Weekend Notes

I've been through a lot of (non-trading) issues since I last wrote.My family and I have moved halfway across the nation, we've gotten new jobs, and had to take care of a million minor items that occur when you relocate your life. Sorry for the lack of updates.I have been doing a little manual trading here and there.The AUDJPY has been failing in the 87.xx range for most of this month. Greece,

AUDJPY: Profit Is My Density

No, that's not a typo. It's a rip-off of a line from the Back To The Future movie. Anyway, this post is another in the series of theoretical considerations with respect to various robot building strategies.In this scenario let's consider fixing our maximum total position size across a specific price range. For example, perhaps we are willing to purchase 10000 units per 1000 pips (remember, I'm

AUDJPY: Range Or Reversal?

The AUDJPY has had a nice run just recently.However, the 1HR is showing a small double top. Obviously, we might be looking at the beginning of a range discovery action or perhaps even a reversal if we get renewed panic concerning Greece or similar situations.Be patient and look for good opportunities.Now if only I can take my own advice... ;)

AUDJPY: A Change Of Mind

Finally, something has happened to lift the pall from the AUD/JPY market.What happened? The Australian economy showed signs of heat. We have recent employment numbers that absolutely blew away expectations.Apparently, today, the AUD/USD moved from a value that gave a 25% chance of a hike in march to a 50% chance of a hike in march. Do you remember me talking about the need for a upside

AUDJPY: Oh Oh

While I've been talking about the cake being baked we've just done nice big double top over the course of October 2009 through February 2010 on the daily charts.Obviously, this doesn't have to "fire" but it does invite a big panic drop to retest the July 2009 low of 70.75 or so. Considering today's rapid plummet of 300 points at this point who can say.As I noted on my last post I do think people

AUDJPY: The Cake is Baked

Well, the RBA just decided not to increase rates.Recently, China decided to tighten up capital requirements for lenders.Also, there has been talk of taxing or otherwise restricting carry trade activities.Lest we forget, recent news in Australia is mixed.The US market has been skittish.Emerging markets have been very skittish.So, what am I trying to say?I'm thinking the cake is baked. You might

Challenging Times

While I realize the world went through a bit of an unwind, before and after the Dubai incident, I've been busy with work and family issues instead.Things have just been incredibly busy!In any case, what with the volatility and unwinding that has been going on it's probably a good time to be inactive. I did manage to blow up my small discretionary account (my robots are far better traders than I

AUDJPY: Ominously Flat

I'm looking at a short term chart, but the lack of volatility suggests that something is in the air.Even with the recent good news from China things have been relatively lethargic.The daily chart is also showing the potential to have a few down days.This seems like a good time to manage risk.UPDATE: This evening, while I was on the road, I see that we had a nice spike upwards, hitting my

Trading Week Recap

Since the trading robot, BREAD, was predominantly sidelined for the last couple of weeks I felt the need to do more discretionary trading.While the capital used wasn't very large it felt great to pull in a 34% increase over the course of the week. If I could scalp like this all the time it would definitely spell the end of the day job. I have dreams of setting up a trading office with spacious

Minor BREAD Adjustments

The BREAD trading robot has had a minor tweak during this last weekend.To make a long story short, another risk modification metric has been defined. If things work as planned this will give the robot the ability to trade over a wider currency pair price move. Obviously, the plan is to simultaneously maintain the same level of profitability.My initial readings on quantitative analysis, via

AUDJPY: Market Call

The AUDJPY has done a whole lot of nothing for the last few days.Can you blame it? It must be tired after the recent climb.More seriously, with the RBA considering whether to raise rates another 25 or perhaps even 50 basis points, I don't expect any type of calamitous drop.I think we might see a drop down to 83.00 again but if it does stop in that region I'd consider the range between there and

New Robot Rules Fermenting

It's late Friday night, the markets are closed, and all through the house not a creature is stirring. Well, nobody but the scheming trader hatching up another robotic system.As someone who designs software systems for a living I can assure you that, in terms of making improvements, nothing is more helpful than watching a system in action. The key point here is the concept of "seeing" the results

Buy AUDJPY On Dips?

It's very plausible that the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) has started the slow process of moving interest rates from emergency levels to normal.RBA Starts Rate RisesWe'll want to see what happens over the next couple of months in order to confirm this analysis. However, from now on whenever the markets are panicked about the latest downward surprise, it might be time to dip your toes in.We're

US Economy Heads Up

If you are wondering what is going on with the US economy, this puzzle piece from CNBC will fit in very nicely.Dunkelberg: You Can't See Main Street From Wall StreetWhat this is saying is that there probably is not a small business collapse in the works due to credit issues. Smaller businesses will simply wait until they see consumer spending before they bother to access credit.Personally, I am

Friday Market Analysis

I am following CNBC regularly (via their web site) these days. I see many of the pundits advocating panic and doom. I suspect they all want to be able to claim they were right when we finally do experience some type of pullback.However, these braying naysayers of doom really don't have much of import to say. All they really do is act as large forces on the emotions of market players. Everyone

Long Term Carry Trade Fundamentals

While reading a recent CNBC article about current events something clicked for me.Here is the passage:The dollar rose broadly on Thursday as yields on 10-year U.S. government bonds jumped more than 50 basis points in the last two weeks, drawing Japanese investors into overseas assets like global semi-conductor stocks, banks and U.S. junk bonds, according to Reuters.Do you remember the massive

FX Trading And Analysis

I've become a little frustrated with most of news sources out there. If you've been an active forex trader for any length of time you'll notice that talking heads are always trying to tell you why something happened.That's really nice, and might possibly help you learn about various financial interactions, but it's absolutely useless from a trading point of view. If you are trading you need to

Microtrading: Decent Returns?

I blogged about this idea not too long ago. The concept is to use very small trades relative to your available margin and net asset value (NAV). I'm doing this with the AUDJPY pair so that when I accumulate positions I am earning a positive carry trade return.My trade size over the last week has been such that the margin involved in each trade is 0.2% of my NAV. That's tiny. Twenty five

Theory: Trading With Little To No Margin

As I often do, especially when the markets are excruciatingly slow in determining when to make the next significant move, I've been thinking about Forex.Take a mental walk with me...The DOW falls from 10,000 to 5,0000 and loses 50% of it's value. It returns from 5,000 to 10,000 and gains 100% of it's value.Wait, think about that for a minute. In the normal world having the ability to gain

GBPUSD: A Drunken Sailor

The cable, as the GBPUSD is called, looks like drunken sailor.The chart is all over the map, with massive daily swings lined up one after the other all over the place.There are some pips to be made in there!I'm not generally trading the GBPUSD, but I'm going to put a few moments into figuring out whether my AUDJPY chart set up seems applicable.It's hard to resist all that volatility.