I work, i am busy, a hobbyist and, all those excuses really are not required here. I am going to attempt to allocate 50k of a 401k to this task. I want to conservatively attempt to allocate and manage this account over the course of a year. Position size would be 5k or so and loss would be 1% of account. I will state the entry, stop and result. I will try to apply some commonsense metrics on a monthly basis. If, a big if, i were able to catch a trend i will scale and allow 3 positions max to an idea such as the yen. I do not trade intraday of course and would like to ingnore/tolerate noise and trade with trend. Obviously, any success would most likely be due to luck, so heres to that! I expect to start slowly and survive and hopefully have a record to review as time passes. A drawdown of 5-10% of initial account will cause termination of this. This is mostly discretionary. To 2015.
GE_SEP15 , sold @ 99.315, stop @ 99.55 aprox (600) about 1% account. in line with plan. Target is trendline approx 99.22. Will probably have resting sell stop to add to position. Too optimistic, anticipatory entry. Mid range..see chart. 12/5/2014 NFP was 321k jobs added. 2,10,20 year treasuries each advanced about 14-16 bp. Curve flatteninig. Expect 2/10 TUT to perform well. 7:4 ratio too large for this account. Strongly feel that that Fridays treasury market rate increases will follow through. This is based of off a "stong US economy" regardless of opinion. Expect rate increases mid to late 2015 so GE_SEP15 or EDU15 is my best way to express this. Note that Dec 17th FED language of "significant time" regarding normalization can cause volatility.
12/9 Greece budget and Troika finance problems. Inverted 3/10 curve. Greek banks down hard. China continued soft data . Cpi 1.4% Yen and euro momentum vs dollar. Emerging markets weak. Oil continues down to 63. Investment and high yield spread wide in oil and in general market. HYG. Levered loans at risk? USD/JPY 120-122 and oil down to 63. Treasury yield have resumed trend down as in deflation/tightening. Seems global risk is increasing and if so fed would be less likely to be hawkish next week. Today tech QQQ had a furious 80-100 trend day which was a reversal from overnight fears And treasuries were bought.
Out of curiosity : how many years have you been in the market. If I understand well, you are taking out of your retirement pension fund (401k) to trade?
I am not taking a cash distribution from my 401k that would be penalized and taxed as income. I get the good and bad that goes along with "using" a 401k. I love the markets and i have been interested in them for 15+ years and have no consistent profitability or proof at all that i can trade. Sometimes long the drift or variance has worked and other times not. Short term is not good for me so I am going to try to spot trends and find a way to profitably participate. Me and everyone else!
Sunday night 12/14. Week ending. The stong feeling of follow through on the previous Friday NFP results in approx -227dollar/contract adverse move , halfway to stop, as all yields along the treasury curbe down this past week. Stop is at 99.55 . Fed meeting is Wednesday. Last week bonds were up every day. Euro 122-127 range seem in play for a while. TLRTO size, , ECB balance sheet , German and legal problems with asset purchases (Jan or Feb?), Greece stress and elections, euro area disinflaton are so,e issues. Usd/yen 122-117 seem in play. Dollar weak on risk aversion, yen and treasuries bought. Yen is receiving risk-off flows (and euro?) Emerging bonds(EMB) down hard. Emergimg currencies and stocks weak generally though each different. IG and HYG sold as credit spreads widenimg as well. Treasuries bought. China growth and inflation numbers/projections are presented as soft. Russia raiseed rates 100bp, supporting rouble, 10% inflation Oil is 57ish.
The volatility is picking up in emerging market bonds , equities and currencies. EMB and HYG as a general proxy for credit is gettimg worse. RSX down 11% and CB raised 700bp. Today to 17.5 %. How does this end. Most serious #1 issue. China,russia,brazil and others recently establisjed trade blocs, curremcy swaps, development bank, liquidity banks and otther indepentent institutioms seperate from World bank and IMF. Lets see how that goes. There seems some efforts to have FED save the swoon Wednesday. In the media anyway. Like "significant time" phrase will stop this. But gdmit, stomg trends and no trade(s) to speakof. Talking and tradng are two different things. Oil continues down. US markets are stronger than other foreign major markets. Treasury yileds are up a bit , a little more short term, flattening a bit.
Buy some USO or WTI long term and close your eyes for a few years, you will obtain better returns vs trading, if you set a drawdown limit so conservative you will most likely hit it due to increased volatility.
Fomc today.Tightened stop to 99.50. Reasons for this position(NFP) were shortly proved invalid yet here it is, open, prior to volatile news event. Rates driven by risk aversion for last 7 days. Intent is long term but timing is poor and cant allow more than 1% loss.