I don't like posting much from my account statement, because I am always concerned I will leave something in, but here is the one line from that trade that is on Friday's statement. But I should point out, that I really shouldn't have posted a trade that wasn't in real time and I apologize--seriously.
Here on the daily , you can see what I look for. It may be more primitive than most folks charts, but I find the old school technicals serve me very well.
I dont like it ... You guys are teasing me I am still short ... I know I should have gotten out at 1020s like I said I would but hey why not let it break 1000. Now I regret it .... because I see that it hasnt convincingly broken that downside resistance channel that I pointed out last time on my daily/4hour chart. oh well the Canadian building permits number surprised estimated big time so maybe that will be the straw that breaks the camel's back
I am personally very long on USDCAD - I believe we will be back to at least 1500 in a month or two. Today we dropped to 70 pips above a 30-year low, and there's no justification for it. Last year this time oil was at $77, now it's at $61. The interest rate picture hasn't changed since we were at 1700. Both equities markets are roaring. M&A can't look all that attractive with the loonie this high. And the Yanqui is bulling ahead against JPY, staving off challenges from EUR, GBP and AUD, seems to have bounced back against CHF: why should it be so weak against the loonie? Commodities are lower than they were last May. OK, so the US housing market is weak (it was last year, too) - but that's bad news for Canadian lumber exporters, the high loonie is bad news for manufacturing/service exporters, cheap crude is bad news for the oil patch, and the GDP and overall trade figures are already priced in, and then some. Neither the Fed nor the BoC look to be changing rates any time soon. The meltdown from 1700 to 1010 is just a ridiculous speculative over-reaction to a short upward blip in oil prices and some relatively irrelevant economic data. Over 5 years, there has been a 93% correlation between MMA oil and CAD, with CAD tending to lag spot oil by 2-3 weeks. Crude inventories are piling up because of the Oklahoma fire, so oil is headed back down to the 50s. I've got my chips on USDCAD roaring back real soon now.
USDCAD had a chance for a relief rally today but there was none to be seen. Furthermore, there isn't anything solid technically that would make the usdcad a buying opportunity until the 30 year low of 1.0928. The downside support channel that I have pointed out in a previous post has been violated numerous times by 10 - 15 pips but nothing over a 100 pip "snapback" to the upside. Thus suggesting that currently there are no real buyers of the USDCAD. I am still holding my USDCAD short looking for a cover around the 1.0928 (to be safe maybe 15-25 pips above). Of course I will try my hand at the contrarian viewpoint at that price level and go long ... Macro econ still points south even with the easing of oil and other commodity prices. But with the summer months approaching I am sure we will see a resurgence of oil prices to say the least. My view is that the next building boom points north to Canada. I have always wanted to move to Canada myself ... dry air, clean living, and national health care ... but those pesky taxes! Plus a lot of asian immigrants are seeing the allure of Canada over the United States. For all the long term USDCAD bulls ... lets hope that the US cancels NAFTA ... heheh good luck and good trading
I have a diffferent trading style from most people on this list, and it has worked very well for me. (a) I hold the leverage down to 10:1 max, so I can ride out moves of up to 800 pips against me. (b) I don't use stops, although I will liquidate a position at a loss to free up capital for a better-looking opportunity. (c) I hold positions for anywhere up to 2-3 months. (d) I am a fundamental trader and I have no interest in doing voodoo with charts. The extent of my chart trading is that when currencies trend, they observably do it in channels, and I will set my entry near the bottom (or top) of the current channel and my target near the top (or bottom). For risk management, I use the limited leverage and I hedge. At the moment I am long the USD against CAD but short against EUR, GBP, JPY, AUD and CHF, with approximately the same amount of money on both sides of USD. At the present price levels, I start hitting the bumpers if USDCAD drops to 1.0200, without being offset by gains in my other positions. Which I think is somewhere in the same range of likelihood as flying pigs. The rise of the loonie is a bubble, which like all bubbles will eventually burst. As to those of you who place faith in charts, I invite you to look back a couple of months and read all those postings that talked about support at 1.1650 and resistance in the 1700s. Bank of Canada president Dodge has said the loonie is unjustifiably high. I agree with him. As to oil, the OK refinery fire creates a bottleneck: downstream, a gasoline shortage and high prices at the pump (meaning inflationary pressure and less chance of a rate cut); upstream, a glut of crude and falling crude prices. Oil has also been a bubble: at a realistic rate of price increases since 2000, it should be trading at around $30-$35 today. It was pushed up to nearly $80 by Katrina, Iraq, speculation and the falling USD. Katrina and Iraq are old news, much of the speculation has unwound, and the USD will rise again. Of course the idiot in Iran keeps doing things that get oil bulls excited, like provoking wars between those two oil-producing superpowers, Israel and Lebanon. I think he does it to jack up oil prices and laughs all the way to the bank. Even so, he only got it up to $66, not $78 like last year, and it's now back to $61. I'm predicting $40 oil sometime this year. And the loonie can drop as fast as it went up. As to our respective tax rates: do you realize that Americans pay more in federal taxes to support the public part of their health care system (Medicare, Medicaid, VA, tax breaks and subsidies) than Canadians do for their entire health care system, public plus private? And then Americans have to buy private health insurance on top of it. Work out the effects of all that, and there's practically no difference between us in real tax rates. The American system is way the most expensive in the world because it's fragmented and inefficient, and because in countries where health care is "free" people don't hit doctors with huge malpractice suits. And if you say "waiting lists", I will say "the uninsured".
Canadian companies are being bought like hotcakes. Inco, Falconbridge .. long gone. Ipsco...8 billion. Now potentially Alcan... 30 billion? That's a lot of loonies...