THERE’S BAD & THEN THERE IS CRAP LIKE TODAY

BACK TO BASICS!

I was assured, by people who shall remain nameless, that conditions in GBPAUD were good; very little slippage on fills, no “being queued” on orders. Let me just say for the record, that is 150% bullshit; and for the LP in GBPAUD via Turnkey, you saw me for this day and I ain’t comin’ back. And folks, I want to be clear on this; I don’t mind losing money when I’m wrong, or if/when the algo has a bad occasional day [I’m a big boy and wear big girl panties, so I can take it], but I don’t like getting screwed “bigly & Yuuge” by scum banks either. Hell, no way could it be worse if I were trading gold … how could it be worse than GBPAUD when it goes up/down 5 PIPS in the bid/offer and nothing has changed in GBP or AUD via the U.S. Dollar?

So, my analysis stands from last night if you want to trade GBPAUD; as for me and the PAMM/MAM, I’m going to stick with Gold & USDJPY, and live with the consequences. I’ll be upping my volumes and trade sizes starting tomorrow, giving these 2 markets a hair more room to move; version 3 algorithm signals in both performing very well.

This is the second time, first with Assets FX about a year ago, and now Turnkey, where anything outside of major U.S. Dollar pairs and Gold [forget silver, it might as well be MXP/ZAR as a trading pair] turns into a disaster [not from the money side, but from the trading side] despite the lies and bullshit I get from people who should know better. And what also bothers me is that the spread on my screen widens out on the crosses after I get in a position by about ½ to ¾ of a PIP [GBPAUD today about 0.9 to 1.3 before I get in a position, and then 1.7 – 2.0 on my liquidation order box after I take a position; what the hell is that?]; and then come the mystery ticks [bid and offer] where the bid mysteriously goes down 5 PIPS in a blink of an eye, only to come back almost all the way to where it was 1 second ago; again, without Cable or AUD moving what’s the deal with that and where do you think my fill is if I hit the liquidate button? EXIT QUESTIONS: “Why can’t they just admit there’s going to be these problems listed above along with the definite slippage based on what they know from the scum LP that is there now? I’m certainly not the first or last that notices this crap, so why not tell me up front? You guys need that $2 commission that badly you have to lie to me? Oh … wait … I forgot … I’m not supposed to notice these things, I’m just supposed to click the buttons and STFU”.

All in all, I’m sick of being treated by brokerage houses like this,  and I haven’t even done any volumes YET!; the cold hard facts are they are ALL like this, so it’s not just Turnkey or some other outfit like Assets FX, and the only thing I can do as a money manager is 1) stick to the 2 major markets [Gold & USDJPY] where whatever liquidity there is, at least it’s better than getting jacked around by some LP in an FX cross, and 2) not get sidetracked with other markets. Quite frankly, after today, it’s clear to me gold is no worse [often better] than the crosses; if my risk isn’t any higher, why put up with the consistent horrible slippage from the LP? Even when gold gets a little shaky, it isn’t as bad as what I saw today in GBPAUD; I don’t see gold getting jacked around $0.50 - $1.00 per OZ. with nothing going on, and I don’t see the bid/offer spread widening when I have a position on. So for me, the issue today isn’t the couple of hundred bucks I dropped for all of us; the issue for me is, as the PAMM gets bigger, how do I deal with risk and not being a frickin’ target for the LP? I shudder to think what my fills today would look like if I was doing 20 or 50 lots; they rammed it down our throats with a stupid 1 lot, which shouldn’t be an issue, and I certainly don’t want to be the guy getting filled with size on the low or high.

Yes, gold has its problems; I’ll deal with them, especially the spikes. The version 3 algorithm has been putting in good retracement entry signals; I’ll also be concentrating my efforts on putting on good “free trades”, not simply scalping. When the daily ranges & HVALUES improve, I’ll be position scaling as well. All told, unless markets go completely to hell in a hand basket and die [like today, with a pathetic $5 range and $4.34 HVALUE as I write here at the Comex close], we will be OK and move forward.

This first month of the PAMM/MAM has been one of “experimentation”; 1) trying to figure out which markets the spreads are “true & accurate”, 2) which markets the stops are run most consistently, 3) which markets the various LP’s give the same bid/offer spread when you’re thinking about entering a position as they do when you’re in a position, 4) which markets contain or most frequently experience “mystery ticks” that can hurt a position, and 5) putting together a “game plan” that can handle larger orders and volume sizes without undue risk. Please don’t get me wrong here, I’m always looking to make money trading, but my PAMM volumes have been very low these first couple of weeks to get “the lay of the land” with Turnkey so to speak.

Regardless of what I think, or how bad some of these LP’s are in filling orders, Turnkey’s trading conditions are the very best in gold and USDJPY; we simply can’t find another house anywhere that comes close to the RT commission and spread in either of them; so, while I can’t change the LP’s behavior, I can concentrate my efforts in first gold, and when Yen becomes active, USDJPY.

Today’s donation to the LP in GBPAUD was not the fault of the version 3 algorithm; this loss rests solely with yours truly, where truth be told my opinions as to the “bullishness” of the trading action mid morning led to a small stop loss. Mea culpa plain and simple.

Starting our second month tomorrow, I’ll be doing bigger volumes in gold, and rather quickly eliminating the few hundred bucks the PAMM is down collectively; I don’t need any more information, I got enough to last me a long time. I’ll deal with the trading conditions in gold, whatever they are, and we’ll move forward.

PAMM/MAM spreadsheet directly below.

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

OUR ‘TURNKEY FOREX’  PAMM/MAM  IS NOW OPEN AND OPERATIONAL; SEE “PAMM/MAM MANAGED MONEY PROGRAM” IN “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION IN RIGHT HAND COLUMN FOR DETAILS [VIEW ONLINE AND/OR DOWNLOAD] AND START YOUR JOURNEY FROM WHERE YOU ARE AT TO “ESCAPE TO SUCCESS”!