GammaJammer

Agreed. Just don't do it. If it's that good just manage dough for your mates or even just give them trade calls without the rationale. But don't think that once it's out it won't go any further. Because that's very much counter to human nature. Unless you know your mates sooooooo well and there's no way in the world they'd let a good thing get away like that. But I think we know the answer to that question as unless you were at least mildly concerned you wouldn't be asking strangers on an internet forum what to do about your mates, who we don't know. GJ

I see it as having one key use - that is to aid you in ensuring that regardless of the timeframe of your outlook etc you are trading more often than not with trend, and also you are informed as to when positioning gets stretched, and when price is therefore prone to being caught up in an unwind or similar. What I don't think you can do with the COT report is just take it in isolation. It's just another piece of the jigsaw, and everyone I speak to in the wholesale markets treats it as such. GJ

I think you're in danger of missing my point a little here. My point is that many of thst trades that fall into the non speculators category are ones where the timing is dictated by factors other than optimum trading time / size / direction etc. This happens all the time, especially in FX, but to a certain extent in most or even all futures markets. If you want a hard and fast example, FX overlay management with drift tolerance vs either fund benchmark or active alpha currency target would be one that springs to mind. I've sat there many times and had to buy a chunk of euros or whatever, not because I thought that the euro wasn't going to go a bean lower from the level it was at, but because I had to buy them that day or breach client / trustee guidelines for the fund that I was managing currency for. But to say that that represented the sum total of my investment / trading knowledge would of course be rubbish. That's why I say that to use the COT report in the way it's being discussed in this particular thread right now is misleading. You're not comparing like for like when you compare speculation and hedging - it's an entirely pointless debate imho. Problem is, not everyone's aware of the technicalities of how some of this stuff works, so it's not surprising these kinds of misunderstanding arise. My $0.02 GJ

I'm not sure COT is all that representative. Not only because the way they calculate it is an inexact science, but also because there are some basic flaws in the assumptions you are making in thinking that can be extrapolated to give an idea of trading prowess or whatever (even if every retail trader in the world was encompassed by those stats - it's the hedging side that lets you down in that comparism - could post more on it but it's not hugely relevant here). In addition, I think the retail community extends far outside those hardy souls trading futures and in such a way as can be captured by the COT. Not to say I don't think the COT is a very interesting report (which I do read, as do most of my peers), but I prefer to look at it in terms of broader trends rather than micro analysing the data every week. Still a good tool in ones armoury for gauging S/D though imho. GJ

Possibly mate, but I firmly believe that they are ON AVERAGE smarter and more knowledgable than the retail crowd (based on what I've seen on these and other forums), you (and a good few others, especially here) are merely the exceptions that prove a normally pretty reliable rule imo. hmmmmm - I'm really not sure it's the speed of delivery of a headline payrolls number thats so important - imho it's the ability (and tools) to actually make sense of the underlying data that really makes a difference (only if used properly). News trading on micro timeframes in and of itself is just a mugs game 99% of the time Can only really speak for FX with any level of authority here, as my dabblings in the wholesale markets in equities, indices, money markets etc have not been representative enough in size ande scope to be worth talking about here. But in FX I'm gonna disagree with you for the most part. Liquidity is such that in the majors you can move very decent size with zero slippage most of the time. Certainly enough for the vast majority of every day prop trades / jobbing market makers etc. For the 1% who are trading genuine size this is of course a very different story, and here I agree, but if you're just talking about someone with a position of say 50-100m $ or thereabouts we're really not talking about a whole lot, slippage wise. Of course it's all relative to daily market size. The biggest trade I've ever had to do in pure absolute size was $1.8 bln or thereabouts, and I got it done in about 20 mins with zero hassle. But equally I've done one in emerging markets (prefer not to say which currency as the firm still has the position on) that was maybe $150m only ( so less that 1/10 of the size of the other one) and it took all week and prompted a few raised eyebrows at the central bank of that country at the time. So your point was fine in theory, but even among the pros it doesn't apply in FX most of the time. GJ

True, although to be fair to T2W it's easy with these types of board to subscribe to the threads you want to track, so it's not all doom and gloom. And even getting embroiled in a flame war on T2W beats talking to the bloomberg helpdesk (most of the time anyway) GJ

I bet you go home and creosote your garden fence like Alan Shearer did when Blackburn won the league

My comments as per on T2W mate - prefer it heading south at least for now. GJ

In both cases surely you're just better off eyeing key levels in the cash all the time, and calculating when necessary what that equates to in the relevant futures contract. In the case of FX futures in particular, for those that trade them, they are absolutely dwarfed by the spot market, so S/R levels in the futs are genuinely meaningless unless they equate to something in cash, as arb is too fast these days to allow for any other scenario (unless you're atlking about silly 5 min charts etc in which case it's all a bit of a lottery imho anyway) Dunno quite so much about YM. GJ

Well this is the sort of thing that bloomberg handles pretty well, and I don't have to fiddle around with settings etc, it just, well kinda works right out of the box. But I don't use it all that often in terms of charting. What I more often use it for is to ensure I have a ticker in a quote list that never expires and needs re-setting. An example would be Fed Funds futs (although even then, sometimes I end up looking at charts of 2nd month or something if there's an FOMC meeting date not captured by the front month contract.

No problem. For what it's worth I think the hardest thing, and the thing that makes or breaks many traders, is figuring out WHY you were wrong or right on a given trade. Once you have that nailed imho you are well on your way. But it really isn't easy to see what's really driving things some days.

Not really, and that's certainly not what I was aiming to say in my previous post. I merely meant that of all the major currencies, it is the one that imho is most prone to buck whatever trend is driving the 'big' dollar, often at inopportune times. It dances to the beat of it's own drum. For many reasons (some fundamental, some structural for want of a better word). Incidentally, chart wise, my 40/50 support area the other day seemed to work ok. Hope that helped someone. GJ

Careful with the ecn connections - they're pretty bandwidth hungry (at least for the wholesale side of things - may be less for you as I have no idea what / how many prices you'll be getting down the pipe). But I for one would struggle to get them to perform over WiFi I reckon.

Loonie has always been prone to doing it's own thing, against the context of a broader dollar story. Sometimes with good reason, sometimes (at least on the surface of things) less so.

I just feel down here there me some wood to chop thru 1.0170/40 before we can really crack on. A few previous lows may well form support (as well as the rising channel that I have highlighted). Plus, fundamentally, follow on from today wasn't exactly huge (all it did was take us back into the range) and the announcement from the BoC that they were leaving rates unchanged and are probably done for now genuinely caught the market on the hop, so why wasn't there more of a follow on? Things that make ya go "hmmmmmmm" GJ

I'm not sure abt that level myself. Think a touch lower is worth looking at for a short stop-entry. On pure tech grounds, if you pull up an hourly chart there's a rising channel that jumps out at you that comes in just where you would look to sell. Plus we based there yesterday, so risk / reward wise I'm not so convinced about that level Just my $0.02 though. Will try n post a chart tonight / tomorrow. GJ

BoC to the rescue for you then (if you were able to take advantage) GJ

usd/chf is more often than not the big mover when the dollar's really moving these days - look at the behavior of eurchf for proof. Behaves far more like a CHFx than a EURx. GJ

Well fibo for S/R is a fairly esoteric concept so you can make a cogent argument for either really. Just telling you what I know, trying to keep it factual. Fibo projections are often touted when making new highs / lows (major ones I mean) where there's an absence of other prior levels. Doesn't mean there's a guaranteed chicken / egg though - you can argue all sorts of stuff related to price movement symmetry etc. Ultimately doesn't matter too much. Imho all these things are is a crutch to hang your thoughts on. S/R levels are not set in stone (particularly in a fragmented market like FX) and the price can tear straight through them sometimes. Equally it can turn on a dime where you may see nothing at all on the chart. But when a lot of people start looking at the same level, the price behaviour when that area is reached is HUGELY important imho. And the longer the timefrme / more the people that are watching it, the more this is the case. And that, for me, in a nutshell, is S/R. (Hardly a Eureka post I admit). GJ

Agree totally for 00 levels, not sure I really agree with Fibs. I know for a fact that people in the wholesale markets eye key fibs (both retracement AND projection) on a forward looking basis. How do I know? Because I will be sent many many e-mails / bloomberg messages and chat snippets a day from assorted mates at assorted banks citing fibos. But this kind of thing is usually only looked at by the larger players on a daily basis or longer (in terms of forward looking levels) My $0.02 GJ

In theory 00 levels (and 25, 50 etc) are psychological levels only (if you're a pure chartist) but the fact is that the market (well, FX at least) is dominated by humans, not robots still, and as such it still has a part to play (Corps etc will on occasion hang their hats on these levels) but to be honest I think the influence of 00 is diminishing over time. One thing to consider however is that barrier options talked about in the market are still predominantly found at '00 and '50

Not sure I'm all that keen on the misogyny inherent in the title. And think it's a bit of a lazy metaphor to be honest. Author was probably just a bit crap in bed

It can do, provided your charting package supports it. Usually via something called DDE (dynamic data exchange). Not all charts do - what are you using? Usually it's just a realtime feed of bid/offer etc. Don't know about actually grabbing each price update as it comes through (if that's what you're referring to) - can undoubtably be done in vba, but you would need to be a cleverer man than me (or at least, have a lot more time on your hands - I'm sure I could do it eventually). Someone on this site will know how I reckon. GJ

One webbed foot

It was actually spotted by the Japanese many years ago and is a rare but revered candlestick formation called "two webbed feet". There are commercial systems available that will scan for this for you, but I think the price is excessive for what you actually get. The professional edition (priced at around gbp 5k for a single license) consists of a live mallard, and a device remarkably simiilar to a sextant. To scan for the "two webbed feet" formation, one simply attaches the mallard to the front of the sextant, holds it up to the left eye, and lines up the chart in question so you can only see it with your right eye. Then you scan along the chart until the mallard appears in 3d. This will be because there is a bird like shape in both eyes. Congratulations - you have just found "two webbed feet". The non professional version, c. GBP 250 (single license), is a copy of Jemima Puddleduck and a ream of tracing paper. Larger scale users (i.e. the investment banks) can consult the vendor directly for multi user options (typically involving a flock of geese, several sextants and a border collie to keep them from wandering off the trading floor). Did I mention I have aquired sole UK distribution rights? GJ