FXAnalytics - fxan.com

Got the Trade Explorer setup, kind of a slick little idea. FXCM has truncated my data so information right now is a little off, it will even out with time. I can always post the statement above as well for full disclosure.

Saturday 14 Day Correlation Report

The more I look at this the more convinced I am I'll probably sit out Sunday night and check things Monday morning. I'd like to have a handful of entries to pull the trigger on and the price action this isn't really thrilling me. I'll run the matrix tomorrow night and see what they look like.

Here's what I'm looking at tonight, things in bold are on the radar but I still haven't pulled the trigger just yet.



A couple of these have high correlation and will get dropped.



Of the highly correlated pairs, I'll keep those with the lowest spread.



Time to grind it out and see what happens.

Never went in last night, didn't care for the setups. I try to take things that have asymmetrical risk from a technical standpoint in my time frame (which honestly means nothing in the big picture - it just makes me feel good.) Only three setups in the matrix this morning that I'm looking at. AUD/JPY, GBP/CHF and GBP/JPY.

This is why I shoot for asymmetry in my risk profiles... All three of those setups now have counter-momentum warnings. I'm definitely holding off until things cool down. Will reevaluate this afternoon. If there is any good news here it's that all of these are coming down to a major support level for me (another imaginary thing that makes me feel good) and if they slow and consolidate it will make the argument for taking the long trades slightly more appealing.

As an aside this is also a harsh reminder of how little correlation can mean in the global markets. You're best efforts to mitigate risk can quickly be unwound by complexity... This is why I trade small and simply grind.

Here is a really interesting setup. I just ran the matrix again and got a long signal in the AUD/NZD. I ran through the longer time frames to see where we're at, could be a major cyclical bottom here. I'd be happier if it was into those support levels but I've got to give this some consideration as a long-term position.

All three pairs from this morning have settled around their S1 levels from the morning matrix. This should pretty well cap the price action for now (at least the next few hours). With a little luck I'll be back in the market this evening.

Time to grind... four short term and one swing for the fences.

Currently in the red for about 2.5%, everyone of my trades ran out of the gate the wrong direction last night. Have to weather the storm and keep grinding. Will reevaluate tonight and re-balance. This is why I trade small...

The ugly truth told in pictures...

I'm not really loving the current open trades, but they are what they are. The morning started pretty rough with about a 2.5% draw-down in the account. At one point this they had all recovered and we were back in the black, but now they've fallen off again, sitting just over 1% in the red. Right now I've got to let the longer term cycles play out and see where we end up. This could be one of those really uncomfortable, long grinds. That's the nature of the beast. You chain success and losses together over the long term and try to make it out alive. - JP

Trades came back around a couple hit my mid level targets, it's a shame my timing into them was so bad, but there is just know way to know what the market is going to do. Thankful I came out in the black. This is going to wrap up my trading for the year... It's time to take a few days off and enjoy the family. Happy Holidays everyone.

When risk comes home to roost...

When the CFTC tried to reduce leverage from 200:1 to 10:1 the industry nearly turned itself inside out trying to fight it. They finally settled on 50:1 here in the US. I wonder how many traders (and brokers) wish they were 10:1 when the SNB pulled the trap door this today. I've argued with so many people about leverage over the years I can't even count and it always ends up with them grinding on about stops as if that is some magic bullet.

This is why I say trade small. 1:1, 2:1 and if that doesn't fit your goals as a trader - you're doing it wrong. You're expecting too much and you're taking too much risk. I feel terrible for everyone who took those hits today - it was by dumb luck I was out of my short CHF pairs, the difference is, I was only in 1:1 and would have dusted the loss off. I wish people would get their heads wrapped around this stuff and stop buying into the BS in this sector. Ignorance of knowledge is no excuse and the markets spare no penalty for the fool. Trade small and live to trade another day... - JP

I've removed my trade explorer as there is something wrong with the reporting. I suspect it's an issue on fxcm's side, with them truncating the history... at any rate it's not accurate so there is no point in having it up here. - JP

So in February I pulled my money out of FXCM until I'm certain they are going to survive, plus I want to see what if any changes in the regulatory environment occur before I jump back in. So for now I'm going to demo the model. I don't think I'll have the issues with the account statement I had with the live account - at least I hope not. Still don't understand exactly why they feel the need to chop off chunks of data from the returns - who know. Will grind along with this for a while and see how it shakes out. Here's the most current pre-trade analysis as we grind through the Asian trade session.

Had an interesting experience with FXCM this morning. I was long EUR/CAD over night, tried to log into MT4 to collect some data, run the models and see if I needed to get out. Couldn't log in. Spent 15 minutes trying. No issues getting into the demo server, but the live server - no bueno. Grabbed the Android and fired up the MT4 app, thankfully that worked, and killed the trade. 15 minutes later the pair tanked. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come with this broker. You can't clamp down on trading half an hour before an event and if you do, you can expect more trader to vacate. - JP