STEALING CHRISTMAS FX STYLE

 

“FX: the only place where crime pays, pays, and keeps on paying!”

Most likely, you were still asleep, but at approximately 8:30 A.M. EST on CHRISTMAS DAY, it’s time yet again for one more “market heist” from the same group of usual suspects; scumbag LP banks & large hedge funds, to take EURUSD down approximately 350 PIPS within seconds. And of course, no heist would be complete without the usual group of willing accomplices, namely the brokerage houses and regulators.

Look for the usual excuses to pop up in the mainstream financial press of, 1) it’s a Holiday, so markets are “thin”, 2) traders are not trading cuz it’s Christmas day, and 3) “SkyNet” has taken over the earth, and there’s no telling what those crazy machine driven algo’s will do when left alone over a holiday. “And these people make how much money”?

Bloomberg covered the “heist” with a short little article designed to make you think this “bat guano” happens all the time … no biggee … it’s just the machines … “move along now Sheeple, nothing to see here but a little blood & guts … ma’am, back up please, everything is under control, and everything is fine … move along now folks”! Directly below the chart with some “A-1” commentary from some analyst in Japan.

 

  

“Yuletide Slide”; isn’t that “cute”. My take on this is very simple; some large bank [maybe in conjunction with a hedge fund, who knows really] had a very large short EURUSD position with losses … Christmas Day is the last day they can “blind side” the market before the new year and get away with it, due to non-existent trading activity, and this loss has to be gone by then cuz it will be a new accounting period, and if it’s not gone people will lose their jobs and perks. Solution? Easy Peezee, simply double down and go sell a couple hundred BILLION in EURUSD, running very large sell stops with abandon and accomplishing two objectives; 1) getting out of short positions with a slight profit, and 2) getting long on the sell stops from others. And once this is done, it’s bid the thing back up to where it was before the whole thing started … who’s gonna notice? Well, except the long positions stopped out unceremoniously of course.

The more important question, of course, is why is this allowed to continue to happen? There’s an answer to that as well; “the only people getting “screwed” are customers (retail or institutional it doesn’t matter); everybody else feeds off the carcass of the dead. There simply isn’t anybody interested in stopping it; whichever brokerage houses are involved, they get their cut, and the utterly worthless regulators will find briefcases full of cash under their desks to welcome the new year. And then they can stroll to their favorite reporter and say it was either A) the machines, B) thin trading conditions, or C) a combination of both, and we’re investigating. And that’s it … meanwhile, how many thousands of customers got royally screwed beyond belief”?

And just for the record, Turnkey only allows stops to be executed if the MT4 trading platform is up and running … since they were “closed” from Friday until Christmas night at 5:05 P.M. EST, when Asia opened for the week, this massively corrupt theft had no effect on any Turnkey clients. Others weren’t so fortunate.

Turning to today’s market … can you say “thin”? … this is known as “Boxing Day” in Europe, and it might as well be a Holiday too. Very, very narrow ranges heading forward from Europe’s opening, with a slight downward bias. The problem here, of course, as I’ve mentioned numerous times before, is that tiny ranges beget reversals, or double reversals, or worse the “Flying Wedge of Death” … it’s almost like an invitation to come and start trouble … why should today be any different? The amazing thing to me is that the 50% retracement line at approximately 1.18610 got breached on the upside so easily … put up absolutely zero resistance; just went through like the gate was wide open.

And of course, now that the old high for the day set back in the wee hours is under threat, here come the usual shenanigans of the LP’s and various other assorted crooks; new highs for the day are gonna happen … the only question is how. And if you want to see a really ugly M1, just pull up the trading action around 15:00, and you’ll get the “flavor” of what I mean when I say “stop hunt”. “There simply is no legitimate reason anybody would “jack up” EURUSD 10 PIPS, unless they knew that the buy stop they could take the other side of was worth what it cost them to shove it into the stop … my, aren’t lightening fast computers a wonderful thing when you have access to order flow”?

All of this is compounded by one simple fact; it’s a nothing day with a small range. Nobody anywhere is “paying attention” to this; the junior trading desk jockeys at the banks, being the lowest form of life on earth while their boss is in Ibiza getting drunk every night, fresh off their Associate degrees in “Biz Administration” from MIT [Montana Institute of Trucking], are under strict orders NOT to bother the boss unless the building is burning down; the regulators are all out on paid Holiday, most likely partying with the LP bank Asshats in Ibiza, and could care less if EURUSD went to 1 or 2; in other words, nobody gives a crap. And when nobody gives a crap, you can expect the usual misfits to show up and muscle markets, that on the surface of things, make zero sense. “Have I described today adequately enough”?

When it comes to trading, there is a very steep “learning curve” most people cannot survive; they simply run out of money before they figure it out. And the sad thing is, what they have to figure out isn’t taught anywhere, you can’t find books written about it, and very, very few professional traders will likely talk about it … that is, except me. And it is this “ugly side” of the trading Biz that most people succumb for two reasons; 1) nobody in the trading Biz from brokerage houses to banks will ever admit to the fraud, and 2) when you discover it, you don’t want to believe it … until that is, the nth time you get “had” and it all starts to make sense. The sad truth is, it’s always been like this, and it’s something you have to understand and know how to defeat in order to survive and make a career of trading. “Yea, Merry Christmas … nothing personal, it’s just all about the money”.

I made one trade today; really thought there would be more of an “oomph” from taking out the high … there wasn’t, and you know what that means. I got long and liquidated on a new high; small profit, simply cuz there really isn’t anything here, as most players have taken the Holidays off from trading. Hope they haven’t come to the Caribbean, cuz if they have, they’re gonna be disappointed with what they see; a hodgepodge of incompetence, negligence, corruption, and basic services that are a complete joke. They’d be happier staying at the Holiday Inn in Hoboken, N.J., and eating KFC every night.

And as you can see from the M1 around 15:00, somebody felt the necessity of going for a large stop above 1.1877 or 78, and within seconds it’s “mission accomplished”. From here, it’s been nothing more than a “chop fest”, with EURUSD trading in a very narrow 3 – 4 PIP range in the upper 60’s. I came into the day wondering what the “aftershocks” might be to the “grand theft” on Christmas morning; simply put, there weren’t any at all … market opened and it was simply a very slow crawl lower, highlighted by M1 lurches lower followed by minutes of literally nothing … rinse & repeat for 5 hours, and you almost have a 30 PIP range … almost. And now that everybody and their brother is comfortably short, here comes the “Rally Grinch” to take it all away [and then some] in short order; what takes 5 hours to go down, takes less than 45 minutes to wipe away. “Again, “learning curve” 101 Basics from very small range days, that start as if they’re gonna be gangbusters, but end up doing nothing but introducing you to the “Flying Wedge of Death” [FWD] … I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating; how many hundreds of traders have I seen in my career go down in flames on days just like this? … first, they get short, lose money … then they flip and get long the house … and then sell in the hole and are forced out when the new high/low fails to hold and gain traction”.

I would have loved to have seen a buy signal after EURUSD came back above the 50% retracement line, and before new highs for the day … we simply didn’t get one. I got long looking for new highs and “buy stops” to propel the market higher … not by any great amount of PIPS, but I thought 4 or 5 would be about it … we got 2. Then the games started, and that’s an impossible path to predict … so, I take the small gain and move on … tomorrow should offer a better trade atmosphere. Here, at the end of the realistic trading day, another small range “doji” day, and walking away with anything is considered victory. Sometimes, most often during Holiday periods to be sure, this is the way it is … fighting it is downright stupid and counterproductive; simply accept it and look forward.

Since the 2 hurricanes in September, and the putting together of “The Magnificent Seven”, overall I’m pleased with the results. I’m not at all happy with what they’ve done to GBPUSD and their respective crosses, but “hey, markets come and go … they speed up, slow down, get stupid … it’s not something unforeseen in the annals of trading finance, but through it all there are 2 pairs that are “rocks” … yes, they have their respective moments of nuttiness, like all markets, but unless there is news and/or it’s Christmas morning and time for a heist, we can pretty much count on EURUSD & USDCAD to be here for us to trade, and most importantly trade effectively for profit”. I think EURUSD is a slightly better trade, but if others want to trade USDCAD, I don’t have a problem with it … and while GBP & its crosses have gone “sleepy-time” over the Holiday’s, it remains very much too be seen when the rumor mill BS gap spikes make their return to trading; until then, this whole group is untradeable, unless of course you like large losses within 2 seconds.

That brings me to EURUSD, Christmas morning notwithstanding; this is about as good as it gets for a trading market; with a little increase in daily ranges and intraday volatility come the new year after this week, this market offers us everything we need for profit. Going forward, I’m giving EURUSD more room on the backside of 16:00; from here on, I’ll be following it closely until about 18:00 or 19:00, whenever it appears it’s starting to die down for the day. What we have seen lately is more action between 16:00 – 18:00 server time, than we’ve seen in total from 08:00 – 16:00, so I want to be able to capture any moves that appear to be profitable along algorithm signals during this time.

I must admit, I had good intentions … I downloaded the new spreadsheet, and from that moment on, the Mrs. comes marching in, takes over and said, “no more markets ‘till Tuesday … got it? … nada, as in zilch … no research, no updates, it’s Christmas and we got company coming in less than 5 minutes … so help me, if you …” Well, you get the drift from here I’m sure; so, I’ll have the PAMM spreadsheet up and posted in tomorrow’s blog. Onward & Upward!!

-vegas

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