Forex rebates on every trade - win or lose!

So what you're saying, Chocopops, is that the economy is controlled neither by the Government nor by the MPC (who are appointed by the Chancellor), but instead by a bunch of guys who work for 15 or 20 of the biggest banks in London and New York. Hasn't that always been the case?

My neighbour (the one with the shed) has this wonderful story of how the chancellor got on the dog and bone to all the chairmen of the major banks at the time George Soros shorted the pound out of the ERM in 1992. "Listen", he said, "The Government and I would be ever so grateful if you could buy sterling to prop it up. It'll be a disaster for the country if it's allowed to fall further." The chairman of my neighbour's bank offered his support to the chancellor and got straight on the phone to his dealing rooms. "Short the fcuking pound" he bellowed down the phone.

:o)

Cap'n - I know you're not asking anyone for advice on your position. Writing things down often helps to clarify one's thoughts though, doesn't it.

Your situation is a far cry from that of a few people I know who stubbornly, manifestly refused to recognise the turn in the markets once Iraq was invaded March 2003. I remember one Dow trader lost his home, whilst another, who had more of a cushion to fall back on finally gave up his short positions at the very end of that year - up to that point his wife was blissfully unaware. They had to move home and he had to find gainful employment. A nasty shock and a terrible lesson, but he's never looked back - he's still in the game.

CC - why not put in your stop into whatever platform you're using at the time you place the trade? And then stop yourself cancelling the stop of course :-)

Have just arrived les gets, got an ok flat, hopefully have internet set up soon! Theres a bit of that sexy white stuff about, be of for a play tomorrow or saturday.

see big drop on gbp, doesn't surprise me when you look at weekly chart

CC sorry to hear about your trade, interestingly was reading last night course notes bully gave out on a trading course I did about 7 years ago, an example he used was about two systems, one was 99% accurate on entry but only 35% on stoplosses and the other was the opposite and you can guess which one he said he'd use.

Hils - that story did the rounds - I heard it from a friend who was chairman of a clearing bank :)

The stupid thing is, Chocopops, that the Treasury sold bucket loads of their foreign currency reserves to prop up sterling which was a lost cause, when they could instead have maintained them and booked a healthy profit on sterling's devaluation.

When Mervyn King says nowadays that he doesn't understand how markets work, I'm perfectly happy to believe him.

:o)

cut 25bp

Just a little refresher ;)

1992: UK crashes out of ERM

"The shadow chancellor, Gordon Brown, said colossal errors of judgement by the prime minister and chancellor had betrayed the British people."

SHOCKING NEWS. Gordon Brown is an idiot

"We told them [the BoE] you are going to push the price down before you sell it."

Certainly everyone hoping for $2 ... would provide a nice picking ground for those wanting to get long Cable at this point

I use FXCM for trading forex...and under open position....there is a box staring at you next to it called STOP....leaving it blank just makes me feel a bit silly. Entry stop and limit...are all tied in on FXCM at the trade level.

On CMC trading and limits and stops require modifying the basic deal ticket...makes it seem a bit seperate

I've been looking at the dailies for the cable upleg since early 2006. Interestingly, whenever Chocopop's Magic MACDTM passes down through the zero line on the downlegs, the recovery has always resumed within the next couple of days or so.

So far the 2.0190 support of the uptrend seems to have held and it'll be interesting to see whether that remains to be the case over the next few days.

Edit: I maybe should've mentioned that the MACD has passed down through the zero line today.

Yes I noticed that too earlier, Hils! Funny eh.
What's more the uptrend support thingie pretty well neatly coincides with one of those cute little fibbie jobbies off the 1500 pip rise since August.

I just couldn't see another 600 pip drop from here for the foreseeable.

Finance ministers in the eurozone have voiced their concern about the euro's strength, which is supported by comparatively high European rates.

German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck has expressed his worries about the currency's strength, which makes European exports expensive to consumers outside the eurozone.

And Italy's deputy economy minister Vicenzo Visco said it would be "suicide" not to cut rates.

Before the credit crunch hit global markets in the summer, the ECB had been expected to raise rates to 4.5% by the end of the year, but the consensus is now for them to remain unchanged until the end of the year.

Until the end of the year?
Who writes this stuff?

the short term ceiling that is 2.03 cable...may well go this afternoon

Excuse the ignorance (I'm Welsh) but why do they call GBPUSD pair "cable".

Just wondered.

Because it used to be traded via the cable under the atlantic.

I believe it refers to some physical "cable"...that used to exist in the olden days...

I am sure someone can explain it better...

Cheers guys.

GBP/USD is sometimes referred to as cable. This is
because in the 1800s, the pound/dollar exchange rate was
transmitted via transatlantic cable.

johng....not seen you here before....new posters always welcome

CC - your post confirms something I've suspected for some time, which is that we have very similar trading styles. Like you, the approach has made very good profits over a period of years, but for me it's the period since August when everything has become unstuck. For the best part of three months I managed to alternately be short when I should have been long, and vice-versa. It took me some time to realise that my system works when the market is going up, it works when it's going down and it works when it's trending sideways, but it doesn't work in periods of high volatility. I'm still coming to terms with what this means but I've made some amendments and things have been much better in the last month, so there are some signs of hope. There's no doubt it's a shock to the system though and it's really dented my confidence. Like a lot of people here I seriously considered stopping trading UK equities.

I haven't tried forex but I've traded some of the indices on various TA signals for a while. I suspect forex is better but the point is they trend, and while there's a lot of noise religiously following a strategy on something as extreme as 1-minute MACD you catch the major trends, and I suppose that's the point.

It's a very different trading style to my equity strategy, where I think my trades through. I've found there's no room for beliefs when trading signals but it's counter-intuitive to everything I do elsewhere to cut an apparently good position and immediately reverse in the other direction when everything in my experience is telling me otherwise. I finally overcame my psychological bias when I back-tested various systems over a period of months on a particular index and finally convinced myself it really did work. It gave me the strength of will to de-sensitise myself to the movements, the immediate reversals and losses, and now if I trade this way I just sit here pressing buttons like a machine. In fact, I see myself as nothing more than a manually-powered computer program when I'm doing this. I suppose eventually I'll figure out how to use one of the programmable platforms out there to run these trades completely automated.

In the end, I'm not really happy with this style of trading, because there are times when I've found it too intense and yet simultaneously mind-numbing as far as the indices are concerned - it's just not fun - maybe forex would be the better instrument to apply the strategy to. But I think if you get to the point of convincing yourself that your strategy works then it becomes a lot easier to switch-off the traditional equity trading mindset and go with this very different approach.