aha....bignatty gets right to the point of this carry strategy and the gambling question.... If is is NOT gambling, why isn't everyone doing it?
I will consider this. Thanks bignatty. If I make the trade size too small the yield on my capital drops. Obviously, I cant trade with a 0.001% trade ticket as the ROI would be a little better than CD's.. There is a balance to find here. And it all comes down to how many deviations from the straight line will occur... Michael B.
I have some of the best minds in the business working on this as we speak..(ET members by PM....lol) The key here is to hedge out exposure... Bignatty, Trading is not Gambling.... The deviation can be captured and at the same time limit DD...It is just a matter of correlation and non-correlating combinations of pairs and weighting... I never dreamed of hedging for the falling sky....but its not gambling...so to be fair....(we cannot cover all though) I would not say if the dollar collapases or the USA goes BK and defaults on all its foreign debt....or we have a nucleur holocost by some Terrorists...would NOT be the basis for saying that trading is gambling. Michael B.
Not saying its gambling. If it has an edge it's not gambling. HOWEVER, if the leverage is too high then the edge may not play out before the risk of ruin comes into play. Long Term Capital had an edge as I understand it, but leverage was too high. Since FX markets are so liquid it can be assumed they are very efficient. Therefore high yielding pairs are likely discounting some inherent risk. If and ONLY IF the yield outweighs the risk do you have an edge. This is what is so difficult to quantify.
Important points: Oanda allows 1 unit increments for their trade ticket Oanda pays interest hourly for intraday...or daily on carry trades. Oanda has narrow spreads The 30 pairs Oanda offers can offer the "exposure neutrality" needed...it has been demonstrated by a few traders good with FXMath. Michael B. Can you imagine how difficult it becomes without these benefits above? Imagine having to buy 10k unit increments....or to have a rollover each afternoon....Oanda has no rollovers...
ok, there you have it! the poll is at 102 NO its not gambling to 51 YES it is... and the votes still coming in.....Don't worry the polls don't close for thousands of days....Lord Willing
When I get a veteran Futures Scalper working on Spot Forex...There must be something to this.... I just am not smart enough to fit all these pieces together and find the right pairs to hedge exposure with. I know I am right on the edge....This seems to elude me. It takes a deeper understanding on how the construction of a pair works. (first currency long, second currency short) EUR/USD for example is long EUR and Short USD at the price of 1.2977...This price represents the spread between these two currencies... Correlations are here: http://www.mataf.net/en/analysis-correlation.htm Michael B. P.S. I got a hint from a guy who trades System#1 with 15 pairs! But he would not spoonfeed me...said I must discover it for myself...But you guys know lazy electric...and hey I have contributed a lot here..you owe me...
Hmmm, 2 to 1 in favor of "not gambling" - which is correct, depending on the trader, trading style, and other factors (of course I'm stating the obvious). Don