The Surf Report

[JimmyJam]

post from A1

"Then you start looking at the historical movements of your market. You start looking for factors that precede the historic highs and lows and finally you get a clue, and that clue is that historic highs and lows "turning points" are proceeded by changes in volume that signal institutional participation. It certainly aint you clowns that move markets. Who else could it be?"
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LOL, I can't believe this guy (keeping it clean Surf) is still posting here (didn't he say "Bye" with his first egregious post? )
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The thing is, to try to bring the Journal back to what Magna dearly wants it to be ... trading, I actually never look at historical data at all when I'm trading anything, hence the mistake with posting the historicals.

I like to keep my attention on the present, with an eye to the future, and here is what I see now for the Pair (red arrow at top shows the turn of the market, red bar at the bottom shows the duration of move).

Good trading - especially you Surf, you're light years beyond most of these goombas.

Jimmy Jam

 

[Corelio]

Quote from annaland:


I would expect the FX leverage effect to be more significant simply because the market is more levered

Indeed you have captured the essence of my statement with this sentence.

Something of extreme importance for those that adopt a martingale style.


Regards
Corelio

 

[marketsurfer]

Quote from Corelio:

A simple study may be in order here. One can think of quantifying price moves after expansions from low volatility regimes in different instruments as a function of the margin structure. Do price moves are invariably larger and more prolonged in futures than in equities, or in equities than in currencies? This should provide some insight.

Another thing comes to mind when the EUR/USD pair cleared above its early January high and its steady and persistent ascent since then. A quantitative study of the highs/lows set in the first week of the year in such pair may provide you with valuable information.

Is the stubborn and quiet back and fill of the GBP/USD pair slightly below 2.0 an omen for things to come? Not coincidentally followed by a sudden and quick spurt of gold stocks during Friday's trading session? Interesting points to quantify...which should provide some gratifying insight.

Best of luck...

thanks for the erudite and thought provoking posts, corelio. good points all.

nice to see you here!

regards,
surf

 

[marketsurfer]

a rare appearance from the genius and reclusive Nasim Taleb in NYC Wednesday:

http://www.bordersstores.com/events/event_detail.jsp?SEID=142838

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/tbs.mov

surf

 

[marketsurfer]

Quote from Allmighty1:

Geez

More bootlicking from JJ You "guys" out to get a room..

As regards Mr. Taleb, while he certainly has all the qualifications I object in general terms to the way he handles himself.

In his books he make general observations about the limitations of statistics to generate forecasts, however he certainly does make those forecasts himself in his fund activities. If you ask him outright, "can you give an example of a hypothetical long term position representative of your style" what you get is silence.

During his abreviated stay in the options world, we saw him trying to orient to the pits. Lets say that it took him a while. His description of "sticky strikes" is correct. But as to how to make money from them, again I see no concrete commentary that helps options traders to make a dollar.

Personally I would rather talk to someone who isn't rationing his knowledge to the public for dollars.

bye

taleb is an academic, teaching is in his blood. i wouldn't call it rationing knowledge for dollars. its what he loves to do/


as you know, empirica shut its original fund down, and is currently operating as a think tank/ FOF/ hedging operation of some sort.

do you have any details about the truth of what happened to the original empirica?

surf

 

[annaland]

Quote from marketsurfer:

hey annaland,

thanks for the note. i don't use stops when trading FX. i trade FX with miniscule size and comparatively i am very new to this market. my tactic is simply, when the calculations indicate a move is over extended, i'll fade the move with an average of 3 entries ( martingaling in so to speak) prior to being proven wrong and taking the loss. since its not exact, and a wide margin of error is needed for this method to have the time to work at times.

in my short time trading this market via dealers, i have learned never to use fixed stops, as the dealers are the counter party, and will often spike price momentarily to take your money if you have fixed stops. i use the concept of total dollar loss compared to $$ allocated to the market as tool to take losses when trading in this manner.
warmly,
surf

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks! Give microstructure (or me ) several years before it changes the microstructural problems in the FX market.

Good to see your journal is back and happenin, ET-style. Good luck with your trades, and as always, <i> I </i> will see <i> YOU </i> and your fat fingers in marketannasurferland

more warmly,
anna

 

[marketsurfer]

Quote from annaland:

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks! Give microstructure (or me ) several years before it changes the microstructural problems in the FX market.

Good to see your journal is back and happenin, ET-style. Good luck with your trades, and as always, <i> I </i> will see <i> YOU </i> and your fat fingers in marketannasurferland

more warmly,
anna

thanks, anna. my # 1 quant girl-- always a pleasure with you, all ways!

several firms such as MBtrading have attempted to narrow the spread by charging a commission--others like hotspot adopted the ECN model. still seems that the typical wide spread dealer is thriving--not sure why or how. eventually, i believe trader education will force them to change to the no/limited spread plus commission model. otherwise, they just wont survive with an educated trader base--- free TA charts, etc. just doesnt cut it any longer.

surf

 

[atticus]

Quote from marketsurfer:

several firms such as MBtrading have attempted to narrow the spread by charging a commission--others like hotshot provide access to currenex to retail traders.
surf

Hotspot is independent of Currenex -- they're direct competitors.

 

[marketsurfer]

Quote from atticus:

Hotspot is independent of Currenex -- they're direct competitors.

correct. your on top of things, atticus.

do you think the typical FX retail dealer is on the way out?

surf

 

[atticus]

Quote from marketsurfer:

correct. your on top of things, atticus.

do you think the typical FX retail dealer is on the way out?

surf

They (dealers) fill a niche. CME/Reuters will appeal to those who trade the majors with futures accounts. Those trading the exotic pairs will stick to dealers and the ECNs.