Recent Trading Results

First, some recent results:

Week ending 28-Nov: +23% NAV
Week ending 05-Dec: +08% NAV
Week ending 12-Dec: +10% NAV
Week ending 19-Dec: +45% NAV

This is silly! I'm going to outline some of the events that transpired to help this happen.

During the week ending 05-Dec I acquired some AUDJPY positions in the 58.xx price range. I had a nice trend line indicating that this was likely to be a support point and it turned out to be one -- several times.

Considering the bottom relatively safe I would buy other positions at local lows... making sure to leave enough room for a retest of the 58.xx lows. Obviously, this was quite risky, but at the time I did not have significant capital in the account so I didn't mind risking some calamity ripping the bottom out of the AUDJPY.

So, with that in place, I'd track where I'd bought and sold positions, slowly lowering my entry points and average position price. Then, later, as we all saw, the price spiked massively and pushed all of my positions into a sizable profit.

I don't know if this is something that I'll be able to repeat. Some reasons include increasing my NAV to the point that I'm not as willing to take risks, trying to execute a swing trading strategy which makes it difficult to accumulate positions, and the difficulty in developing confidence in a bottom point.

Finally, this was a challenging week. With the wild gyrations taking place every time the auto bailout shifted sentiment it was difficult to jump into the market. Who knows if a massive spike or drop would go against a current swing trade? While I am a fan of volatility, I've realized that it would be nice if it the market wasn't actively volatile all of the time.

Trade well.

Grabbing Some USDCAD Pippage

Well, it's about time!

It looks like there is some strength in the USD happening (or perhaps it has already finished happening) at this point. Am I vindicated?

Who knows. As I've seen posted here and there a few times, everyone trades alone. You have your convictions, systems or maybe even a dartboard, and you play as your guidance and resources dictate.

However, recent weakness in the USD does make it hard to determine where the real bottom may be. Is it at 0.9650, 0.9600, or 0.9500? Have we hit it? Only time will tell if we have truly found the bottom or not.

As I was saying not too long ago, eventually we will be at the bottom of what will become a large uptrend in the USDCAD. Presumably, at some point, we'll be back in a position where the exchange rate hits 1.0000, 1.0500, 1.1000 or more. Sometimes things move quickly, but it might take years.

What to do?

USDCAD Is Playing By My Rules

Okay, I've blogged recently about the USDCAD approaching a low.

I know there are always skeptics out there, and I'm not trying to sell you anything, but I will suggest that this pair is now fairly easy to trade.

When it shows signs of weakness, dropping significantly, buy it. When it approaches parity, sell it. It may or may not be at bottom yet, but nobody really believes that the Canadian dollar should be valued much above parity with the US dollar.

So, now that I'm in a long term play on the pair, it's time to scalp some profits out of movements below and back to parity. I don't care how long it takes the greenback to recover as long as I can make my pips over and over again while I wait.

The trick, or so I think, is to find relatively safe ways to squeeze cash out of the market when everyone else hasn't figured it out yet. Once everyone is trying to do exactly the same thing... it will stop working.

Widening things out a bit, where do you think we are with the USD? It has fallen to lows that haven't been seen in thirty years. Do you believe the USA is going to fall out of prominence and become a third world country over the next few years? I don't.

Guess what that means! That means we are sitting at the beginning of a very long rising trend, but we just don't know when it is going to start. It might start in a month. It might start in a year. Who can say? However, if you are a swing trader, it might be time to start sneaking in a bit of cash on the greenback when you spot moments of weakness. If you are patient I'm sure there will be lots of little dips and spikes you can exploit.

If you are a long term player, you may even want to consider some USD based carry trading strategies...

USDCAD Once Again

Okay, I think it is nearly safe to say that the USDCAD has hit bottom.

Heh, actually, it's probably not safe to say, but it has certainly found some support at and above the 0.9950 level. I think that the downward pressure from speculators has now eased.

I also think the downward jump has been overdone.

However, assuming I'm right, and I'm finding that often I am, I don't know how long it will take before the elusive traders and speculators our there will change their opinions. It could be months before anything significant happens.

I'm playing a long swing trade on the USDCAD. I expect the Canadian dollar to return to normal levels once everyone focuses their attention on other areas. Perhaps this will happen when one or two signs of strength show up in news reports from US sources.

Missing the USDCAD Bottom

Well, I'm not sure if the USDCAD has finally hit bottom or not. It's around parity today which is pretty much what people were talking about.

Now, I did purchase some before parity. So, I'm underwater, holding my breath, wondering how much time it might take before I'll notice some buoyancy and float back to the surface.

I guess this makes me a swing trader, because now I'm looking at holding my position for a long time, until the market swings a good distance. That's okay, as I've said many times this is a live and learn situation with an extremely small amount of capital involved.

Honestly, I think the world markets are on crack when they think of Canada as predominantly a commodities play. Don't they realize that a large segment of the GDP comes out of the manufacturing and export sector? Who are they going to send exports to with the Loonie hitting massive highs?

Also, while there are massive oil reserves, they are in the form of tar sands. It will take decades of massive development before these can be exploited. In short, the dollar is now way overvalued and the Canadian economy is going to suffer for it. Somehow I expect these facts to show up and force a USDCAD correction.