Have to admit that i found your first couple of posts a while back on currency a bit cocky and aggressive, but have come to admire your journal and the balls it obviously takes to publisize your trades for others to scrutinize. Am looking at starting to trade currency privately next year, for now i'll stick to eurex bonds at work. Do you trade us or eu bonds at all? Cheers and gluck. Wylex
thank you. no, i do not trade bonds personally. closed out the EUR/USD short trade at loss. reversed the trade and am now LONG from 1.2860 surfer surfer
METAL trade--- metals are UP across the board: SI #F Silver Futures + 7425 +267 +3.7% 13.0K COMX 7490 7150 8:45 Nov04 PL #F Platinum Futures + 8485 +202 +2.4% 565 NYME 8528 8320 8:42 Nov04 GC #F Gold Futures - 4323 +69 +1.6% 49.4K COMX 4340 4257 8:45 Nov04 HG #F Copper Futures + 13500 +200 +1.5% 5.80K COMX 13560 13270 8:45 Nov04 AL #F Aluminum Futures - 8885 +115 +1.3% 10 5 8900 8930 COMX 8910 8885 7:52 Nov04
we remain FLAT djia closing NASDAQ longs here going FLAT short OIL awaiting next channels to emerge watching metals. surfer
Alright surf, FWIW, some comments: Stories and Comment: Oil prices rose back to the $50 barrel range today as traders ignored a morning report showing a build in crude inventories and focused on John Kerry's concession speech, which sealed a second term for President Bush. Traders bet that a Bush victory would raise oil prices as the administration is expected to continue filling the Strategic Oil Reserve, pursuing a more aggressive Middle East policy that could escalate violence and promote a supply-side energy policy that will do little to limit demand. Crude for December delivery jumped 98 cents to trade at $50.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude rose 63 cents to $47.18. The news offset a government report earlier Wednesday morning that said crude supplies jumped by 6.3 million barrels over last week, which had caused oil prices to briefly fall. A Bush status quo results in somewhat higher oil prices both in the short and the longer term in my view a trader said. In the short run, it means more oil drained from the market into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Bush has said he would continue filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to capacity, a policy Kerry promised to reverse. Analysts also said Kerry would be more likely to try to contain demand growth with energy conservation measures and financing for alternative fuels. Bush has said he will fill the final 30 million barrels of the 700-million-barrel reserve by next year but there is some concern among traders that the SPR could be expanded to one billion barrels. Some analysts said a Bush win could stoke nervousness about U.S. policy in the oil-producing Middle East, particularly OPEC's second-biggest producer Iran. In particular, if another Bush government moves on to Iran, then oil prices would go very high and really threaten China's economic development. Russia's largest oil exporter Yukos will hold a shareholder meeting Dec. 20 to consider whether to file for bankruptcy or liquidate the firm after it was hit with a huge new tax bill. Yukos could not continue to operate normally after being presented with $6.7 billion in tax demands this week. The situation they find them in today is not sustainable. They cannot continue like this for much longer, the American chief executive said. But, despite that warning, Theede stuck to Yukos' oil output target of 86 million to 87 million tons, or 1.73-1.75 million barrels per day, this year. The new tax demand comes on top of $4 billion Yukos still owes for 2000 and 2001, as well as $3.4 billion in new demands levied against its main production unit, Yugansk. That brings the total now owed by Yukos to a massive $14 billion -- nearly double its market capitalization and leading some analysts to conclude the company is now effectively worthless. Rates are heading higher and bank earnings will take a hit. Next week, the Federal Reserve is expected to raise short-term rates for the fourth time this year, and that trend will mean the end of a prolonged period of easy profits for many banks. Banks earn their money on the spread between their cost of funds and what they charge borrowers, with much of that tied to the difference between short- and long-term interest rates. That difference, reflected in the Treasury bond market's so-called "yield curve," has been very steep in recent years, swelling profits at banks across the country, which make much of their money on mortgages and home equity loans. But as short-term rates rise, the yield curve will flatten, forcing banks to pay more for the money they lend to consumers. That will take a big bite out of bank earnings. Usually, the difference between a bank CD and a mortgage interest rate is about 2-1/4 percentage points. In the last few years, that's widened to about 4-1/2 points and at times crept above five points. There is a way to play this change in the interest rate environment. Those who track bank stocks say that institutions with big commercial lending, investment banking, and asset management operations should benefit from the shifting cycle.
Surf, just noticed your new signature, I heard the following quote: If there is perfect order, then someone has removed the chaos.
Hi Wittgenstein. Did I say that? I used to be a scalper pretty exclusively, but that was over a couple of years ago. Now I trade short-term intraday scalp (breakouts and volatility), intraday swing, overnight swing (1-5 days), multi-week swing, and up to multi-month position. I even have some very-long-term trades, for example last year I entered an AUD long which I held for almost a year, with little "in-between" modfication (and that trade yielded over 30%). I believe in fractality in the markets and look at them from a "top-down" approach, I.e. I look at what a market does in the monthly, then weekly, daily, 120, 60, 30, 15, 5, 3, 1. You get the idea. It gives me a complete picture to trade from, in various timeframes with various opportunities. Particularly in the currencies, I tend to want to have the "right" positions on at all times. Why? Because I don't want to watch my net worth erode due to currency fluctuations. I want to know where I stand. And since I can trade, why just protect my currency accounts if I can make some good profits on top of that? It requires very little, if any extra work for me to position trade, so might as well. If you're a day trader, you have to look at countless charts, evaluate oodles of info and and make instant decisions. And there are no absolute trends or sustenance, stop gunning everywhere etc. Day trading seriously trains you hard at this, you become a champion at looking at a chart for a couple of seconds and making a decision. And after a while, when go "back" to position trading, you're like an NBA player working in Europe. On a daily chart, everything is so much clearer, easier, and more sustained, and you have all the time in the world to decide. I don't do much fundamentals on my position trades, if any. I just glance at a couple of currency charts or so for a few minutes, make a decision, enter my trades, and that's it. In fact I'd say a secret to doing this is to take the last paragraph very literal - Look at a chart, read what it tells you and make a decision. Period. If you think about it too long, you'll start imagining things, second-guessing, etc. Forget it. If you're good at day trading, pick up a few currency dailies, look at where you can see the best opportunities (i.e. R:R, stages of a trend), enter where you think it takes you the least amount of loss to find out if you're wrong, and then switch off and go back to day trading. I have found that this creates a decent extra income for me, kind of adds stability and balance to the intraday trading income regimen. Some days I might not be up much intraday, but still made some nice gains in swings or positions. It's a great thing. And obviously, it also helps me get a much better feel for the overall market, even when trading intraday. One last note: Be careful with leverage if you're trading daily charts, you obviously can't trade 50 cars on a 100K account, your stops are much larger. That's the downside of position trading, but like I said, it's just for supplemental income anyway. Well, hope that helped / answered your question. Peace! S