NFP FRIDAY [OH JOY]

 

“Homer trades the hours before … then after … NFP idiocy.”

The first 5 + hours a complete waste of time, as the world awaits “bartender & waitress” employment in the U.S. Why they can’t release this worthless stuff after the market closes on a Friday is beyond me, except to say it would rob LP dealer banks of running stops, screwing customers, and lining their own pockets with the booty they steal in the first 60 seconds after the NFP numbers are released … “and yes, that’s the reason nothing ever changes, and why they won’t ever change the time of release, simply cuz the TBTF banks don’t want it to change”.

These numbers better be good, cuz if they ain’t, look for EUURUSD to take off, along with the rest of the FX universe … Vampire Squid [GS] not looking for stellar numbers, as they say December storms could hamper things … well if that’s the case, 1.21 here we come. On the other hand, sell stops under 1.20 are there for the taking from the scumbag LP’s, and if the numbers are indeed “blowout”, like ADP, look for that level to get taken out.

Longtime readers know of my aversion to NFP Friday’s … I hate these days. Nothing good hardly ever comes from anything on NFP Friday; we’ll see if today is any different.

“Well, that escalated, and then de-escalated, quickly didn’t it”? A huge “3 sigma” miss from expectations, and yet EURUSD can’t rally; why? My guess is, that the whole world is long and looks to liquidate before the weekend, and any possible ECB Pie Hole Apparatchiks over the weekend spinning the Euro lower on “blah blah yada yada” via the usual suspects in the financial MSM. Cuz you know they are thinkin’ it, and the last thing you need is to come into an illiquid session on Sunday night and find EURUSD 50 lower cuz of some ECB Pie Hole, who gave an interview on some 10 watt radio station in Hamburg Saturday night, and talks EURUSD lower via “jawboning”; and I think that’s got a lot to do with it. That drop off of the initial M1 spike, has left a lot of traders in pain, thinking 1.21 was just minutes away. It’s still early, an anything can happen, but the action tells me EURUSD is either going lower or it’s a “chopfest” the rest of the day. Not really what you want to see off of a very disappointing NFP number.

Remember, trading is all about expectations and market positioning based on those expectations; everything else is “bat guano”. And when you get significant sigma events and the reaction is the opposite, long time professional traders, banks, and large hedge funds pick up on this and act accordingly. As I’ve said many times before, it’s all about the “setup” … the news is meaningless … if the setup isn’t right, nothing is gonna happen and the markets will disappoint most retail specs … and so now, EURUSD is right back to where it was before the NFP number, and a whole lot of longs are scratching their heads wondering what the hell is going on, and a whole lot more people are “hoping” for a rally to get out, and it may not come.

I don’t think the market has the power or inclination to go massively lower and take out 1.20 … right now, about half an hour into this clusterfark, it looks choppy with a slight bias lower on any spike up from short covering. Shorting today is downright dangerous, but getting long now is no bargain either … market very much looks tired and I think most European traders are looking for the exit gate to go home for the weekend … that takes us into New York, where given the massive storm on the east coast, I don’t think there’s any interest there either. I’m giving it another hour or so to do something and give us some hint if there’s anything to this day or not … if not, it’ll be a short day and adios.

Well, I’ve seen enough to know to leave this crap alone for the day … quite frankly, I don’t care what they do with EURUSD going forward today … from the European open, all we got, at the end of the day, is a “Flying Wedge of Death” [FWD], with a new high [on the report], new low for the day soon thereafter, and now back to about where we were before the report … in other words, a nice “shakeout” of the order books on both sides, and not much has happened of any significance … except, as always, a whole bunch of retail specs get killed playing the NFP report; when do they ever learn?

The problem going forward, the rest of the day is twofold; 1) no time to recover from a loss, and 2) more than likely no order flow to help your position … simply put, you do anything, and it’s likely to sit there and frustrate you to no end; get down 3-5 PIPS and it just sits there, and it makes you wonder if you’re insane for taking a position. [Hint: yes.] About 90% of the time NFP days are ruined trading days; the other 10% can be wild or make nice moves, but overall it’s not a day I’ve done much of anything over the course of my career, for the simple reason it is trouble with a capital “T”. And who wants trouble right before a weekend? Market positioning, and the fact the FX community as a whole may be writing this report off as a “one off” due to bad weather … right or wrong, that may be behind no follow through to the upside.

I’m at the doctor’s yesterday, and about 90 seconds in, he looks at the Mrs. and says, “Why is he here”? … get outta here, and don’t come back ‘till you’re sick”! … on the way back home, now the dog is “giddy” beyond all belief, as we head for the “Ice Cream King’s” favorite hangout. The medicinal joys of any kind of ice cream.

No trades today, simply cuz there were no signals, and more importantly it’s NFP Friday … and unless I see something spectacular, that’s always been my meme on this God forsaken day of the month when government math whiz’s rule the day … and when the scumbag LP banks get done with stops, there’s usually little if anything left for the rest of the day except trouble. So, we’ll see what Monday brings … I’m outta here … Onward & Upward!!

PAMM spreadsheet directly below.

Have a great weekend everybody!

-vegas

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