Global Macro Trading Journal

Daal · Oct 11, 2011

Fucking IB, they don't have EWH shares for me to short. I was trying to put my position back in partially

Butterball · Oct 11, 2011

If you can wait until a few hours later try the Hong Kong index futures @ the HKFE. I believe they're highly correlated to EWH.

ralph00 · Oct 11, 2011

I've gotten burned not being able to short EWG on a more than one occasion.

Of course, you can always buy puts.

ralph00 · Oct 11, 2011

Not discussed here, but I'm sure all aware of China stepping in to buy bank shares the last night. Good interview with Chanos on BBG. He says it shows how bad things are getting there. He's remaining short banks, developers, ...

Daal · Oct 11, 2011

The fuckers finally allowed me to short it. I'm at 75% of the old position

gmst · Oct 11, 2011

How can retail take a longer term (3-6 months) position on a currency like Euro through options? I know I can buy 3m euro 1.20 puts in interbank market as an institution, but as a retail trading through IB and having a small account, how do I buy a put option on Euro.

The basic idea is I want to play euro both long and short through spot, however want to have a core short medium term position - aimed at benefiting substantially by a euro collapse.

Any suggestions are welcome.

ammo · Oct 11, 2011

Quote from gmst:

The basic idea is I want to play euro both long and short through spot, however want to have a core short medium term position - aimed at benefiting substantially by a euro collapse.

Any suggestions are welcome.

hadn't really thought about it, but the market always has the next 6 months built in,so ,assuming that 's true,the pro's aren't playing collapse for some reason,they usually know a lot more than us

gmst · Oct 11, 2011

Quote from ammo:

hadn't really thought about it, but the market always has the next 6 months built in,so ,assuming that 's true,the pro's aren't playing collapse for some reason,they usually know a lot more than us

How do you know pros are not playing collapse over the next 6 months? Seriously, what is your source of info? What kind of exotic options banks/hfs are carrying on their books to play for euro downside - how can you or me or possibly anybody know. Apologies if my tone sounds threatening, I am just questioning.

Separately, pros can be wrong bigtime. Back in 2010 when euro went to 1.20, every macro hf and bank trader was short euro aiming for parity, and then China started buying and pushed the market to 1.40 over the 4-5 months. So many big guys lost so much money shorting euro then.

Btw, it is just today on bbg - not sure if many people have seen this.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...r-amid-crisis-taylor-of-fx-concepts-says.html

ammo · Oct 11, 2011

Quote from gmst:

How do you know pros are not playing collapse over the next 6 months? Seriously, what is your source of info? What kind of exotic options banks/hfs are carrying on their books to play for euro downside - how can you or me or possibly anybody know. Apologies if my tone sounds threatening, I am just questioning.

Separately, pros can be wrong bigtime. Back in 2010 when euro went to 1.20, every macro hf and bank trader was short euro aiming for parity, and then China started buying and pushed the market to 1.40 over the 4-5 months. So many big guys lost so much money shorting euro then.

Btw, it is just today on bbg - not sure if many people have seen this.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...r-amid-crisis-taylor-of-fx-concepts-says.html

i don't know,i was just thinking out loud,you've made good points..i just found it odd,that all the collapse end of the world talk is not showing on the charts

Martinghoul · Oct 12, 2011

Quote from gmst:
How can retail take a longer term (3-6 months) position on a currency like Euro through options? I know I can buy 3m euro 1.20 puts in interbank market as an institution, but as a retail trading through IB and having a small account, how do I buy a put option on Euro.

The basic idea is I want to play euro both long and short through spot, however want to have a core short medium term position - aimed at benefiting substantially by a euro collapse.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Well, there's a whole bunch of providers out there (other than IB) that offer FX options. If I am not mistaken (I am not in the US, so take with a pinch of salt), people like Oanda do this and maybe some others.