Flat on everything right now. CAD and GBP closed profitable. No way in hell am I going into the Fed speech tomorrow with a position. Not after the crazy shit I've been seeing lately. Will reevaluate everything when the smoke clears. Good luck to everyone tomorrow.
Alright, Life is good. I got hit on the head earlier this week on the Yen and GBP trades, but I made up for them on the CAD and GBP trades that followed. After the releases today there were some huge spikes but it seems like the background hasn't changed too much. Looks like the USD is still being deep sixed. I am flat going into the weekend, and didn't trade today. Closed it all out last night.... I think next week will be good for going long the Euro currencies against the USD. Including CAD. Outlook essentially remains the same as it has been the past week or so. I don't think I will be taking any positions just yet on any of this just because short term momentum will not take much to be turned back down....Bullish Consensus is retarded high on the Euro/Swissie and Yen. For now, I will be on the sidelines unless anything compelling comes along, but I am not going to make any foolhardy guesses or trade on mere hope at this point. I will re-evaluate Monday night to see what I am looking to do...I want to give the market today and Monday to get the kinks worked out and let me see what I think will happen. God only knows what may happen Monday after this debacle today with BSC, etc. Just gonna have to play some jazz on it all, and for today, the weekend and Monday my band is having an intermission from the set.
P.S. As an aside, I have been working my way into a carry trade on the USD/JPY. Yes, rates on USD are low as shit, and it's not much of a carry at this point.... But this is an experiment I have been waiting for almost a year to try. I am allocating a small amount of capital and slowly building positions in this market. It is worth the potential loss to me to take a chance for this thing to work out in a big way. It would be a great source of interest income. LOL I am mainly looking at the COT and sentiment for this right now, and I have a long term timeframe (ie year or more). Like I said this is an experiment and it's something I am doing on the side. Just figured I'd mention it. I started this on Monday.
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An 'interesting' (lol) strategy, but why pick such a low (and getting lower!) yielder like USD? There's talk of 80 on dollar/yen before BOJ intervention, I guess you need to have either deep pockets or small positions to avoid a margin call, there's no way you could ever risk the trades being liquidated. Also, the interest rate differential is narrowing on Usd and Yen, I'd prefer something with a bit more room to maneuver. I read a while back about a similar strategy that hedged with a non-interest non-commission Islamic broker (interest arb) which made some decent risk-free returns with the use of high leverage. I think it gets too complicated that way, it's simpler to do what you're doing and average into a yield positive trade with a high yielder, earn interest every day on leveraged money, and then eventually make a capital gain on the trade itself. It needs less capital, is very low maintenance, and is guaranteed risk-free money as long as the broker doesn't have hidden charges like non-activity fees or commissions. I did a similar thing a while ago when I got filled on an order on Usd/Jpy that I had already cancelled. The broker wouldn't cancel the trade so I said wtf, just leave it and add as it goes lower and get the interest every day. Within a couple of months the trade came right but I made sure I had enough to fund the account and support the unrealized losses and margin for as long at it took. Another idea might be to use an automated 'grid trading' strategy which trades the same yield positive direction but takes small profits on positions and then re-opens the trades. The end result is the same except for the extra profits along the way which go towards paying margin on existing positions.
Yeah I definitely see your point. That scale trading strategy looks very interesting. I can definitely see the argument against this sort of trade.....I am taking very small positions....this is just something I have been wanting to try. I am taking tiny positions on my Oanda account, since they let you trade any unit size. I'm trading along with COT data and sentiment. I have totally set the capital aside and am prepared to part with it if I am wrong. This is going to be a long term trade (in theory) and the COT and sentiment data are with me on this one so far. Yeah, my positions are so small that I am not going to have to worry about getting killed by margin calls, etc. The way I see it...trading at 50:1 leverage, it only takes $2000 to have $100k worth of positions, and it's like having $100k in the bank earning interest IF rates ever go back up for the USD, which something tells me they will at some point. . If you enter those trades in very small amounts of a long period of time, the average position will be fairly reasonable. If I see any special windfall or particularly compelling chance at capital gain realization during this trade I any take it, but now I am just testing a long term theory (ie couple of years or more).
P.S. In case anyone gets the wrong idea about this whole carry trade experiment....I have set aside this money and am totally prepared to lose it if it doesn't work out. I have devoted this margin just as I would for any other trade, I have just extended the time frame out SIGNIFICANTLY past my normal holding period. I am using a different trading strategy than normal due to the timeframe. The goal of this trade is also different than my normal trades. I just wanted to clarify this in case anyone was wondering if I had a fever or had sustained any head injuries recently. This isn't considered part of my main trading, it is just an aside that I am doing and I figured I'd mention it here. I've had my eye on this trade for almost a year and it seems like the variables are starting to line up. Thanks again for the commentary cabletrader, I've always respected your viewpoint.
You're welcome and thanks for the compliment but don't let me give you the wrong impression, I just muddle through every day with smoke and mirrors and somehow manage to make a few bucks along the way! Have a good week all.....
LOL I know what you mean, but hey isn't that how we all do it? LOL Well, I have been loading up on USD/JPY, AUD/JPY, and GBP/JPY all night. I don't know what the hell just happened in the markets *WOW*, but I bought AUD/JPY AND GBP/JPY at the bottom of their respective spikes (so far) and have been loading up in small increments all night on the three. That was total luck, BTW. I have no idea what the hell caused this spike. My average position so far for GBP/JPY and AUD/JPY is around the bottom quadrant or third of tonights spikes. This is just a shot here, this whole carry thing is not part of my standard trade plan, but I am a buyer of all three pairs right now. These are pretty much the lowest prices seen in a long time for these pairs...which of course may not be a good thing.....but damn it I am looking for the carry and I haven't had a better chance than now to be a buyer. I honestly think all this is some sort of market manipulation or bullshit panic spike. I started a sub account for this carry trade campaign. Looking forward to seeing what happens.