Opinion (intuition): The period around December is really poor.
It has been nearly 2 months of range. If you have been making money in these markets you probably have been doing something wrong.
The ??? never lasts forever. Some pairs are not in a clear range like this, but I can't extract anything out of them, and some not being in a clear range shows that you can't even make money fading since you do not know which pair will go all over the place (like usdchf), which one will "clean" range, which one will "dirty" range. I personally do not see an edge.
Some people made money with this thing but you have to be involved with exotic pairs, know what you are doing... :
For me since early November it has either been very poor setups, or no setup at all, or setups but that retrace way too much on the way to target.
In 2021 the good stuff came back at the end of January, in 2020 it came back between the middle and end of the month.
From my backtesting I cannot really tell for sure, but my experience so far is that mid November to mid January are not even worth the effort, or maybe they are but we have to be super picky and patient, checking what is going on every day to not get any trade for tens of days in a row.
Other than the obvious lack of setups, this is what I experienced each time during this period:
So basically it seems to me it is just best to entirely stay away the whole time. Keep motivation and everything else high, no point wasting energy.
I almost never hear anyone speak about this (because most people just invest randomly and do not really have an edge?). I am not dreaming, this period is clearly bad. The great thing is I am seing potential setups start to form, and from experience on top of that it should just be a few days before we can get back to business. Last year february had big rewards, it was an incredible month, the price action was even a bit too violent and I was not that ready after sleeping 2 months.
Other than that 2021 wasn't that great for me, in particular September-October disappointed me but I backtested a bit and easily went from 2 (imperfect) strategies (only 1 until late 2020) to 4 + 1 extra, and got the answers to the details I was uncertain about, perfected entries, risk reward, trailing, adding. I did so much, now it seems I had almost nothing 18 months ago, and I went from 1 setup 60% complete to 4 setups 90% complete. Mentally hard to get all that, to be so eager to perform, and then not be able to apply it for 2 months because London is on vacation partying or something.
But as you can see: when not much is going on you can always use the time to improve what you do! Or go on vacation, your vacation depend on the market more than the school year (as your sleep does), but if the market is so cyclical with the end of year being mostly dead each time you can go on vacation each end of year (bring your laptop or at least phone just in case). Don't feel forced to modify your strategy either though, right now my goal is to change nothing, just force myself to run setups in my checklist before setting an order (it takes 2 minutes why am I so lazy?), keep repeating without touching anything not even backtesting, and harvest my edge(s). These 2 months were so depressing I didn't even have anything to say and barely posted any ideas, a shame, would have kept me busy, but zero inspiration.
I wonder how the period around December 2022 goes? Probably best I just go on vacation. Also take the time to do accounting, reflect on the year, optimize taxes, and so on...
The ??? never lasts forever. Some pairs are not in a clear range like this, but I can't extract anything out of them, and some not being in a clear range shows that you can't even make money fading since you do not know which pair will go all over the place (like usdchf), which one will "clean" range, which one will "dirty" range. I personally do not see an edge.
Some people made money with this thing but you have to be involved with exotic pairs, know what you are doing... :
For me since early November it has either been very poor setups, or no setup at all, or setups but that retrace way too much on the way to target.
In 2021 the good stuff came back at the end of January, in 2020 it came back between the middle and end of the month.
From my backtesting I cannot really tell for sure, but my experience so far is that mid November to mid January are not even worth the effort, or maybe they are but we have to be super picky and patient, checking what is going on every day to not get any trade for tens of days in a row.
Other than the obvious lack of setups, this is what I experienced each time during this period:
So basically it seems to me it is just best to entirely stay away the whole time. Keep motivation and everything else high, no point wasting energy.
I almost never hear anyone speak about this (because most people just invest randomly and do not really have an edge?). I am not dreaming, this period is clearly bad. The great thing is I am seing potential setups start to form, and from experience on top of that it should just be a few days before we can get back to business. Last year february had big rewards, it was an incredible month, the price action was even a bit too violent and I was not that ready after sleeping 2 months.
Other than that 2021 wasn't that great for me, in particular September-October disappointed me but I backtested a bit and easily went from 2 (imperfect) strategies (only 1 until late 2020) to 4 + 1 extra, and got the answers to the details I was uncertain about, perfected entries, risk reward, trailing, adding. I did so much, now it seems I had almost nothing 18 months ago, and I went from 1 setup 60% complete to 4 setups 90% complete. Mentally hard to get all that, to be so eager to perform, and then not be able to apply it for 2 months because London is on vacation partying or something.
But as you can see: when not much is going on you can always use the time to improve what you do! Or go on vacation, your vacation depend on the market more than the school year (as your sleep does), but if the market is so cyclical with the end of year being mostly dead each time you can go on vacation each end of year (bring your laptop or at least phone just in case). Don't feel forced to modify your strategy either though, right now my goal is to change nothing, just force myself to run setups in my checklist before setting an order (it takes 2 minutes why am I so lazy?), keep repeating without touching anything not even backtesting, and harvest my edge(s). These 2 months were so depressing I didn't even have anything to say and barely posted any ideas, a shame, would have kept me busy, but zero inspiration.
I wonder how the period around December 2022 goes? Probably best I just go on vacation. Also take the time to do accounting, reflect on the year, optimize taxes, and so on...
All I had to do was ask.
I don't think I want to buy on a retest, I still have to wait to see if EURUSD makes it to 1.16 then I'll either join the longer term downtrend in the short term or go long on a little correction. Probably next week if this works out. So starting on the 17 January, second half of the month once again.