Forex rebates on every trade - win or lose!

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.

I would like to say something about yesterdays rate rise.....yes RISE... yes the Bank of England cut something called the base rate yesterday...big deal.... In the real world...where people borrow and lend many rates are higher than before...

The Halifax yesterday was offering 6.75% for a fixed 3 month term deposit....I wondered after the rate cut what that would now be...well one day later its 6.85%...and I am sure will be 7.00% by Xmas....

If banks are paying higher rates to try to keep savers money.....does not bode well for borrowers . The focus tends to be on the level of house prices... "houses fall 1% etc"...but it seems the ramifications of this non lending and credit squeeze might affect the average person in a much more tangible way in 2008

The obvious thing that is likely to happen is that borrowers will try to borrow on libor + rates which have to fall in line with the base rate....while savers are better ignoring libor based rates and aiming for those short dated term rates being offered at the moment....

Essentially there are now temporarily 2 markets....for the canny saver and borrower...
This is not something that can last imo....as obviously you cannot pay more to savers and then charge less borrowers at the same time...not without squeezing banks margins... The reality is that many borrowers too are paying more as fixed rate deals end, or you have a buy to let mortgage, or you are a sub prime borrower, or.... you get the idea...

Cable...

USD/CAD thumped on reasonable Canadian employment change. Precursor of other later???

Anyone using Metatrader for charting? I'm finding it struggling to keep up to date today which is pants for my entry / exit signals>

tempted to long Cable again here... 2.0330...

as it just looks like we have had a test down to 2.0290
lets see if we got over 2.0350

Morning all, I went long on cable on Friday @ 2.0321, technical reasons...

Well those little line thingies started looking like they were pointing up. I think I maybe right but then I might be wrong so on the basis that you've got to be in it to win it I'm in, and may be up to my armpits if it goes wrong...

I am flat now and waiting to see how the wind blows

Its a bit windy here, so now long.

Well done SC

Good start for Monday

Stop at entry now. About time I got one right :-)

Limitation, Protection, Optimisation, Seymour. Well done.

A chopper for 6 from Geneva to Meribel Altiport is 1300 each way, Seymour. We've got some work to do yet if we're going to get you and Mrs Clearly on it for your Silver Wedding Anniversary next year.

:o)

Went long myself on Cable last night :) Only a small position, but it's nice to get one right now and again, trailing stop in place.

Working on it Hils, got other expenses ongoing now, need a new car, then we'll see if we can't afford our own private jet as well as the chopper :-)

Stop moved to 2.0351 to lock 30 in, means we've 80 point stop from this moment's price.