USDCHF London open used to be a full member of the roster. It is now conditional.
What changed: too many mornings where the drive looked real and then died in a spread that made a 2R target need luck. I raised the bar - only trade if Asia range is defined and the open drive clears it with normal spread - and cut size relative to EURUSD.
Also I refuse USDCHF inside any heavy USD Tier-1 morning even if the chart is pretty. The plan change is subtraction. I did not add indicators. I removed permission. Prop translation liked that: fewer decisions, clearer skips. Conditional pairs stay on a separate watchlist colour so I do not treat them like EURUSD by habit. Colour sounds cosmetic. It cuts misclicks when busy. If USDCHF fails the conditional three mornings in a row, it goes off the roster for two weeks. Repeated maybes are a no.
Since making it conditional I take USDCHF maybe one morning in five. The P&L contribution barely changed, but the number of scratch trades dropped noticeably, and that alone made the change worth it.
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What changed in my USDCHF plan for London open
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PropScalpDesk
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Shadow Trader
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Re: What changed in my USDCHF plan for London open
Making a pair conditional instead of dropping it is a step I wish I'd taken sooner with USDCHF myself. My problem was the same arithmetic you describe.
At the open my USDCHF cost, spread plus commission, was often around 1.3 pips, against roughly 0.3 on EURUSD. On an 8 pip stop that is about 16% of R gone on entry compared with under 4%, so a 2R target needs a much cleaner drive to pay the same.
The other thing I check is whether I'm already in EURUSD. USDCHF tends to mirror it most mornings, so a long EURUSD and a short USDCHF together is really one dollar trade at double size.
I'd be curious how you score the three morning rule. If the Asia range isn't defined and you never get a setup, does that count as a failed conditional, or only mornings where it qualified and then died?
I count only the second kind, because a skip is the filter working. If plain skips counted, the pair would be benched most quiet weeks for doing nothing wrong.
The separate watchlist colour is a nice touch. Mine is a grey background on the chart itself, so the pair looks different even when the window is maximised.
At the open my USDCHF cost, spread plus commission, was often around 1.3 pips, against roughly 0.3 on EURUSD. On an 8 pip stop that is about 16% of R gone on entry compared with under 4%, so a 2R target needs a much cleaner drive to pay the same.
The other thing I check is whether I'm already in EURUSD. USDCHF tends to mirror it most mornings, so a long EURUSD and a short USDCHF together is really one dollar trade at double size.
I'd be curious how you score the three morning rule. If the Asia range isn't defined and you never get a setup, does that count as a failed conditional, or only mornings where it qualified and then died?
I count only the second kind, because a skip is the filter working. If plain skips counted, the pair would be benched most quiet weeks for doing nothing wrong.
The separate watchlist colour is a nice touch. Mine is a grey background on the chart itself, so the pair looks different even when the window is maximised.
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Shadow Trader
- Posts: 974
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Re: What changed in my USDCHF plan for London open
PropScalpDesk, one condition I would add to the USDCHF sheet is the Swiss calendar. Swiss CPI lands at 07:30 London and the quarterly SNB decision at 08:30, so on those mornings the Asia range is either broken before the drive or the drive gets interrupted halfway through.
On those days I skip the pair outright, even if the open looks clean. The range is no longer the one the rule was written for.
The other thing I watch is EURCHF. If EURCHF is moving hard at the open, the franc itself is the story, and USDCHF drives tend to stall as soon as EURUSD disagrees with them.
I am also curious how a pair comes back from the two week bench. When mine return, the first five tickets are at half of the already reduced size, because a pair that failed three mornings running has not earned full trust just by sitting out.
Do you check anything during the bench, like whether the drives would have worked, or is it a clean break with no paper trades? I keep a short paper log, though it has tempted me to cut the bench short more than once.
On those days I skip the pair outright, even if the open looks clean. The range is no longer the one the rule was written for.
The other thing I watch is EURCHF. If EURCHF is moving hard at the open, the franc itself is the story, and USDCHF drives tend to stall as soon as EURUSD disagrees with them.
I am also curious how a pair comes back from the two week bench. When mine return, the first five tickets are at half of the already reduced size, because a pair that failed three mornings running has not earned full trust just by sitting out.
Do you check anything during the bench, like whether the drives would have worked, or is it a clean break with no paper trades? I keep a short paper log, though it has tempted me to cut the bench short more than once.