The video wrap is up – Week ending 2009-06-26

The week that was :
So a slow week as we fell back into congestion. Maintenance on a few positions, the never ending task of system backtesting, just another week in the office really.

Looking around at the trading action others are recording the congesting is chewing out plenty of trading systems in the short term arena so I’ll be content to avoid this period.

E-mini’s :
A few signals presented but again nothing that I want to get involved in while we congest into this range. Better trading days lay ahead.

FX :
Finally the next time frame is ready to roll out at minimum risk for some live trading feedback. The data set is still too small to be reliable but is clear enough to give a direction at this stage. As live data expands over the next 6 months more accurate filters can be applied and changes in dynamics noted as the market conditions change.
Just the one trade taken for the week with most of the time spent testing rather than trading in this range, a -1.0R loss on a pre-news setup.

Still a mountain of testing data to get through though, only about 25% of the job is complete at the moment, even then a whole secondary level is yet to be explored for catching larger moves.

Equities :
The first two positions were stopped out early in the week with the downturn in the S&P dragging down many of the world equity markets. This leaves two open positions surviving on the long term system that are consolidating in these market conditions. No new actions until the market re-sets and breaks out of this current range.

Equity Sectors :
No trades yet due to congestion.

Commodities :
Just the one position running which rolled over to the new contract during the week and gained strength in defiance of the markets during the week. No other trades setup during the week.

Results :
E-mini’s Cash : R
E-mini’s Pre Market : R
FX : -1.0R
Equities : -2.0R
Equity Sectors : R
Commodities : R

Housekeeping :
The FX backtesting remains the priority but focus will be on trading for the next few weeks to get more feedback from the new time frame and take a break from the grind of testing.

The week ahead :
A short week due to the July 4^th long weekend starting on Friday. We also see the NFP

The video wrap is up – Week ending 2009-06-19

The week that was :
So a slow week as we fell back into congestion. Maintenance on a few positions, the never ending task of system backtesting, just another week in the office really.

Looking around at the trading action others are recording the congesting is chewing out plenty of trading systems in the short term arena so I’ll be content to avoid this period.

E-mini’s :
A few signals presented but again nothing that I want to get involved in while we congest into this range. Better trading days lay ahead.

FX :
Finally the next time frame is ready to roll out at minimum risk for some live trading feedback. The data set is still too small to be reliable but is clear enough to give a direction at this stage. As live data expands over the next 6 months more accurate filters can be applied and changes in dynamics noted as the market conditions change.
Just the one trade taken for the week with most of the time spent testing rather than trading in this range, a -1.0R loss on a pre-news setup.

Still a mountain of testing data to get through though, only about 25% of the job is complete at the moment, even then a whole secondary level is yet to be explored for catching larger moves.

Equities :
The first two positions were stopped out early in the week with the downturn in the S&P dragging down many of the world equity markets. This leaves two open positions surviving on the long term system that are consolidating in these market conditions. No new actions until the market re-sets and breaks out of this current range.

Equity Sectors :
No trades yet due to congestion.

Commodities :
Just the one position running which rolled over to the new contract during the week and gained strength in defiance of the markets during the week. No other trades setup during the week.

Results :
E-mini’s Cash        :  R
E-mini’s Pre Market    :  R
FX            :  -1.0R
Equities        :  -2.0R
Equity Sectors        :  R
Commodities         :  R

Housekeeping :
The FX backtesting remains the priority but focus will be on trading for the next few weeks to get more feedback from the new time frame and take a break from the grind of testing.

The week ahead :
A short week due to the July 4th long weekend starting on Friday. We also see the NFP report bought forward to Thursday instead of Friday due to the markets being closed. The first few weeks of the month are always busy with news so hopefully we get some good price movement.

Not being one to go for hype I’ve been avoiding the whole twitter thing as I wasn’t sure if I needed another social networking tool in my day, and more importantly could it be useful as a business tool?

The answer is yes it can. While I’m sure there are plenty of evolutions to come for Twitter much as Facebook went through, there seem to be a few useful contributors from the Trading world hitting twitter to feed us with updates, including several trading resources I use myself.

Moving forwared I plan to use the “tweets” to announce what webinars I’m signing up for, events that I’m attending, and any other useful trading information that I think people would want to know about.

Follow our tweets and let us know how we can make this tool more useful for you!

http://twitter.com/TradingComm

The video wrap is up - Week ending 2009-06-12

It looks like we had some trouble with last weeks video upload which has been resolved now, we live and learn.

The week that was :

Congestion was the order of the week for the most part as we continue to wait for the S&P 500 to take the lead one way or the other. Even if it simply holds station in this congestion other markets such as the ASX and certain commodities continue to advance thanks to a more favorable climate for these economies and instruments.

As mentioned during the week I spent Friday and Saturday attending the World Forex Expo which was making its first appearance in Malaysia. With many of the participants based in Asia or out of Eastern Europe it was an interesting expo as I had not come across any of the exhibitors before during my travels. Expo’s in Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. tend to attract many of the same faces year in year out.

While there certainly wasn’t anything revolutionary some interesting items did pop up at the various seminars regarding technology changes. The two that stood out for me were some of the FX brokers now linking to many execution sources (large banks and mini exchanges that make up the FX markets) to provide spreads based on what the market is offering, instead of something determined by an in-house market maker, or pre-set spreads based on liquidity within that currency as was the old approach for FX brokers. Smaller spreads mean lower transaction cost and more importantly make more pairs viable to trade.

Brokers starting to offer Market Depth as part of their platform is the latest marketing buzz as well. I’m still not sure on the usefulness of this as to the best of my knowledge not all the players are plugged into the system together so you are still not getting the true picture, and the broker I spoke to said limit orders did not display in the system as they do on an intraday futures execution platform. In general I find D.O.M. just a distraction in the decision making process.

The other stand out change is brokers offering Visa Debit cards attached to your account so you can easily withdraw funds from your broking account anywhere in the world. Personally I think this is an awesome idea. Apart from the savings on banking fees, it has certain tax implications as well that are favorable for a nomadic trader like myself. I’m sure this will become the standard for many brokers in the near future.

Other than that the usual number of questionable characters were pushing various trading strategies promising 5000 pip trades (which is smoke and mirrors as outright pips have nothing to do with profitability of your system and pip values differ), and showing off all the people that made “massive wins” after doing their trading course, but probably can’t repeat the results on a consistent basis. These “hype” promoters are my pet peeve, ALWAYS do your homework in this regard. While some of them have good underlying ideas, they simply make it out to be more than it is. Keep an eye out for more info coming soon on how to spot the hype merchants from the 10% of legitimate educators out there.

E-mini’s :
Congestion was the order of the week. Contract Rollover certainly didn’t assist with providing any extra volume to help move things along, so the waiting continues.

FX :
The FX system continues to evolve, getting through the remainder of the current backtesting list is the main issue to allow trades to suit more market conditions. The base theory is sound now it’s just fine tuning time. A few reversal days bought some congestion over the past week which was great to see as it gives a better idea of how things will operate in varied market conditions. The general theory is some shorter time frame trades should slot in between the pivot areas, while during the longer trends we load up on signals being presented on multiple time frames to take as much as possible out of the move.

Equities :
I’ll probably take one more position on Monday. The three positions I entered on the long term system last week didn’t exactly get off to a great start, but the market continues to show positive signs at this stage.

Equity Sectors :
No trades at this stage.

Commodities :
Tracking trades, no actions during the week as price has not moved far enough for stops to be moved up yet. Some of the grains looked like setting up into trades but have reversed instead.

Results :
E-mini’s Cash : R
E-mini’s Pre Market : R
FX : -3.0R (minimal $ risk trades during rollout phase)
Equities : R
Equity Sectors : R
Commodities : R

Housekeeping :
No stops to move, just continue with testing.

The week ahead :
Nothing particular special due this week, just more of the same. Retail sales for the U.K. on Thursday will be interesting, along with Building Permits for the U.S. on Tuesday.

Ok some issues with the auto feed, take 2.
The video wrap is up – Week ending 2009-06-05

The week that was :
Plenty of movement during the week with more signs from economic news that while things aren’t exactly getting better, they are getting worse at a slower pace.

E-mini’s :
As far as my S&P E-mini system goes there were no signals I was running to get onboard. The overall theme is still to wait for a break in either direction and see if that presents better signals than what has been on offer for the past several weeks now.

FX :
Plenty of work went into getting the first of the signals and time frames to trading status. The addition of the extra monitor is allowing me to view the movement of the market in a new perspective to before which has offered some more insights for maximizing the system performance. Only a few signals presented by Thursday/Friday when everything was in place, and just the one trade for a 0.5R win to get a feel for executing the new trades, tweak broking platform layouts etc.
There is still a MOUNTAIN of work to do to test this system, and new ideas will be forthcoming for several weeks as it starts to settle in. On the whole it looks fantastic and is a large step forward on previous FX system explorations.

Equities :
I like where the index is at for the ASX market again now. We’re seeing plenty of good news around the world, so I’m going to dip my toe back in with a few positions. My long term system has been on hold for nearly 2 years while the market was forming it’s top and heading down, so I’m looking forward to starting the process of scaling my capital back into this market.

Equity Sectors :
Nothing for the past week but we may see some action in the weeks ahead if this breakout is sustained.

Commodities :
One trade entered during the week which took some heat with the USD having a strong run the following day, but no stops triggered so just waiting for any new signals or reasons to adjust stops if required. As an end of day system it only takes a few minutes a day to maintain positions in play.

Results :
E-mini’s Cash : R
E-mini’s Pre Market : R
FX : 0.5R
Equities : R
Equity Sectors : R
Commodities : R

Housekeeping :
Keep testing FX system time frames.

The week ahead :
Not much in the way of news so the market should be free to move around this week and go with their strengths.

Sorry guys running very late this week so I’ve scrapped the weekly video wrap which was holding up this post for a longer wrapup this weekend. Major overhaul for the forum coming just as soon as I get through some backtesting that’s consuming all my time. Not much to comment on anyway, waiting for the S&P to break it’s resistance for the most part.

The week that was :
With the S&P trading in it’s range under the Jan swing highs still it’s a waiting game for equities. Volatility is very steady now so opportunities in the E-mini S&P markets are much lower. Signals that would trigger up to 10 times a day during the volatility explosion of last year may now appear once a week, making for a less desirable market.

E-mini’s :
Two trades taken for the week, one in the cash market and one in the pre-market S&P for a -2.0R loss overall. Waiting for a break and resumption of the trend above the Jan swing highs is my current view given it’s a trend following system.

FX :
Enough of the backtesting is completed to start live trading on a low risk basis. This will give a more realistic feedback of what is achievable as far as signal and exit recognition in live trade conditions, still plenty of testing to do though. The current trend is extremely good providing plenty of trade opportunities.

Equities :
Still waiting for macro setups to be in my favour.

Equity Sectors :
As above.

Commodities :
The commodities markets are moving nicely so I’m just waiting for an opportunity to get onboard. As the USD continues to weaken some nice moves are being presented, unfortunately none of them were within the rules of the old system at the time they broke out.

Results :
E-mini’s Cash : -1.0R
E-mini’s Pre Market : -1.0R
FX : R
Equities : R
Equity Sectors : R
Commodities : R

Housekeeping :
FX testing, and them some more FX testing.

The week ahead :
NFP week! There is news everywhere this week so it will be interesting how the markets handle it, everything from jobs, to housing and rates.