Trends are wonderful

When I think about technical analysis, I think of it as being extremely complex, full of algorithms and secret knowledge that makes those in the know almost spookily good at predicting things. While I'm 100% certain that some people are excellent technicians, I think that the next best thing for a beginner is to simply look at the longer term trends and go with the trend.

What I've been finding successful recently is looking at the daily charts, when I see a trend forming I go to something like a 60 minute chart or even finer to pick where I want to take a position (ideally at the peak or trough of a wave, depending on if I'm going long or short). After I've opened a position I've been setting my stop loss to just beyond the previous day's high or low (depending if I'm long or short), as the price moves I move the stop loss to counter any swings that aren't simply waves (I've been moving it to slightly above the previous wave, when short, slightly below when long) . I've yet to come up with a good take profit strategy, though generally I'm setting it to where the price may get to in a couple of days (I do it by roughly putting it at 1.5 times the distance of the biggest difference between open and close of the candlestick bars that I'm looking for, either gaining or falling).

While it's still very early days for me as a trader, I thought someone might find this useful, and maybe sometime in the future I can look back and laugh at myself :) Still I think it's important to start with the basics and gradually get more advanced. And hey, since late yesterday I'm up about 190pips :D

For future reference and so that others understand what I consider a trend here's a screengrab of the current AUD/JPY daily chart showing my short positions.

I'm always keen to learn, if you think I'm an idiot or maybe what I wrote actually helped you :O then feel free to tell me newbie at forexhowto.com 

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