Yeah, I was trying not to be accusatory, but it does sort of seem like that. And yes, KS is right - Skalpz used to have two accounts. One he'd go long EUR/USD and the other would be short the same amount. I never understood that.
Sorry about "crowing to the board". I was mainly interested about what caused the big move at a normally low-volatility time. As far as hedging is concerned, it's something I'm experimenting with. I'm currently net profitable, but I'm still working out how to handle the "worst case" described below. This isn't rocket science; the goal is to build up a winning position in the direction of a trend and have a smaller losing position in the "wrong" direction. Here it is in a nutshell: Have 2 accounts, one for EURUSD longs, one for EURUSD shorts Open a ladder of equal-sized buy orders above the market in the long account. Open a ladder of equal-sized sell orders below the market in the short account. I prefer entering the orders during a period of low volatility. The number and spacing of orders is up to the individual. I use 5 orders spaced 20 pips apart. Small individual order size. I use 0.5% NAV on each order. In the best case, orders are only triggered in one direction. Normally, it's a mix. Let the move happen, close all positions and orders when you're in profit ACROSS BOTH ACCOUNTS; re-load the grid. Worst case, all orders are triggered and price settles back where it started. Think "diverging triangle". Every so often, transfer funds between accounts so-as to balance them. I've avoided describing my methods here on ET, experimental or otherwise, because I don't want to draw the usual mean, unproductive comments. So there it is. Let the dung flinging begin.
I'll let the others fling dung, but having two accounts where you are long and short is essentially a net zero position. Even if you try to manage it so you're holding "smaller" positions in the losing account, you're better off just going one way with one account, at a smaller size. In my opinion that's a horrible strategy. But everyone is entitled to their own choices in life.
I may yet recant and say it's horrible; after all, it's an experiment like I said. This is how I operate. I try things and see.
steve, what you are saying makes sense if you trade with strict and different timeframes. Then you are using one system with a different set of signals for one trade, e.g being "long" for long term and strictly sticking to long term decisions and signals for that trade. Then, lets say you want to optimize the trade and when conditions are right, you make shorter term trades based on totally different signals and decisions. You would also need to adhere to different trade size and risk profiles - otherwise it would not make sense. The different impact of trading varying sizes would also be have to be a factor that influences such a decision. That is how it could make sense by varying the impact of risk, or "optimizing". Otherwise it would be just madness - or a not-so-useful-experiment. I think I remember Skalpz talking about the "double trading" some years ago... but I don't think it was strictly as different timeframe, size and risk.
It wasn't different. He would post "Long AND Short EUR/USD at 1.32, 50,000 units" And that was it. And everyone would jump in and flame.
Ivanovich, ah - hehe. Yes, that does not make any sense for a trade. Skalpz was pretty controversial to say the least... An example of such "different trading regimes" is when I was scalping EURUSD, but sometimes changed base currency with IB for my account as I favoured one of the currencies longer term.
Ah, well I don't do that. I'm basically straddling the current market price, only in separate accounts. The basic idea is to let the market get you in by triggering orders in the "right" direction.
Not sure why you would need 2 accounts for that. The same feat could be accomplished by a single account with a series of buy & sell stops.