Friday, September 14, 2007

The EUR/TRY Carry Trade

I'm dabbling in the EURTRY carry trade situation.

Due to the difference in interest rates you can pocket a bit of change as long as you maintain your short position. Obviously, however, nothing is free. The EURTRY market has a lot of volatility complete with sharp price spikes on the order of 1500 pips!

This means that you cannot leave a position completely open or you will risk the value of your entire account. However, it's possible that such a volatile market will make it impossible to execute a stop loss at the exact point you want or at the point spread you expect. Danger, Will Robinson, danger.

On the other hand there is no guarantee that another spike will happen in the short term future. You can certainly place a short sell order way up in the stratosphere and if you are lucky enough to grab it you might be lucky. It's also possible the spike will be much higher than a previous spike and you'll get burned. Alternately, the spike price could represent a new trading range and not offer you a large profit. There are no certainties - only risks and potential rewards.

Shall we play a game?

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