Meditations on Extremistan - Nassim Taleb

aDtr today

Volatility levels have increased again. Today, there are 20 out of 28 tradable pairs. If a pair has an ADR/3 value exceeding 99, it is already categorized as less suitable for daily trading, similar to the daily movement of XAU/USD. Wellcome: USD/CHF, AUD/CAD, and AUD/USD. There have never been this many pair options in the past year.

Same goes for us — avoid trade pairs that have range 1/3 aDtr more than 99 - pip range. It’s better to stay within the normal limits.
< 33 = slow movement, rarely burst
33 – 66 = normal movement
> 66 - 99 = very fast movement, quick burst
> 99 = you are crazy!

Lol

PPP versus Market Rates

Purchasing power parity (PPP) is a way to compare the cost of living across countries. It's a currency conversion rate that equalizes the purchasing power of different currencies.

Quote

Disliked

Currency pairs often show fake volatility as the spot price can be fluctuating, but forward contracts do less so, owing to interest rate adjustments in the weak currency: interest rates rise to compensate holders for the devaluation.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb -

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...year_desc=true
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/...wer-Parity-PPP

Indonesia (data 2023): 4,819.78 IDR per 1 USD
Market Exchange Rates Now: 16,789.00 IDR per 1 USD
Future Contracts (Now): 5,932.00 IDR per 1 USD

So it's not related to the real economy and is only for trades, for example, when someone needs to exchange money to shop in another country or for various import duty rates. Extremely excessive rates. The Exchangers do not use PPP for barter.

Fire ▄︻デ══━一

Range 1
Long EUR/AUD, 1 Unit 84 pips, 0.5%

Good Game Well Played!
GGWP
Gain +0.5%

Maybe it was going to be a repeat of yesterday’s situation—missing the TP by just 1 pip—but then the price reversed and hit the TP. Many good entry opportunity in Range 1 but main focus is Range 2 after London Open.

To improve the quality of each thread on Forex Factory, it's simple: you trade, you post charts/analysis, you post results and statistics. It doesn't matter whether it's a demo or real account — everything will become clear, just as @traderathome and @Fisher755 taught years ago. My part now is simply to remind people about the importance of statistics. So that newbies can learn honestly, no longer being misled by the noise—because nothing is ever quite as it seems.



That's what you call skin in the game.

Fire ▄︻デ══━一

Range 2
Short CAD/JPY, 1 Unit 49 pips, 0.5%
Gain +0.5%

Preparing for a counterattack...
May be now in Range 2, May be later in Range 3
Lol

There are many good setups tonight in Range 3, especially on JPY pairs, but unfortunately, can only open two positions simultaneously. The USD/JPY long trade was successful, but the USD/CAD long trade failed.

Been short on USDJPY and I'm still holding.

I forgot, turns out it's already Saturday morning, Lol EUR/USD trade hit SL -0.5%. Two more trades are still open.

Two of my trades are still open, one of them is a USD/JPY Long—might get hit by a gap next week. SL or TP? The prognosis doesn't seem very good.

ORANGE SWAN EVENTS


https://x.com/nntaleb/status/1910713468681863258

Slightly modify today's trading system rules
13/04/2025 - PVSRA TVT 1/3 aDtr 21 – Daily Ranger

Rules of 7
1. Pair Selection: Scan all 28 pairs using aDtr 21 Days. A broader range, ≥ 99 pips, might be a better choice for trading pairs as it provides more room for SL (risk).

2. Optimal Maximum Leverage for Forex: 10:1 (about 3% per position), Kelly = SR/σ, where SR = 0.1 and σ = 1% per day. However, We use a Kelly Criterion scale target, percentage Daily Profit Target with TP/SL ratio 1:1 (like a Sniper) - based on 1/3 aDtr 21. Stop Loss is mandatory. Consider put SL to BE +1 after 1/3 TP gain.

3. Timing Entry: Enter better after London Open in Range 2.

4. Key Entry: The Blue Dragon serves as a trading direction guide.
a. Entry Long, Price is above The Blue Dragon, and The Blue Dragon forms a Convex curve. The entry position should not be too far from it.
b. Entry Short, Price is below The Blue Dragon, and the The Blue Dragon forms a Concave curve. The entry position should not be too far from it.

5. Key Levels, Volumes & Fractals: Pay attention to S/R Levels, to Consolidation above or below Whole/Half Levels, to High Volume activities and It’s Color (Climax Buy or Climax Sell, Raising Buy or Raising Sell), and to Patterns (Fractals) that are generally formed.

6. No trade during Red News events. Trade after it.

7. Patience and Discipline like an EA (Robot).

https://x.com/nntaleb/status/1911082583074521318

The Salem City Seal

The Salem City Seal’s design is based on a very important aspect of Salem history, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

With a merchant dressed in colorful robes standing next to palm trees on an island, and a ship in the background under full sail, the seal is actually representative of Salem’s spice trade history. The merchant featured on the seal is not meant to portray a Salem merchant, but rather a local Sumatran, where the spice trade with Salem was first established. Below the imagery are the words “Divitis Indiae usque sinum,” which translates to “To the farthest port of the rich east.” Above sits a dove holding an olive branch, symbolizing Salem’s designation as the “City of Peace.” The seal also features two specific years: 1626 when the town of Salem was incorporated, and 1836 when the city was incorporated.

Salem’s spice trade began when Captain Jonathan Carnes became the first person to return to the United States with a bulk of cargo pepper from Sumatra. In 1793, Carnes learned that wild pepper may be available along the coast of Sumatra. In order to ensure that he would be the first to reach the spice, he kept this knowledge secret from most people in Salem with the exception of his uncle, Salem merchant Jonathan Peele, who helped him acquire a schooner quickly and would later help with selling the spices.

Carnes returned from Sumatra with the pepper aboard his Schooner Rajah in 1797, following a series of unsuccessful attempts and shipwrecks in the years prior. The pepper was not only important to the people of Salem for the same reasons we use pepper today, but it was also highly sought after for its preservative qualities. Prior to modern preservatives, spices like pepper were especially helpful as meat preservative. It is estimated that the cargo of pepper that came to Salem aboard the Rajah was valued at about $125,000 (in 1797), meaning in today’s value the shipment would be worth about $1.5 million ($3,147,627.95 in 2025).

For approximately the next 50 years, the majority of the pepper used in many countries came through the port of Salem. By the early 19th century, Salem’s trade had helped the city become the wealthiest per capita in the United States. Though Salem’s trade with China and East Indian nations eventually came to include more than just pepper, with items like tea, silk, and porcelain, the Sumatran pepper voyages served as some of Salem’s first and most important ventures into international trade relations.

The seal was commissioned by the city to be designed by George Peabody in 1839. Peabody was a descendent of some of Salem’s greatest pepper merchants, and was himself a ship owner. Rather than depicting a scene of Salem, Peabody thought it fitting to draw a figure representative of a Sumatran merchant as a reference to where the pepper trade first began.

Since 1839, the seal has been used on official city documents and records. In addition, using the seal on anything other than documents pertaining to official City of Salem business is a violation of State law and Local Ordinances. A solid bronze plaque of the seal is currently on display in the reception area by the mayor’s office at City Hall, and the City hopes to eventually display it on the exterior of the new City Hall Annex Building at 90 Washington Street.

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Well, that wealthy region in Sumatra still remains rich in natural resources today, but its people are no longer prosperous—or perhaps there has never been equitable distribution of wealth from the start, but still dressed in colorful robes

Source: https://www.salem.org/blog/salem-ma-city-seal/

The latest developments in the cryptocurrency world over the past five years (referencing this link) show that not much has changed even after the introduction of Proof-of-Identity consensus mechanism (or some say sybil deterrence). Pioneers like Idena and Worldcoin aside, most coins remain stagnant or serve merely as tools for speculation. Proof of identity essentially reverts to traditional systems but leans more toward socialist ideals, such as universal basic income (UBI) for the entire global population.

My idea of using fingerprints (finger tips) combined with electrical entropy energy measured in kWh (Watt-hours) wouldn’t be overly difficult to implement. However, it would require designing advanced node and miner machines, as well as sufficient resources. Of course, this won’t be easy, given the inevitable challenges from global financial powers, the World Bank, and their capitalist proponents who uphold the status quo. B-Watt (ب-Watt) - Where Divine Precision Meets Decentralized Power. The ideal of blockchain that unites humanity: a global currency for the people.

The tool can already be built in the real world. However, this miner + node system is designed to revive the original vision of home-based Bitcoin mining (solo) without pools, pioneered by a brilliant US engineer which still upholds the original ideals of Bitcoin. The concept revolves around "one node, one miner," and potentially "one identity" in the future. https://x.com/FutureBit Cryptocurrency was always, in the beginning, a solo mining game — decentralized and exciting — before it was ruined by global mining cartels. Previously, there were two coins with the Proof of Space Time consensus mechanism, Chia and Spacemesh that were touted as potential replacements for Bitcoin, but they completely failed due to their greed. Right now, there's nothing new under the same sun.

Lol

The GBPCHF trade was successful, +0.5% gain.
As for the USDJPY trade, it actually hit BE+1 — price went up +44 pips before reversing, but I had just opened my laptop. Lol

Note: Update. USDJPY hit SL.

Fire ▄︻デ══━一

Range 1
Long EUR/AUD, 1 Unit 90 pips, 0.5%

Fire ▄︻デ══━一

Range 1 near Range 2
Long EUR/USD, 1 Unit 42 pips, 0.5%

Gain +0.5%