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Last I heard, Japan desperately wants inflation -- they've been fighting deflation for the last decade. But a commodity-driven rise in prices is probably not exactly what they are looking for. In any event, I think their attitude is that they will gladly suffer some elevation in prices so long...

How much emphasis do you guys give yield differential for a trade? It would seem you'd need to have very long term trading horizons for that factor to be even a consideration as to whether or not to put on or hold a position, given the volatility of currencies (esp those which have highest...

I suggest you keep your focus on working at your method, impatience is only a symptom that you don't have complete trust in how you are trading. Patience is not something you will need to "strive" for, once you have found and developed your edge, because by then there will be no need for you to...

Consistent losses accrued from not being patient usually remedies this.

Heat? I sit in front of 2 of those and don't feel a thing.

If you're not too computer "savvy", I'd recommend just sticking with IE. Firefox messes up alot of settings you may be used to, it's kind of a pain to get things back the way they were.

We originally elected mtm for stocks only, but after the 1st quarter in 02 I had a six-figure gain trading stocks and a similar amount in losses trading index and currency futures. My accountant figured that I should just elect mtm for 1256 as well that year to reduce the tax liability on the...

Morty, you'll have to be a little patient with skalpz, not everyone is familiar with the futures market and how they are traded, much less the cot reports. Interesting advice in any case, curious to see what next weeks readings will be.

You need to figure out how much you can make given your own capital vs how much you can personally profit with the amount of OPM available that you can throw at your strategy. If the amount you can make off 1 and 20 happens to be less than you keeping 100% of the gains with your own account...

Thanks for the input. I traded only equities from 1999-2002, so I've used MTM accounting since 99. From 02 on I traded both, but have now moved exclusively over to 1256 contracts. It was my understanding that MTM election needed to be proactively removed, so I figured might as well leave it...

Time off is always good advice. Such a deadline that you've given yourself is only useful if you are almost certain trading is not for you, because at the rate you're going, you just won't be able to turn things around that quickly -- virtually no one can. So take ES's advice and questions...

As I understand it, if one currently trades only currency, commodity and index futures (section 1256 contracts), there really is no point (only a big disadvantage losing 60/40 LT/ST capital gains treatment) in MTM election as 1256 contracts have built-in 3-year carryback option on losses. Has...

Dude, you wrote that yesterday. Now you're asking whether it's a good time to go long GBP? Here's a hint: it's a hell of alot better time compared to when you first went in. So does this mean you're going to close this thread out too? :D

This is an idea that seems to be widespread in retail spot fx; besides getting lured into the bucket-shop racket with high leverage and tiny trading lots, there seems to be this sort of myth where one can get away with never taking a loser as long as they are "hedged". Like if your long EUR/USD...

For those trading currency futures globex is open sunday night and closes from 12pm-5pm CST monday.

so true . . .

I'd recommend any trader to give blogging a try, as the process of forcing yourself to be coherent to other readers can sharpen your focus in unexpected ways.

Bottom line: you want better stops? Be more accurate on your entries :D

I'm sure alot of euro longs said the same thing at 1.2500 :D

I've questioned for a while whether or not my stops were way too tight compared to the profit targets I was aiming for, and they most likely are; I mean, why have just a 10 pip stop when your target is 200 or more? But I justify having very tight stops because it forces me to become *extremely*...