnotable. Not a whole lot of action, in general. It is summer, of course, so you don’t really get the price movements as you might during the fall and after the Christmas/New Year’s holidays are over. In fact, I largely didn’t think I would enter into a trade altogether today. The Euro did fall against the U.S. dollar during an 8:30 news release and retraced back up to approximately 1.3548 on the 9:45 candle. Given that this level represented the ceiling of that retracement, you could consider that as a resistance level. Moreover, being that the market was net down for the day, it could be an adequate area to take put options if something set up at that level in the future.

This didn’t materialize until the early afternoon, but at least I was able to actually get into a trade. Price came back up to the 1.3548 level on the 1:20PM candle and rejected it. For those who are unfamiliar with my general trading strategy, what I like to do is find support and resistance levels in the market that price has been sensitive to in the past. When it approaches these levels in the future, I watch how price acts around these levels. I typically use a five-minute chart when trading short-term binaries, and wait for price to first reject the price level in question by first touching and then closing below it in the case of a resistance level, or wicking back above in the case of a support level. If it re-touches on the next candle or hangs around the general vicinity and re-touches in the near-future, I then enter the trade.

After the rejection from the 1:20 candle, it re-touched 1.3548 on the 1:25 where I got into a put option. This trade was in my favor the entire time and won by 3-4 pips.

Additionally, I felt confident in this trade due to the quiet hours that are typical of the U.S. afternoon session. I had the mini-trend in my favor, along with the more macroscopic general downtrend that’s been occurring on the EUR/USD since approximately the first week in May. With the price level, price action qualities I look for, in addition to the relative degree of tranquility of the U.S. afternoon hours (due to lower trading volume), I felt confident in the factors supporting this trade. And it turned out to be a solid winner.