will need to digest the full statement but so far I feel comfortable with my positions and risk. Time for a rest, more tomorrow...
Amazing spent an hour flaming in an option thread while losing his ass on this fantasy long EUR position. As sure as (insert your God) is your witness. WTF would spend that time flaming while he states he's in a position trading size in "short frequency" trading?! Crows about a win in which he was 1 pip away from a 50-pip loss?! Can't go debit on FXCM play money, honey. uh oh. 1.2676 stopped.
Got stopped out of both positions: EUR -15pips, AUD -15pips. Total: +282 pips after 12 trades I do not regret having taken those two trades at all, it was great risk reward, soon after initiation I limited my loss to 15 pips while momentum was definitely on my side, risk may have well been further bought. It just did not work out. I still managed to finish the day slightly on the plus side. I do not see much in terms of value at the moment, would US Fed be the only institution buying more bonds and massaging the term structure I would be very eager to buy risk, but ECB also came out and rate cuts are now very much on the table for their next meeting. The market could well retreat to range bound trading once again until the picture becomes clearer.
The dollar index (custom one not DXY) topped out earlier in the session and could not make new highs in the second attempt, thus I am buying a bit risk here after last night's killing of risk. I do not expect miracles from those positions thus look to take profit if the pairs can grab 50-60 pips. In fact I set a take profit target of 70 pips. The stops could be taken out very quickly but so far I sense there is a bit of profit taking going into the European Friday session...German IFO numbers did not look as bad as some expected. Additionally, I expect something will leak later from the meeting of European finance ministers. I get a sense something is being worked on after G20 meetings. I do not expect miracles but those guys would do and say anything to calm markets. I attribute yesterday's session more to the disappointment the market felt from the lack of more quantitative easing measures post FOMC. Against that are the Moody's bank downgrades, and 1.2520 is a pretty important technical level (though I do not attribute much to technical indicators, fib levels,...), quite a number sell stops lie right below it (mine included)
I took off my take profit limit orders for the time being. This push up especially in eur was so strong that I believe something leaked out of the European finance minister meeting. With those jittery markets it may as well have been the high of the US session ;-) We will see in due time. In whatever event, I re-set my stops to entry level, Eur stop at 1.2540, AUD stop at 1.0025.
Looks like fx and generally fixed income markets got it right once again while equity traders priced in QE too aggressively only to get disappointed. I expect the strong dollar to prevail and also do not expect much to come out of the EU summit this week. Germany cannot soften its stance and a fiscal union is nowhere in sight nor the sense of urgency in politicians to aggressively work on it. I expect a shocking Troika report once they actually go to Athens after politicians with decision making power decide to move necessary adjustments and negotiations up on their priority list rather than "relaxing" at hospitals. Had a pretty dismal performance last week mainly because I expected more risk buying post the summits. It looks to me that bounces are getting smaller and less pronounced as we move along and I am again fully focused on selling risk when the opportunity presents itself.
risk currencies remained very resilient despite the equity sell-off, in fact aud traded all the way back to 1.0030 and eur currently stands at 1.2520. I simply did not spot good opportunities selling risk, I just did not see any momentum building. Does it mean its risk-on? Some argue the dollar may have run out of steam. I will hold back and see what the London open has to say later on.