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Posts by "emp"
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Posts by Anonymous "emp":
Ashraf did a good job in predicting the overall downtrend over the past months. Thank you.
And while, if the stop isn't triggered (which it very well may not be), I'll be happy to ride this position down to 1.30, 1.28...or lower, but I can't say I'm disappointed having put up 10K cash on 1/19 and
emerging with about 36K when stopped-out.
Today's events once again show that you can so often toss both technical and
fundamental factors out the window when the public (which has, sometimes, collectively
an attention-span measured in nanoseconds) once again becomes a fool.
Little Nicky Sarkozy again says, "we will save Greece," and Berlusconi mimics him as he takes time out from his latest 18-year-old friend and says, "whatsa madder wid you guys?"
It reminds me of Mark Twain's quote, "smart men argue about reasons, but fools make the final decisions."
Fear and greed. Greed and fear. That's all that ultimately drives any market that involve humans.
Euro May Tumble to Lowest in Year, UBS Says: Technical Analysis
By Ben Levisohn
April 7 (Bloomberg) -- The euro may fall to its weakest against the dollar in almost 12 months if it declines below a level it touched in March, according to UBS AG, the worlds second-largest foreign-exchange trader.
A drop below $1.3268, the 10-month low that the euro reached on March 25, may push the currency to $1.2892, Jim Chorek, director of global technical strategy at UBS in Stamford, Connecticut, wrote in a note to clients. That is just above the $1.2886 the 16-nation currency reached on April 22, 2008.
As long as a recent resistance level of $1.3490 holds, the technical odds point toward a sharp decline in the near run, Chorek wrote. Other than the $1.30 psychological round number, I have little support below it till the $1.2892 target, he wrote.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601083&sid=aP8dinryZ21s
He'd say he was surrounded by experts who would always say, "on the one hand....but, on the other hand."
And finally, Truman said, "damned if I don't wish I had a one-handed economist!"
Well, Ashraf is that one-handed expert.
On the day several weeks ago that the EURUSD rose above 1.38, I noted that the panel of "experts" at fxstreet.com had this to say about the short-term direction of this pair: 1 was neutral...and the rest of the 10 were bullish. The Euro was definitely going up...and up.
And they were all wrong.
While Ashraf, with his one-hand, repeatedly and insistently, guided us all in the right direction.
This is not meant as some sort of sycophantic praise - it's just the truth.
Why else on earth do you think I even bother to read his commentary?
Because he's good. Very good.
Salaam alaikum. My best friend as a kid growing up in the South Bronx was from an Algerian family - so I learned some Arabic & French. And Spanish, as Puerto Ricans were the rest of my buddies. I was the only white guy around.
As to MACD,and dozens of other indicators - I surely know what they are and what they measure.
Since MACD stands for Moving Average Convergence-Divergence, and it uses 2 EMA's (usually 12- and -26 period) to measure the diff between those to EMA's, you would think that as someone who has analyzed numerous EMA inter-relationships that I'd look at MACD closely.
But you know what? I'll repeat: I try to keep it simple so I may not even look at that.
Why is that? Well, first of all, MACD is a trend-following or momentum indicator - and such an indicator can part you and you money real fast in a sideways market, which we have, what 70-80% of the time?
Hooks happen when the Signal line crosses or tries to cross the MACD line - and then reverses at the last moment.
So they're good to identify countertrends within trending markets.
Slingshots are the opposite of divergence, and can identify markets that are about to make a sizeable move upward (a bulling slingshot) or the oppposite (a bearish one).
A bullish slingshot happens when the current swing low is above a previous swing low (these being just extremes in prices), which the MACD readings are just the opposite. So they can tell you things - sometimes.
But let me amplify on my KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach. I don't like getting false signals. I hate getting whip-sawed. I hate situations which look like they're going one way, but they turn on a dime and bite my ass.
So, I take the old expression "the trend is your friend," to an extreme.
I want to see that trend reversed - underway - and continue. Once a particular set of EMA lines cross each other on the daily chart for a given pair, I will wait a full day - and then I will wait another full day. And I will naturally lose any potential profits by waiting. But, I'm fooled so much less than jumping right in, right away.
I'll usually make more overall profits because I will then be on board a sustainable, in-progress trend - instead of guessing and wishing and hoping.
"YOU DE MAN!"
This is in the EUR forum, because the trade I did in mid-January was short the EURUSD @ 1.42905
for $10,000 cash, using 50:1 leverage. I detest day-trading - it gives me a headache.
At the very least, I'm a swing-trader - but almost all my trades are longer-term even than that because I rarely get my desired level within the 4-5 days a swing-trader operates in.
I usually hold positions until they play out for me. And the single most-important lessson I've learned from about 3-4 years of fx-trading? Setting tight stops will kill you: 100% of the time.
Ashraf has repeatedly stated this: do not leverage yourself so highly that some "noise" - the back and forth, up and down, that always happens will stop you out.
Sometimes, My own signals results is substantial profits within 2-3 weeks.
This EURUSD trade has now gone on into it's 3rd month, with endless range-bound activity.
At this moment - as I look at another screen for my Oanda account,
$8828 is my original $10000 starting balance for this trade (I use a new sub-acct for each trade)
Why? Because the rest was lost to paying interest daily on shorting the Euro!
$28319 is my current unrealized profit, which is 320%
And my goal? Ashraf's 1.32 prediction, because it coincides closely with my own.
I really thought we'd get there on March 25th when we got down to 1.3266 - but that day's daily
not-quite-doji, not-quite-spinning-top candle hinted that we'd be taking a ride upward for a while.
I have tried day-trading in both forex - and stocks - and I've had a modicum of success. But it drives me crazy. But I've had most of my success in long-term trades such as the one I'm in right now.
So, patience is a virtue - if it rewards you often enough.
Try to create an elegant trading system (using a few variables that consistently work in conjunction with each other) as possible.
And you then won't have this schizo back and forth "what's happening to me" feeling day after day in your own trading.
In reply to the EUR worth at least 1.40 USD. Consider that it is in the interest of virtually every European country to have a cheaper Euro. The reasons are taught in ECONOMICS 101.
I've read reports that Angela Merkel has privately said she hopes for a 1.20 Euro to come to pass.
For a long, long time the undervalued US dollar was the essence of our monetary policy
I couldn't resist commenting of some of your observations.
Firstly, let me state that I'm very far from being a "jobless day-trader."
My intent here is not to plug my own website, but suffice it to say you'll see my pic & data in an issue of Parade Magazine this month in their "What People Earn" annual issue. My understanding is Parade has a readership of about 71 million - so just a few more people will know about me - but millions already do.
That issue will indicate that I make 7-figures annually as a prognosticator - of different sorts.
For the past 32 years, I've been considered by many in the media as the best sports-betting handicapper around - covering every conceivable betting sport there is - as you can see on my site when you get around to looking at it. Just do a google search of my name when it becomes known to you.
Why do I bring this up? Certainly not self-aggrandizement. But let me tell you a commonality with approach of all the great sports-handicappers I've ever know: elegant simplicity.
I'm a good stock-picker. I'm a pretty decent forex-guy, as well. But, I'm an extraordinary sports handicapper because over the years I have determined, by analyzing literally thousands of variables, what given factors MOST influence the outcome of various sporting events.
And after decades of work, I quantified those variables by creating mathematical algorithms, which themselves might encompass no more than perhaps a dozen variables. And these formulae (and there's a different one for every sport I cover) create for me statistically-enhanced choices which I then sell to my clientele as plays - which they then proceed to bet on.
Perfect I'm not (I sound like Yoda, there). But I'm good at what I do, which is why I have thousands of clients worldwide.
The lesson I wish to impart? Whatever market you're trying to analyze: KISS - Keep it Simple, Stupid. In this case, simplicity is better. And the simpler a successful, replicable solution is, the more elegant that solution becomes.
In FX, you can get caught up with so, so many different things. I've mentioned that I'm not a forum person. When you pick football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, etc plays for a living, when you win for people they expect that to happen if they have paid for the info. Ah, but the obverse? You're a living piece of garbage if you should lose for them - even short-term - and they stuff every available forum with those tidbits of info. So I don't read that crap.
But even here, in Ashraf's small FX forum, I see what you see: people who get caught up in what they think is a sure-fire (buy..or substitute the work "sell") RSI reading...or a screwy MACD...or any of the almost infinite number of technical-analysis indicators in use.
Obviously, a popular indicator will have some predictive use. Otherwise, it wouldn't have stood the test of time long enough to get popular.
But what most people who use them cannot fathom is that many of these indicators will give you diametrically opposite readings - one might yell BUY which simultaneously another screams SELL.
And, sadly, this often results in the uncomfortable state of cognitive dissonance - where two conflicting viewpoints try to assert control. People don't like this, so what they do is rationalize one of those viewpoints (in this case, the BUY indicators) over the other viewpoint (the indicators telling them to SELL).
The result of this, most of the time? The speculator loses his money. And he just can't comprehend why that was.
Rule: Do NOT fall in love with any given technical indicator and use that alone as your basis for a trade.
I've tried to apply my KISS approach from sports-handicapping to my FX ventures.
And what works for me may not work for you. Nor am I going to go into the specifics of what I've discovered the hard-way over the years: much trial and error losses...and then more losse..and then ultimately more gains then loses.
I almost solely use EMA's (exponential moving averages) - particularly 20, 50, 100, & 200-day lines -
applied to a daily candlestick chart.
Do the research yourself. LONG-TERM, see what happens when each of these EMA lines crosses above or below another EMA. Correlate your results. Make sure that there is replicability - that these things happen numerous times and not just once.
While all moving-averages, by their very nature, are lagging indicators (since they show what has already happened), this works for me.
I could tell you for almost any given cross-pair between two majors what happens when any 2 of the EMA lines cross over each other - in either direction, from below or above. But that's my own proprietary data.
This is in the EUR forum, because the trade I did in mid-January was short the EURUSD @ 1.42905
for $10,000 cash, using 50:1 le
Hate to ever post anything anonymously - that's so Tea-Partyish.
"EURO MAY DROP TO 1.2457"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601083&sid=aLdcE9eYGfRo
With EURUSD reaching 1.3818, are you finally throwing in the towel with your down-to-1.32 call?
I think a lot of people here could use some closure.
I write this somewhat incognito as I, too, am a pro prognosticator in my own field - which is decidedly not forex. But I've made money for my clients for 32+ years now, so my approach must have some merit.
And I'm not much of a forum-person since over the years, I have had what must amount to thousands of forums posts either applauding my work - or denigrating it. And for a while, you certainly enjoy the plaudits. But you can really do without the negative crap.
Most of which issues from bitter people with short-term outlooks, who forever seem to spew out "what have you done for me lately?"
So, I no longer look at forums that have my name in them. But I thought I'd ask you a question that intrigues me regarding forex - and specifically the short-term fate of the Euro.
And before I do, I should say that I have read your book and applaud your weaving together the various macro- (and micro-) economic elements you do. Much of this was known to me as I've been in my field for decades now, but I did learn quite a bit.
Having said this, what then are the specific factors that lead you to believe that EUR/USD will touch 1.32 by the end of this month, as you've noted numerous times?
I fully understand Fibonacci levels, retracements, basicaly anything a technician can throw at me - because I use similar stuff in my own work for a living.
Here's my problem with relying too much on technical aspects - or even fundamental ones - too much.
What drives markets? Are markets rational? No. All financial markets are very often highly irrational simply because human beings are often highly irrational.
And when it comes to almost any market-movements, the prime motivators of market activity are what they always have been: fear and greed.
Even the great J.P. Morgan, when asked more than a century ago what he thought about the stock market said, "it is a nervous old lady with a bad stomach." Which pretty much does sum it up, J.P.
I bring this up because the vast majority of people who trade in financial markets have amazingly short memories and sometimes non-existent attention spans.
Take the direction of the Euro - short-term. Now, if we had rational markets, and we looked at every relevant macroeconomic piece of data out there - heck, if we just concentrated on the plight of the PIIGS - no sane person could believe the Euro should rise in value vis-a-vis the USD over the next months because these issues with Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain & Greece cannot possibly be resolved in short-order.
We have issues like almost 20% unemployment in sunny Spain; Nobel-laureate economists telling us that Italy will implode from debt; and stats coming out of Greece that are from the Twilight Zone: the average Greek worker retires with 96% of their final salary as a pension - compared to 42% for the average German worker. Reading idiocy like that reminds me of the Alice-in-Wonderland dot.com IPO craze where new issues, with no earnings whatsoever, used to increase 5-fold in one day.
Given the often hair-trigger nature of speculators - and I don't know what someone trading forex can be called otherwise - why shouldn't the proclamations of M. Sarkozy the other day just put a halt to the imminent and immediate drop in the Euro?
I mean, the guy came right out and said (and I'm, paraphrasing), "Greece will not fail. We will bail out Greece." What, that's not enough to stop the Euro's slide? That the leader of the world's
5th-largest economy has said, "no problem, Greece. Tout va bien!"?
Long-term, there's going to be a world of hurt in many EU countries as emergency austerity measures kick in.
But 1.32 by the end of this month? My question, Ashraf, is why would this happen? What additional events over the next 3 weeks can you expect that will be a catalyst of another 450 pip drop?
I've used charts for longer than many of your followers have been alive. Looking at the 1-day chart of EUR/USD, for the last month we've had nothing but a protracted sideways base forming. Why do you think that base will break downward?
You put a lot of effort into your site and your info and insights are quite compelling - and for that I thank you a great deal.