OH BOY … MORE MANIPULATION DEAD AHEAD!

 

“Well, here we are again … the insatiable appetite!”   

Ok, back to the world’s most manipulated market [from the buy side], where 

once again I remind readers, this is an “80 / 10 / 10” market … 80% of the 

time it goes up, 10 % of the time it goes sideways, and 10% of the time it goes 

down … there’s only one problem … the 10% down usually kills accounts 

and is wicked as hell on the downside … check December 2018 for details.

I come into this, on the heels of Google’s revenues miss last night after the 
close, and today sees Apple after the close and a FED interest rate decision 
tomorrow at 2 PM EST … so far today, the “Flying Wedge of Death” [FWD] 
readily apparent in the NDX100, as no matter what the news is … whether 
it’s worse, worser, or worser-er, tech stocks got a 1) corporate buyback bid, 
2) the “Plunge Protection Team” [PPT] on their side, and 3) a belief the FED 
is their BFF in the whole world, cuz stocks can only go up. “Hey, the NDX has 
only been up 18 out of the last 19 weeks, what’s to worry about”?

Well, at least it moves … the manipulators see to that, so we might as well 

piggyback the largesse like JPM & Squid, and not ask questions. Range today 

in NASDAQ not bad, could have been better, but what frosts my cupcake 

today are 2 algorithm buy signals that missed by exactly 1 NDX100 point 

TWICE, and then of course the market rallies … “get me out of April before 

I start playing in the street”.

As I said, Apple tonight after the close, and FED tomorrow at 2 PM EST 
… should be an interesting day. Of course, tomorrow is “May day”, May 1, 
where communists, anarchists, totalitarians, & other assorted misfits 
celebrate “the worker” … “yea, like they’d know anything about that … I 
hear congressional Dems want to make it a FED Holiday, you know, after their 
heroes”.

So, we missed out on two really good trades today, both by less than one index 

point … meh. “Whaddaya gonna do”? … onto tomorrow with the FED. Until 

tomorrow mi amigos … Onward & Upward!!

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

 

STUCK IN MANIPULATION HELL

 

“Control the flow of money, and control the world!”   

Granted, Mondays have almost become semi-holidays the way they trade 

… boring, uneventful, no real trend in anything … “but what I’m seeing 

today is disturbing on so many levels … everything manipulated by banks into 

tight ranges, just enough to set off some “false positive” buy/sell signals on the 

MT4 or TradeStation platforms for the spec crowd, but not enough to go 

anywhere and make any money … and then it’s time for the stop hunts the 

other way”. Never in my career, have I seen so many days with the dreaded 

“Flying Wedge of Death” [FWD] or double reversals showing up so often, as 

like we see today and over these last few years … and you can all thank 

central bank HQ.

And it’s not just gold & silver that have been hijacked … major FX pairs are 
a fucking joke … today, after 20 hours of trading, EURUSD with a 40 PIP 
range, GBPUSD with a 42 PIP range, & USDJPY with a 36 PIP range … the 
SP500 with an approximate 12 point range … gold its usual self with a 
pathetic $8 range, and the list goes on & on. Cuz what they’ve done is 
eliminate intraday volatility, and about the only thing that has any trend 
whatsoever are the stock indices, due to the “Plunge Protection Team” [PPT], 
along with the SNB [Swiss National Bank], & corporate buybacks 
… somebody show me what market I’m missing for big money? … Right, 
there isn’t one.

Today I’m watching USDMXN, and this puppy moves so fast and violently, 

even on normal days like today, I don’t seriously think it’s going to work for 

us in the PAMM … I originally thought it might be a good fit, but with 3 days 

in a row of batshit crazy action to end last week, I wasn’t sure if that was the 

normal paradigm … after watching it today, yea it’s the normal paradigm. 

And while it’s not a problem to trade small numbers in this pair, as the 

PAMM grows it most definitely would be a problem … fact is, there’s very 

little liquidity here unless you want to pay up big, and if you’re on the wrong 

side of this thing when it goes nuts, God help you on your fill.

Looking at USDCNH [offshore Yuan, a/k/a Reminbi], the main problem is 
the Turnkey bid/offer spread … coming in at 5 PIPs, that’s a lot to swallow 
versus other offshore houses that offer this pair at 1 PIP … like I said, I’m 
talking with Turnkey about this, but don’t expect any satisfactory result. 
Sure, when the daily range is 300 - 400 PIPS, this spread isn’t a problem, 
but when it slows down, it most definitely becomes a problem because it’s 
way too “Hoover Dam” high … and right now, this pair is on the slow side of 
its paradigm for trading action.

As we’ve seen this entire year of 2019, gold is simply a bucket of shit when 

you talk trading conditions … probably the most manipulated of all the 

markets from the sell side, it’s nothing more than the “Comex Con Game” 

in action … slowly rally it up the hill, and then bomb the hell out of it in 1 

or 2 days [or less].

Add everything all up, and the central banks of the world have positioned the 
trading community in one helluva tight spot … no volatility, no ranges, no 
trends [outside of stock indices], worse slippage via fills, and a growing chorus 
of people in the industry throwing the proverbial towel in and calling it quits 
… note the record number of CTA’s, hedge funds, & options funds that have 
gone “belly up” the last few years, 2018 being the worst year on record since 
1987 … for central bankers, this isn’t a tragedy, it’s a benefit.

I’ve already gone on record saying I’m in gold to trade it, come “hell or high 

water”, and nothing has changed in that respect … at present, gold is 

untradeable … there’s no “there” there, as it’s simply scumbag bullion 

dealers jerking the market around for their own benefit, at the expense of 

what is left of the specs who still trade it … we’ll be back when price gets 

above 1340 and things heat up … until then, what’s the point?

Ok, since traditional FX is a complete joke, USDCNH has a “grand canyon” 
bid/offer spread and you’d be nuts to pay it, and USDMXN is so hyper it acts 
like it’s on meth 99% of the time and has very poor liquidity. We’ve already 
had a bad experience with crude oil at Turnkey, as the slippage there was 
outrageous, right along with the bid/offer spread, so that isn’t an option at all. 
Fact is, the only way to trade oil is via futures, cuz CFD’s anywhere are a 
complete rip off, no matter what house you trade at, AND there’s no way to 
split futures in any PAMM program … what then? … good question.

That only leaves stock indices, and a return to the NDX100 for PAMM 

trading, while we wait for gold to get its act together someday and act like a 

viable market. So starting tomorrow and going forward, I’ll be back trading 

the NDX100 … Peso & Reminbi simply have insurmountable problems, at 

present, for us to make consistent money … if I trade them, we’re just 

handing out baskets full of money to the “Hoover Dam” banks, over & above 

anything that happens in the NDX100. So, it’s back to the future.

Rest of the week should be active, a lot of data tomorrow … Wednesday sees 
the FED interest rate meeting, and Friday the NFP report … so today looks 
like it’s the worst of the week for trading action … onto tomorrow mi amigos 
… Onward & Upward!!
 

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

 

SUNDAY UPDATE: HIGHLIGHTING USDCNH

 

“The future of FX!”   

Come back in 10 years, and my guess is USDCNH will be one of the most 

popularly traded FX pairs, by most traders in the world … I’m adding it this 

week to our 20 Day Range MA charts for gold, silver, & the SP500. Directly 

below this week’s charts.

 

click on any chart to enlarge

 

 

 

This pair trades inverted, so divide the quoted rate into 100,000 and you’ll 

have the dollar amount per 1 PIP. With Friday’s close of 6.7294 [USDCNH 

trades 4 decimals], ± 1 PIP = approximately $1.49 per 1 lot. The ranges here 

are good, although these last weeks they’ve come down a few PIPS, but 

generally are usually around 200 PIPS or higher. What I don’t like about 

this pair, is that sometimes the spread can be erratic … and nothing says 

erratic better than Turnkey & their merry band of scumbag LP banks, who 

jack the spread around on occasion. 

If you want to focus on the future of FX, and get greater flexibility in terms 
of the risk you bite off on a trade, at about $1.50 per PIP per 1 lot, you have 
that flexibility here … margins at offshore brokerage houses vary, cuz some 
places treat USDCNH as an EM [emerging market] FX pair and some don’t. 
In any event, no matter where you go, it won’t be lower than 50X in terms 
of leverage.

Right now, I’m trying to get Turnkey to talk to their LP’s and see if the 

bid/offer spread can be lowered, cuz at other houses it’s much better than 

Turnkey … while it’s not horrible or a “deal killer”, I’d rather trade it with 

a lower spread. Over time, it can be a lot of money that is saved. We’ll see 

how that turns out, but I’m not very hopeful they’ll do anything … why start 

now?

Onto the week ahead … until tomorrow mi amigos … Onward & Upward!!

Have a great rest of your weekend everybody!

-vegas

 

 

CAUTION! ... WATCH FOR CAR WRECKS

 

“USDMXN in action!”   

Another day of batshit crazy USDMXN, today caused by U.S. GDP numbers

… nothing says WTF better than about 1,200 PIPS in 12 minutes, first 

blowing through the roof and setting off buy stops, and then collapsing lower 

and taking longs to the woodshed for a good beating … and so, for the third 

day in a row, market action blows the living hell out of our Peso algorithm.

Our algorithm consists of three parts that have to be in “sync” … if they’re 
not, you have to leave it alone … no if’s, ands, or buts about it … ignoring 
these relationships will only spell trouble, and if you do trade and make 
money, it’s only because you won a “coin flip”  with Lady Luck … and in this 
market, as well as USDCNH, “coin flips” are not the way to go.

Cursed again today by data releases … “whaddaya gonna do”? … look, I like 

the volatility, but I don’t like thousands of PIPS in seconds or a few minutes, 

cuz it’s just plain stupid stepping into this “car wreck” and expecting fills and 

the market to behave … it doesn’t and won’t.

And when the dust settles from these “lightening bolts”, what’s left is bullshit 
chop and minor stop hunts, usually the rest of the day, and today is no 
different … after the GDP disaster, and everybody stuck long USDMXN over 
the last couple of days got shot within 60 minutes, the rest of the day is a 
complete “snoozefest” of bullshit … and if you stepped into this arena and 
got hammered with some losses, how do you make it back in chop? … right, 
you can’t.

Trust me, I don’t like sitting here in these uncooperative markets any more 

than anybody else … I also hate losing money … and looking around the 

hedge fund universe, the managed money CTA universe, and the retail spec 

space, all I see is “wailing & gnashing of teeth” from traders who can’t make 

a dime in any of this pot of shit now controlled and manipulated by central 

bank HQ … ranges in everything are frickin’ pathetic, with the exception of 

USDCNH & USDMXN, and lack of intraday volatility is killing markets and 

traders. Well, we don’t have to worry about that in USDMXN, nor in 

USDCNH most of the time, but what we do have to worry about are the  

“wheels coming off the train” and VIX spiking into the stratosphere and 

hurting us … and then recognizing the strengths & weakness of our 

algorithm, and realizing that when we get thousands of PIP moves in a very 

short period of time, like under 15 minutes, the only thing that is gonna bring 

order back into things for the next move is TIME … so, you just have to wait 

… unfortunately, that’s the only thing we’ve done for 3 days now, since we 

started in this space! … Oy!

Blog update on Sunday … until then mi amigos … Onward & Upward!!

Have a great weekend everybody!

-vegas