Equilon FXThis article preserves the desk’s published view at that time. Prices, market assumptions and trade status are historical statements, not current guidance or independently verified performance.
Closed loss this week: short USD/CHF from 0.9050, stopped at 0.9085. -1R, exactly as planned. The plan was the problem.
What happened
The setup looked textbook on the daily: failed test of 0.91, lower high, momentum divergence on the 4H, dollar weakness across the board. We entered on Tuesday's London open. Price drifted higher all session. Stopped Wednesday afternoon when ISM Services beat hard.
Loss size: clean. Loss reason: structural.
What I missed
The SNB has been quietly intervening in the franc for two months. There's been chatter on the desk side, footprint in the order flow, and one explicit comment from a board member that I read but didn't price into the trade.
I had macro information that should have killed the setup. I took it anyway because the chart was clean.
The mistake, written down
The chart was right. The chart was always right. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF were both flagging the same direction. The technical setup was real.
But a clean technical setup against an active central-bank flow is not a setup. It's a tug-of-war between the chart and a counterparty that has unlimited balance-sheet capacity. You don't bring a chart to a balance-sheet fight.
The rule we're adding
From this trade forward, the playbook adds one filter:
Before any trade against CHF, JPY, or any pair where a central bank is operating on the opposite side, the setup must have either an additional macro tailwind that overrides the intervention, or a price action confirmation that suggests the intervention has weakened (multi-day failed defense).
Neither was true on this trade. I should have skipped.
What this cost vs. what it taught
-1R, against a portfolio that's net positive on the month. The dollar value of the loss is small. The lesson is large. Most expensive lessons in trading aren't the ones that wipe you out — they're the ones that take a small bite three times a year because you keep making the same structural mistake. Writing the rule down is what stops the bleeding.
This post-mortem is going to the journal alongside the trade screenshot. Anyone reading the channel can audit the decision — that's the whole point of running the desk in public.
Educational only. Not investment advice. Read the full risk disclaimer.