Sunday 19 July 2009

240 Min (4hr) EUR/USD, 5:00pm GMT July 19, 2009


This is my 240 minute chart study of the EUR/USD, made in preparation for the upcoming trading week of July 20th-24th. Clicking on the image will make things more clear. To start off, I cannot say where the currency will be in a few hours, or days or by the end of the week, but I do have some ideas and areas of price interest. Before I get into the details of my analysis, you may want to check out this wonderful support and resistance webinar by Triffany Hammond courtesy of fxstreet.com.

Support Areas

Up Trending Support zone. Notice the pair of red trend lines starting at the bottom left hand side of the page, these start at the low of about 1.3823 reached on May 17
th, 2009, and extend up to where they were tested and held on the July 8th Monthly low of about 1.3834. The reason I have used double lines for my support and resistance up-trend/down-trend lines is to include both the wicks and the tops/bottoms of the low/high candles of these zones; the idea being that support and resistance are better thought of as zones rather than specific price points. The interesting thing about this zone is that it has only been tested once unsuccessfully and has not been approached with strength since July 8th; in fact, if you look at the candles approaching this zone from July 8th onwards, you'll notice that they have very long wicks pointing down. This means that there was an attempt to drive the price down, but it was successfully repelled within the 4hr candle itself and at increasingly higher levels. This would indicate that long interest in the EUR is gaining ground and pushing support progressively higher.

1.3423 Might be considered as a potential bottom on a potential serious move to the downside, seeing as how this price held after the breakout to the upside - and resistance often becomes support and visa
versa. This was also the start to the creation of the very large consolidation triangle that has formed since.

1.3775-1.3750 Should be as strong support zone. This zone starts at 1.3775 which is the 61.8%
Fibonacci level of the previously mentioned breakout support starting at 1.3423 to the high of 1.4349 achieved on June 3rd which has yet to be approached since. I would consider the zone bottom to be at 1.3740/50 which is the June 15th monthly low.

1.3880-1.3910 Includes a number of interesting levels, where we have the 50%
retracement from the down move from the 1.4339 to the June 15th low of 1.3748 which is 1.3896. Also there is the 50% retracement level from the 1.3423 to 1.4339 top which comes in at 1.3881. 1.3910 is included because no 4-hr candle body has successfully closed below since we came off that July 8th recent low.

1.3975 is a 38%
retracement of the 1.4339 to 1.3748 June low.

1.4075 has held very nicely in the last couple days of trading on the week, and is a 50%
retracement for the up move from the June low of 1.3748 to the July 1st (candle body high) of 1.4184.

Resistance Areas

Naturally we have the high of 2009
thus far coming in at 1.4339, which will probably make more sense on a daily chart, as I'm sure it's near an important Fibonacci level. This is the top of our triangle. This is also the begining of our complimentary down trendline in the double blue lines (which are actually black in this screen shot). This resistance zone was tested once and held the candle body at 1.4184 on July 1st but the wick extended up to peek about 1.4200 before being pushed back down again with strength. So far this has held but barely it seems, because once we get into the second half of July, this zone is violated repeatedly and we have even had 3 candle body closes within the resistance zone and one even above it before the price was chased back to the bottom of the zone in the last few hours of the trading week.

Key zones of resistance to the upside of the triangle:

1.4140 we have not had a 4 hour candle body close above this level since July 1st.
1.4180-1.4200 we have not had a 4 hour candle close in this zone since the early June highs. I have heard and read that this is the level to break for an indication of a return to long-term bullish momentum for the EUR/USD
1.4320-1.4340 we have not had a 4 hour candle close in this level since July 1st since 2008. This in my mind would be the zone to beat to make sure that we haven't turned the triangle into a rectangle - which I suspect is one scenario we might see until earnings season is over or the rest of the "summer correction" (I keep hearing about it but not seeing very much from the bears) is finished.

The Theme here is an ever higher series of lows with the main line of support strength being the uptrend line support zone which makes up the base of that triangle that most traders have been watching very carefully over the last month and a half. I would be able to say the same about the highs being lower, but the last 2 days of trading this week has the price action working fully inside the resistance zone and even above it for significant periods above it. To me and to a lot of traders out there this looks like a bullish pennant, but I've seen many of these fail on different timeframes, so caution is advised for either short or long positions. I'm favouring a break to the upside based on the balance of data and charting analysis, but waiting for confirmation (before going long at what seems like the range highs) is a good play, i.e. waiting for a close above 1.42 on the hourly. Another play might be what I have been doing since June, which is to buy very lightly near the bottom of the triangle, in an attempt to set up a swing trade, which has the potential to turn into a break out trade if the long term bullishness resumes. Regardless of what happens, the week should be intersting, and possibly very choppy. Keeping an eye on oil, the DJIA and the S&P would be a good idea as well.

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