A mixed week for me again this week on the forex markets. My usual strategy triggered two trades this week both on the USD/JPY pair. One was closed out at break-even and one was a losing trade, but a couple of breakout trades more than made up for these two trades.

The first trade was first thing Tuesday morning when there looked to be a textbook EMA crossover on the 4 hour chart. I went long at 109.66 and after rising about 30 points, it unfortunately ran out of steam and the position ended up being closed at break-even.

The second trade was on Thursday when it looked like crossing upwards again. I went long at 109.43 but it again failed to have any momentum and I closed out for a small loss this time at 109.22.

As I've already mentioned there were two much more successful breakout trades.

I always use 1 hour charts for breakout trades and wait until the price along with the 5, 20 and 50 period EMA's are all extremely close to each other, before waiting for the price to break either upwards or downwards.

This happened first of all on the GBP/USD pair on Wednesday, and after the price broke downwards I went short at 1.8378. The priced rocketed downwards and I closed out (slightly prematurely) for a very quick profit of 66 points.

The second breakout trade occurred on the EUR/USD currency pair earlier today. I went short at 1.4711 and after worrying that it could have been a false breakout, it did thankfully fall and I closed the entire position out at 1.4677 right at the close of the London session.

So overall not too bad a week in the end.