Hit the target. I didn't close

I saw the market hit my target levels of 4220 but I didn't close the position as I am again confident of the position I am taking and feel that the market will give me much more profits than what I am getting now.

Still short 1500 EUR and next target is beyond 4190

Market at 1.42511 offered.

Still Short

I still have the 1500 lots short position open. I believe the low liquidity in this week will cause the dollar to rally more than usual and I should see close to 1.4220 levels to close my position. just checked the price in the middle of the night and I seem to be getting more and more confident of my trade. I just hope I am not giving way to over confidence.

Euro at 1.4281 ask

Rules of the trading game - Few things to know

Firstly the lots are 1000 of any currency, so when I refer to 1000 short, I am basically saying I am short 1000 lots of 1000 each i.e. 1 mn EUR is equal to 1000 lots of EUR here.

There are a few charges for overnight exposure but they are small so I want bother you with details

My trading is based on two factors, Fundamental Bias and technical analysis. As of now a fundamental bias for strengthening Dollar which has been playing for the past two weeks and my understanding of the technical charts which helps me manage my risk. (though the dollar strength has been such that technical analysis has caused my loose a good part of the move)

I am not new to trading per se, I had traded equity cash and futures for about 2 years professionally and have traded on and off on my own account for the past 5-6 years.

Also this is not the first time I am trading currencies. I have traded currencies on and off for some contest or the other during my B-school days and have been following currencies and global economies closely due to my work. Hence I have some feel of the market and how economic news and other factors affect the currency market.

My details are available at many places and I will be happy to provide more details if anyone is interested.

Up more than 80% in 2 weeks flat

I know I have been lucky in catching a trending market and hence don't really consider this to be representative performance, Nonetheless I believe this show's some skill exists and all those years of trading in equity cash and futures markets have added a lot of insight into my own character, strengths and weaknesses and how to harness them effectively. I believe that is the primary reason for my performance, besides as I said ofcourse, luck.

here are the details of last few trades and open position



Here is the updated chart of my performance



Detailed accounts with complete trade history is available here: My Accounts

Too Much

While I was expecting a down move, I must admit I was not expecting it to be this big. My conservative views cost me about 60 pips. But no problem, I am easing into another short position, 100-200 at a time, let's hope I can capture a big part of the next down move.

Is this reconfirmation enough?

I am a little skeptical now as to whether my decision to stick to my short and not take profit is correct.

Given how the chart is looking, I feel there is a good chance I may end up giving away all my gains on this trade.

However, I am willing to take this call and stick to my short as of now. I am tempted to bing up my take profit level to 4515

lets see how this thing plays out

Sitting on notional loss

My strategy is sound and I know that, but just a note that I am currenlty sitting on a notional loss of about EUR 4000 due to the temp up move in the EUR/$ pair.

I still stick to my decision of taking profit at 4476, however given the recent moves, I may take profit at about 4620 levels and wait for reconfirmation of my sell signal and take a short position again. I may loose some of the down move but thats the price you pay for having confidence in your odds :)

EUR at 1.4579 buy at the moment

Today morning When I was back in office, I was up another 9% due to my overnight open position which was again short EUR. I closed the same and opened a long EUR at 1.4629, which turned out to be the worst possible timing as right after my long the euro crashed and I was able to get out of the trade at 4584 which caused a significant loss. that being said, I tried to capture the down move that was on and went short 1000 EUR at average price of about 4669. which I covered at 4554 and opened another short of 1000 EUR at 4539 which I wish to cover at 4477.

My trade book today is as follows

Closed at 307

Has some work and needed to move out so I closed my -150 at 1.46307. I had also initiated another 50,000 short at 365 which I closed at 307

waiting for next trading signal..I believe its sell at below 1.46 and sell at above 1.4672 and a buy if it consolidates and moves sideways for some time and moves up again near 1.4618 levels...it did that but I wasnt around

Currency Trading Adventures

I have started trading EUR:USD pair with equity of 10,000 Euros since 4th of December. On day one I was up 30% and since then had a roller-coaster ride and at one point was down almost 28%

here is the chart of my results



at this point I am up 14% with one open position of Short 150,000 EUR and have decided I will start off keeping a trading log on this blog itself. so now on the blog will act as both, My opinion board and my trading log.

So here goes:

Given the current chart and my open position of Short 150,000 EUR which I entered at average price of 1.47589 I have decided to exit this position at 1.46251.

If this position is closed as planned I will be up 2007 USD after considering all costs.

I am hoping to make this move and then move forward on other trades.

A look at the 10 min chart



My Order book and open position as of this moment

My views are being stolen??

Ok, not really, just a catchy title to the post. But my views on gold have been reaffirmed by none other than Jim Sinclair, chairman at Tanzanian Royalty Exploration (who BTW is one of the most informed individuals when it comes to gold)

"According to Jim Sinclair, chairman at Tanzanian Royalty Exploration, the price of the yellow metal could reach as high as $1650 by the end of 2010 and moving into the beginning of 2011. But, the man admits that, given recent happenings, this could be a bit of a low estimate."

full article on mineweb. http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page33?oid=93428&sn=Detail

Negative Interest Rates Again!!

Regular readers will recall that I had posted about this unheard of phenomenon in past as well. This time it's "window dressing" by banks that is to be blamed for not only free but actually profitable borrowing by US govt.

From FT:

Short-term US interest rates turned negative on Thursday as banks frantically stockpiled government securities in order to polish their balance sheets for the end of the year.
On Thursday, Treasury bills maturing in January traded below zero per cent, traders said. Three-month bills traded at 1 basis point and six-month bills fell to a record low of 13bp – compared with 14bp at the height of the crisis last year.
Investors looking for some return piled into two-year notes, driving their yield down to 0.68 per cent, a year low

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38f71676-d56a-11de-81ee-00144feabdc0.html

Gold at $800 or $1500 ??

A lot of people have been asking this question of late. I hear that Marc Faber has recently said that gold will move down to US$800 in the short term. However if I look at gold from a 1 yr perspective, I believe gold is headed up all the way to about $1300-1500. the reasons are many but biggest of all is the dual pressure of falling dollar and a move towards reserves other than dollar by most central bankers around the world. a recent IMF paper has this very interesting graph



The fact that US$ share of reserves has been falling can be seen but what is heard now is an indication that not only is the share falling, its falling faster than it did in the past. Recently RBI also bought a large chunk (US$200 bn worth) of gold to replace the dollar reserve. And increasingly all the national reserves that are loosing dollars and searching for alternatives, will find it in precious metals (mostly gold).

Hence I am a big bull on Gold

One of the best songs

I usually don't analyze music as I believe there are some things that should simply be enjoyed. but given how much I like this song I couldn't help but ask why do I like this one so much?

The song I am talking about is 'Aj din Chadeya' in the movie 'love aajkal'. This song, I have realized, is liked so much by me because it is a perfect package of everything.

The rhythm is undoubtedly amazing, hats off to Pritam Chakraborty, but it is complemented perfectly by the really soothing voice of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and the really touching lyrics by Irshad Kamil.

So you see, this song is an amazing blend of perfectly complementing music, lyrics and voice. All three are individually enough to make a very good song on their own and they have come together in this song. No wonder I am such a big fan of this.

Be careful, your bank statement may not be correct

It was recently reported by Wired that a new technique employed by cyber criminals actually changes your bank statement to hide the fraudulent transfers from your bank account, this means that potentially you may be out of money for long enough and not know about it if you rely solely on your online statement and dont transact too much

link: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/rogue-bank-statements

This is the most troubling article I have read this weekend.

Every regulator should read this

http://generationbubble.com/2009/10/03/dupe-deluxe-the-suckers-market-for-financial-innovation/

Unless regulators play a role in this game, the outcome as defined cannot be changed

CRISIL Concall:-

Ok, I got in late but had the opportunity to hear the Q&A round.... so here goes

after a little bit of ada..beep..ada..boop.. Tarun says Crisil is now more confident that govt. will infulse cash into PSU banks if need be so they are now more comfortable with the banks. and hence upgrades eight public sector banks. UBI and BOI are now AAA for Tier I, Hybrid and lower Tier II bonds. I guess the market would have (or atleast should have) thaken this into account quite some time back.

As Aside: S&P did something amazing and unbelievable

From Blooomberg:
Standard & Poor’s backtracked on ratings cuts issued last week and raised the ranking on commercial mortgage-backed debt from three bonds sold in 2007.

The securities, restored to top-ranked status, had been downgraded as recently as last week, making them ineligible for the Federal Reserve’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to jumpstart lending.

S&P lowered the ratings on a class of a commercial mortgage-backed bond offering from AAA to BBB-, the lowest investment-grade ranking, on July 14. The New York-based rating company reversed the cut today, S&P said in a statement. In a related report, S&P said it adjusted assumptions on the timing of projected losses on the mortgages.

“It is a stunning reversal and certainly raises questions concerning the robustness of their revised model,” said Christopher Sullivan, chief investment officer at United Nations Federal Credit Union in New York. “It may engender further uncertainty with respect to ratings outlooks.”