Howard and the 1000 trading adventures (2014)!

The usd dollar is loosing ground in the early london session, not really the kind of action that i was expecting from this "calm" (in terms of economic events) moonday.

Some red flags popping out so far.

Not really a volatile day for now, with the us trading closed i'm not sure something is going to happen at all today.

The usd is almost bidless the whole day, i'm still waiting some bulls to enter the market, the holiday doesn't help though.

I would say 50% possibility to see such bids today, it deserve to keep some eyes on that.

About the gbp (that doesn't really care about the usd from some time now), red flags here and there, here too if the bears don't join the market anytime soon we may as well get out and move on.

Ok, we've just added the last tiny position on usdchf, the situation is soo hot, the current leverage used lies around 90x.

For those who don't know how to not trade responsibly, this is the perfect example.

Time to wait now, and see what happen.

Cheers!

Getting back to some level of mental sanity, we've just closed our usdchf positions, the pair did received some modest bid on asian session, a very tiny profit, but at least we are not 50pips away from a margincall (i've calculated approximately 50pips is the margin-range with positions leveraged to 100x).
There is a tiny imaginary line between risk-aversion and stupidity, sometime it's crossed without even realizing it.

Anyway, we had to cut something, usdchf.
I still think it will reach the target sometime in the future (it may be today or next month, no idea about when), that's just fine.

So, time to wait once again, good morning everybody!

A closer look to gbpusd.

What can we see here, the pair is trying to wake up from a retrace and resume the uptrend, these are the decision "moments", if not enough buyers join this resume, we will probably see the price get back to the lows, and break them.

On the other hand, if enough buyers will join this resume-attempt, we'll get the uptrend resumed and up to the highs.

Why i am shorting, well it's not easy for the market to find many buyers at these levels, considering the current usd bullishness (recent weeks) and the overall gbpusd trend getting a little bit tired, the momentum is still there but is slowing, the daily chart show us some divergences, some little signs here and there that the correction may not be over yet.

Trying to think like a big buyer, i would wait price to fall below december lows, before consider to buy the market again.
And that's our current target.

About the very recent market activity, that's good how the price was not able to go anywere higher than friday highs, this mean that there are offers.
Yet, for now we still haven't seen any real seller.

I would say the current probabilities of win this trade are just around 50%, many pros and many cons, like always in trading.

A big miss on the cbi industrial order expectations, this "may" be a wake-up call for sellers.
Pretty soon now to say though.

Update:
Yes something is starting to move, apparently there are still bids around the lows, and i don't rule out the possibility of some layers of stops below yesterday lows, in that case such stops popping may fuel some bearish momentum.
For now, still in range though.

The usdchf in the meantime is flying nicely, nothing big but keeping a bullish structure, sadly we are not profiting from it anymore, but that's fine.
The usd index is getting very near our medium-long term target, there too the possibility of some stops builded up above november highs, however seems like the gbpusd don't really care at all about what the usd dollar do anymore.

We hold the line as always, and wait a little bit more...

Nice analysis and a cool trader SpaceDuck.

There is a flag flying high.

Nice trades and results Howard. Good luck on your journey

Yes usasa nice flag i've seen it too, and it looks technically very correct!

And it did worked out pretty well pal!

Yes SpaceDuck and still looking good to me.

Ok, the "burst" has come!

It was a big loss, aroud 35% of the account, sadly.
I can write a blame or two about some things, many questions to ask, many answers to find, but as for now it's just time for me to go for a holiday.

So... let's call it a month!

See you in the future, and good luck everybody!

A good month you can say, still over 100% profit even with that loss.

Have a nice rest and do post here, you are a very talent trader and still a lot to learn from you
Cheers

Thank you my friend, yes actually just 80% profit (it was 35% loss relative to the last balance), anyway still ok.

A good lesson so far, i want to share it here, what was this lesson about.

Looking back to the evolution of the trade, the core point of such trade was the usd-index and it's bullish structure.
From here, the idea of profit from it, selling xxx/usd and buying usd/xxx (as we have done during january).

Theoretically, the idea was making sense, looking specifically at gbpusd (its price indicate how many USD a gbp is worth), it seems to make sense that a currency like the usd and its movements would have a strong impact on the gbpusd pair. In other words, correlation.

Well, the lesson we've learned today, is that correlation, at least for me personally, is just a junk concept. Not good anymore.

In other words, every pair is to be considered independent, like a particular commodity, each with its own chart, no more usd-index and various correlations anymore; the same apply to jpy/equities, aud/oil, cad/gold etc., the well known correlations that i'm not going to give them any importance anymore, at least this is what this lesson has teach me.
A useful one!

And that's all!

It finely came . You have a lot of potential with your trading style. If you were to keep your risk lower and aim for smaller gain, you could make 100% of profit per year ( and not per week ) and be one of the best trader that has ever lived.

Anyways, you should do a long analysis as of why you went bust. If you could, post it here.

Have nice vacation and come back stronger

limited downside but infinite upside. very nice trading.

Thanks Capelli!

Interesting your point, effectively by lowering the risk and aim for smaller gains (and of course smaller drawdown too), it is still possible to make 100% a year, being a "good" trader.
Let me tell you this, i used to trade that way especially in the recent years,and i've found out that in some environments there is a tremendous demand/search for talented traders. So, with the good contacts and doing a good (low risk) trading, the doors of the real money do easily open, 100% a year is exactly the dream that all the millionaires/billionaires have every night.

Sure the "wage" is big, but the level of stress out there is something too much big (for me), and the level of responsibility too.
The good thing about trading is the freedom, freedom to do what you want when you want, you can work when you want, have holiday when you want and for how long you want, when you get into institutional levels all this freedom go away.
In some levels you can have also real problems as aftermath of a drawdown (even a little one, depending on the funds involved), even legal problems like get sued etc., i mean your life could potentially be drastically changed by a drawdown.

Instead, I can loose 35% of my own account and really nothing happen, it's my money, i'm happy to have losses and learn something new (as in every loss there is an attached lesson to learn, this is how traders make real experience).
I have my freedom to do what i want when i want, basically this is the kind of lifestyle that i've choose.

So.. i let being a "good" "reliable" "one of the best" trader (with all the opportunities that arises from that) to someone else


As for why i had a loss, i guess the main problem was giving too much importance to the usd-index (i've written a post about it), these correlations nowadays are not working out pretty well. The nice thing is that i'll not do such mistake again.
Apart from that, i was somehow needing to have a loss (yeah i know it doesn't make sense!), i don't know why or how this work, but i find losses healthy from time to time, like a retrace during a trend, is useful in order to avoid a "bubble" situation.

There are some hidden universal rules that apply on anything, and i guess we as part of the universe cannot escape to them.

P.s.
I see you are doing pretty good, congrats