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Thursday, March 07, 2013

NFP Report: Groundhog Day


I remember back in the good ole days when this report was actually real and it was fun trying to trade during the immediate minutes after it's release. The strategy used to be what I am showing below. I would wait for a big move above the prior days high or low, then place a stop order on the opposite end of the range in case a big reversal took place. There are a couple of ways I used to do this.

On the first chart I would wait to see if we went way past the prior days high or low. If we did I would place a stop at that high or low in case price quickly reversed and traded back through that break out point. My logic was that if is reversed quickly the move was a trap. For the most part the strategy worked like a charm, with occasional whip saws where I got stopped out. I just did this trade on the NFP release days only.

The other strategy I used is that if the high or low went by a little or was just tested and quickly reversed, I placed the order at the opposite end of the day's range and entered once it became an outside bar or a very large range bar that had reversed. This required larger stops and did work pretty well. I tried to hold these an extra day or two. Where the first strategy I tried to hold for longer since my entry had a smaller stop. One of the things everyone learns eventually is that you have to catch big winning trades to make a lot of money trading. If your wins are always small you will just tread water at best. One of the things I hope people are learning with the Swing signals is this exact concept. We are averaging a good bit more on the wins than we are on the losses. This is by design.




Here is an example of where we ran way up but did not go past the prior days high, so the entry was at the prior days low if we were to come all the way back down. Had we gone way up above the high on this day the entry for the short would have been at the high as it came back down. This is a complete judgement call type of approach and it is volatile. I do not use this anymore because I don't like death watching charts during the day. It might be a worth while study for those of you who are glued to the screen and are looking for action. I am looking for profits which is not the same as action.

This report as I have stated in here frequently has just become a tool for political narratives and agendas, it has long since jumped the shark. Put faith in it if you choose but I have no confidence that this number which is very important, is anywhere near the truth statistically. To advance the socialist narrative it is likely to show improvement tomorrow whether the real numbers are improved or not we will never now.

PFG Update

It appears that the lawsuit by the Forex people is going to cost all of us millions and delay any future distributions by months. This really ticks me off. That damn attorney says they are not adversarial to the Seg holders and that could not be further from the truth. They signed a damn form that told them they did not have the same protections, yet like everything else in life nobody is ever responsible for their own actions. Now they are screwing all of us as well as themselves by dragging this on to the tune of several million more dollars in fees that will be taken off the top. It has been known forever that FOREX is the wild west and is very risky, why didn't they get the memo. It is amazing to me when people choose to ignore clear risks and get burned that it is everybody else's fault but theirs. It is this lack of responsibility that is ruining this formerly great nation. It is too bad this happened to all of us, but what you signed is what you signed. You should not have signed it, and it is not the rest of our fault that you did. I have known for years to stay clear of FOREX for several reasons but the main one is the lack or regulations. If I know it why doesn't everyone else.

Sorry to end this on that not but I felt that needed to be stated. Now the rest of us wait until at least October to get any more money due directly to this lawsuit only.

Good Trading

3 comments:

klh said...

I was in Refco when it went BK and I remember saying then I was not worried because of segregated accounts - and I also said on some boards it is crazy to trade FX unless you are doing it with exchange traded futures - no protection, but you are right, these people took the risk and they did get the memo, but in a country where known murderers get off with a good lawyer - they are going to try- they have little to lose.

Chris Johnston said...

Net net PFG is going to go down as the biggest % loss in history of a futures brokerage bankruptcy just like I said right from the beginning. I wonder if we could sue them for a frivolous lawsuit? It might be possible afterwards depending on the ruling. It will cost the estate a few million to defend it potentially with all the corleone payments that are going on

Vikas said...

I like this post from Peter Campbell of M3 financial sense blog - http://m3financialsense.blogspot.com/2013/03/whatsnot-to-love-about-this-rally-and.html