http://www.businessinsider.com/new-bill-gross-bond-trade-gets-slammed-2014-1 Front end, buy when no one wants it sell when everybody wants it. Gross overstayed the trade. Fed futures on flush watch, I want to be long soon
Short small ZQ april 2015 http://seekingalpha.com/news/1577981-hilsenrath-rate-hikes-again-enter-fomc-discussion?source=feed_f just betting this meme will run a bit. if it does, front end should tank 10-15 bps, if not I'm out with a 1-2 bps loss
To be fair, I don't think that we should overestimate this hawkishness, as these are the sentiments of a particular group. Moreover, we did know well in advance that the Yellen FOMC was going to be more hawkish in terms of its composition. As such I don't think these minutes are that meaningful. However, it's a reasonably interesting shift of emphasis and there's a lot of interesting complexities that are starting to emerge now for a few CBs (e.g. the Fed and the BoE).
I covered my ZQ short. for a loss of 1bps. I suspect the flight to safety might continue for a while and the hawkish FOMC minutes didn't had much of a follow through
I have been absent of this journal for a while because I have been transitioning from global macro to day trading and swing trading. When I started I wanted to learn from other traders to make sure I knew the fundamentals down so I wouldn't struggle but very short-term trading (which I had attempted in the past unsuccessfully). I decided in 2012 that I wanted to write a book about traders where I would interview a bunch of successful guys and learn as much as I could from them, market wizards style After a ridiculous amount of working Sundays I finally put it out and it is now listed on Amazon paperback http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8591671309 kindle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IWDXNFQ I can say that after day trading for almost 2 years now (full-time), it helps one trading style tremendously. First because you have to be way more disciplined. In global macro you can frequently get away with lack of discipline because you only make a few decisions a year, if your style will blow up one day you might only find out in 5 years. In day trading if your style is headed towards a blow up it shouldn't take that long for you to turn your account red. It also teaches to respect the price action more. Michael Markus says the best trades are a combination of fundmentals, technicals and market tone. With my previous style I was too focus on fundamentals, that can work too but its just superior to have a combination of them all because you dramatically can lower your risk/vol. Day trading is like going to the gym hard while longer-term stuff is more like jogging, You can improve faster and reach new levels of skill. You can also blow up faster, that's why I wanted the right information from other traders on how to do it and wrote the book. Anyways, just wanted to let you guys know
Amazon have now got the Look Inside feature, and I see you interviewed atticus. Well done, I'm sure that makes it more interesting to many on ET.