Im very very happy with how i dealt with the my short-sell US 10year bond trade, as i cashed in at 129.89, instead of holding out for my target of 129.66, and it turns out it was perfect exit as the market gapped-up minutes after i cashed in, drifted sideways, and now has gapped up to 130.36! So i nailed both my sell contracts for 17points profit, wheras if id held out for my initial target id have lost money as would have been stopped out. Im getting quite fedup with my Juniper trade now as i want to use that capital for other trades, so i added half a contract more which has now lowered my average entry price by 50points, and have moved my target price to 23.62.
Kinda wish I'd held yesterdays ES short a little longer!!!! haha. What a crash! Still, caught another chunk of the crash today for another 5 handles profit, leaving lots on the table agaon though. How've you done today, Spanish?
Im currently just riding-out this rough patch. I feel quite unhappy and annoyed that i didn't close my juniper trade for a loss at the 22.50 level on Wednesday when the Dow closed completely flat, as Juniper had already bounced about 10% from its lows to that price. I had been watching Dow and knew after the 1,000point rally it needed to pullback, however as the pulback then bounced back again all happend intra-day on Wednesday, leaving the dow closing totally unchanged, which made positioning for the next day very difficult. Im now just hoping that we get a decent close tonight, good headlines out over the weekend, and a nice rally and gap up in the futures for Monday.
Im actually reasonably pleased with how my portfolio is performing today.. Juniper has risen nearly 6% today (helped by the fact it was upgraded this morning by analysts to Outperform). This is a longterm investment though, not just a day-trade, and so i have no intention of cashing in just yet. And my Usd/Jyp long trade has been floating sideways in an extremely tight range for the last few days (about 5pips loss - 5pips profit), which is about what i expected. My target on this is now 80.19, so over 350pips target profit per each of the 4 contracts ive bought. But im not expecting that to happen until the BoJ announce intervention, however am expecting that move to happen in a few seconds as soon as they do. How are you doing though mate? Still paper-trading from your mum's basement and inbetween your shifts at burger-king??
I just want to say hello to you Spanish89, as I was reading your older journal a year ago, it was very entertaining but also motivated me to develop better strategies, and aim for higher % profits, couse i saw that you were able to make as much as 10 or 15% a day.. Also i liked the way you look at the world around you and sees every opportunity (like not paying off your cradit if it possible not to), or proactive aproach with girls etc... And so was wondering how is it possible that you stoped trading, but as i see it, your way of trading requires higher volatility, so maybe it's not a bad idea for you to look at VIX index, and trade only if its in extreeme levels. The only thing that I didn't liked is the fact that you spent every pound earned and didn't increase your trading operation to a higher level.
Ive been doing quite alot of thinking about my Yen long trade, plus closely monitored what Noda said (failed to say) at his news conference at 2:30am UK time. He actually even said that he is going to wait until after Bernanke has given his speech on Friday before taking any action on the Yen. And so now i have to start looking closely at what the possible outcomes of Bernanke's speech will be on the Yen- Scenario 1- He announces they will start QE3 later that afternoon. Dow will rocket up 1,000points instantly, gold will collapse, Aud/Usd would definitely rocket up 300-500pips as the dollar weakened to being worthless, however the Yen will be very confused about what to do... :/ As the dollar being weakend due to huge supply of dollars being created out of thin air will put alot strength onto the yen, however as stocks rally money would pour out of the Yen as it was only used to avoid risk when markets were falling down. Outcome= Usd/Jyp could rocket up hitting my profit target in seconds, although Yen could easily crash down to the low 75s/high 74s on dollar weakness. (Although this would only be temporary, as the BoJ would then intervene within hours/over weekend + money would be taken out of Jyp and Chf over the following days) Scenario 2- He mumbles a load of mumbo jumbo riff-raff about how they will keep all options open for the future (including qe3) and will closely monitor economy... ect Outcome= Market should hopefully already have priced in QE3 over the next 2days, and so when he likely says this the Dow should crash 500-600points on Friday/Monday, and money will pour into the Yen as a safe-haven, causing Yen to drop down to the 75s/74 level, causing BoJ to intervene shortly. And so ive decided that the best and most logical way to play this, and so the way im choosing, is that ive set a price target for 3 of my 4 buy contracts to cash in if/when market next hits 76.86, leaving me with just 1 long contract open going into Friday afternoon with price target of 80.24. I will ideally be hoping for the Yen to crash down to the low 75/mid 74 level on Friday though, as i will then re-add my 3 buy contracts at that low price, with a price target for all 4 contracts of 80.24. Although if Usd/Jyp just rockets straight up somehow for some reason i will still make about £350 profit from the 1 contract il have left open. But end result will be that the Yen will be trapped between my 2 orders, making it a win-win setup for me!!
Ive managed to dump 3 of the 4 contracts at 76.82, so for just a few pips profit. Have left 1 contract on as insurance incase market rockets before crashing 1st though, price target of that is set at 80.24. And am now going to look and hope for market to fall to 76.03 so i can add buy contracts there or at even lower levels.
To update my journal- I finally liquidated my Juniper long position 30seconds before the market closed lasnight, as soon as i saw Dow hit 11,326. As i had posted 2days ago that the Dow needed to rally 500-650points upto the extremely strong resistance of 11,326 to price-in QE3, and so as soon as i saw dow hit that level yesterday (was just 1 point below the intraday high) i liquidated my Juniper long at 21.06. My total loss on this trade has been £276, a loss which im moderately happy with. Especially since making this trade (and having my capital tiedup in it) is what saved my account this month. My exit was extremely good, as the stock has dropped around 60points so far today, and when Bernanke disappoints tomorrow id love to see the entire economy totally collapse and melt down, taking this piece of crap down to single digit price! Im now dedicating all my capital to buying Usd/Jpy. My buys over the last few days in the high 76 area have all paid off, as market is currently at 77.45... And ive switched to the daily-rolling Usd/Jpy contract as it only has a 2pip spread vs 10pips like the monthly that i traded before, and so i have found scalping this ridiculously easy due to such a tiny spread!! Have made 5-6 trades on this pair since yesterday evening, all of them are buy trades only, as only a total fool would consider shorting this pair, and have rackedup between £90-100 from these scalps. Ive now decided to stop bothering scalping though due to the risk of missing a big upmove, and instead am just reverting back to my original stratergy of holding 1 buy contract into Bernanke's speech tomorrow, but hoping market drops down to the 75 level so i can add 2-3 more buy contracts.
Have re-loaded my Usd/Jpy buy trade, getting all 3 contracts in at 77.36. Target price is set at 80.09, stoploss is set at 73.05, and im going to try just not log-in to my trading account again until i get a text-alert informing me that 1 of those 2 prices has been hit.