WHAT IS THE JOB OF A MARKET?

 

“Denial … it ain’t a river in Egypt!”

When anybody uses the term “market”, what comes to mind? … specifically, 

what implicit assumptions do you make in your head about what makes a 

market? … cuz right now, gold isn’t anywhere near what most people would 

define as a market … simply put, is there any room in your definition for 

blatant manipulation, dealer “scumbaggery”, HFT shenanigans, and/or the 

shifting sands of bid/offer mystery ticks and the “shitshow circus” of the  

“slippage candy” that masks the true cost of trading a “market”?

“I’m thinkin’ nobody really wants to confront reality here, and that it most often 

gets shoved underneath the table as an inconvenient truth by the financial MSM 

… the fact is, though, there are no true markets anymore … nope … there isn’t a 

tradeable market anywhere, on any platform, that isn’t a manipulated mess tied 

into central bank policy schemes … and gold? … more and more evidence the 

“ChiCom Hustle” is in play like never before”.

We are currently in our 12th day in a row … yea, count ‘em … 12 … of gold 

being inside the range from January 4th … shit won’t rally, shit refuses to 

break … and ONLY when you realize what is truly going on here, can any of 

this makes sense … and the ChiComs know better than anybody the game 

they are playing … get people long and force them to sell … get people to sell 

and then force them to buy … all inside historically small ranges that mimic 

randomness … “trust me, it’s far from random”.

And so here we are on day 12, doing Nada … all the usual bullshit from 

dealers we’ve come to know and hate, not the least of which is an 

approximate 100% increase in the cost of trading from the scumbag LP 

bullion dealers, who have basically doubled the spread … “duh, market 

conditions, duh” is their mantra, which we all know is bullshit, and the 

schlubs at Turnkey and other offshore brokerage houses simply refuse to 

address the issue, other than the usual response … why do you think the 

scumbag LP banks refuse to deal directly with customers, and have the 

brokerage houses act as middlemen? … it’s cuz they don’t want to have to 

answer for their actions or what they do, or how they rob money from your 

account … “all it is, is a “traders tax” on those left trading to make up for 

shortfalls in trading revenue … looked at any of the TBTF or TBTJ scumbag 

banks balance sheets lately? … they are all reporting sharply reduced earnings 

from trading, and their stocks are down … probably just a coincidence spreads 

are higher … right”? [snark]

And quite frankly, I’m left wondering if markets as we have known them will 

ever return or have a future … cuz the way things are trending, it’s nothing 

but a gigantic Ponzi scheme, and a subsequent shift in money from the public 

to banks, where it’s split up in secret using various accounting gimmicks and 

schemes and distributed to Pols, Apparatchiks, regulators, & brokerage house 

execs all over the world … does this sound like a market to you? All any of us 

can do is ride the manipulation … piggyback it if you will, cuz in present day 

markets [all of ‘em], it’s all we got anymore.

Gold sick again today … no range, no volumes, no flow to the trade … oh, but 

nice fat, almost 20 cent spreads, cuz you know … “duh market conditions, 

duh”! … no volatility at all, but I’m supposed to believe market conditions are 

so fragile, that the scumbag LP bullion dealers need 100% more in terms of 

my cost to trade, which is pure profit to their bottom line, cuz conditions are 

too volatile? … “really? … what fucking planet are you living on? This shit 

hasn’t moved in over 12 days”!

The problem in “trading” any of this, is the fact nobody has a clue what the 

manipulators are up to … they run every short term trading indicator off the 

map, run stops, hand out shit fills, and then spike the shit out of it to nowhere 

… just enough to hit the majority’s “puke point”, and then reverse the process 

… the fact that ranges are so tiny historically, gives pause to those looking to 

buck the trend, and in those seconds they reverse things on spikes that just 

about nobody can capture cuz it happens in seconds … in other words, there 

simply is no “flow” to anything, simply chop in its most virulent form 

imaginable.

So, I sit patiently awaiting gold to do something … the sooner the better of 

course, but there is no point giving money away to a market that isn’t moving 

anywhere … and yes, at some point that will change, and when it does, I’ll be 

there to participate. Right now, though, gold is a bucket of yellow shit.

Onto tomorrow … Onward & Upward!!
 

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

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OPERATIONAL, AS WELL AS OUR C2 OPTIONS ADVISORY 

SERVICE.  DETAILS IN “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION IN 

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WHERE YOU ARE AT TO “ESCAPE TO SUCCESS”!

 

DENIAL AIN’T A RIVER IN EGYPT

“When you’re pretty much ready to try anything.”

“Well, I got news for you; it ain’t the Chicago river next to the CME in Chicago either.”

Ok, trading pretty much finished for the week, as traders all over the world [except those who have a complete “death wish” for their trading account] take the U.S. cue from the Thanksgiving Holiday, and basically call it a 5 day drinkfest weekend. Coming into today and turning my laptop on, my only thoughts are that any cadaver at the morgue has a higher EKG than gold [or any other market for that matter. So, if for any reason you are thinking about trading Holiday markets, simply send me the money you anticipate losing, and I’ll send you back an autographed pic of me on the beach along with a quick note on how the Mrs. plans on spending [your] her money; this way we can make it all warm & fuzzy personal, and you don’t have to dream up an evil LP who took your money. The way I see it, everybody wins!

I wrote the other day about how gold died about 6 months into Reagan’s landslide election victory over Carter back in 1980; and I also told you how I left the gold pit for good after a day where the entire daily range for the day was like $1.80 [maybe it was $1.90, but after all these years since, I’m getting a little fuzzy thinking about it; all I really remember is it was below $2. “And now that I’m in my late 20’s … well … I ain’t what I used to be!]. Well, there were plenty of “locals” [professional floor traders] that refused to believe gold had changed, and were looking eagerly forward to $20+ ranges returning “any day now”; some of them stood there for years waiting, while other markets took over like Swiss Franc and then the SP500 futures, and for practical trading purposes made trading gold look like “corn spreads”. “Talk about denial, these guys were it!”

Honestly folks, I’ve been pushed these last months, really on a daily and weekly basis, by traders [new, experienced, big, small, and everything in between] to “consider” [which of course means “get up off your ass and do it!”] adding back into the mix of markets I follow and offer volatility algorithms, to tackling “Yen” again and make it available. It’s something I’ve thought about since Spring, because unlike any other FX pair on the planet, USDJPY affects and influences gold & the stock indices, and I don’t want to be like the guys on the floor that were in denial and simply say, “well, it doesn’t matter!”, when in fact it very much matters.

Over the Summer and into Fall here, I’ve taken a “radical” approach with the volatility algorithm in applying it to the Yen; more so because FX has become almost untradeable with previous algorithms I have used. I want the core logic, mathematical philosophy, and intraday volatility to be above average and that remains the same, but I’ve had to “re-think” how to optimally initiate trades [long/short, there is no bias in USDJPY like there is in gold] for the lowest risk / highest profit potential, all the while keeping probabilities of success in the 90^th percentile. Since the Spring, when I haven’t been working on other stuff, I turned my attention to USDJPY, taking a “top down” approach with the broadest problems tackled first. It’s been a great intellectual challenge with some bumpy moments, but having all kinds of probability and statistical tools as well as all the market data I could ever want, I do have an M1 volatility trading algorithm in USDJPY that I am going to release after I finish the stock indices; more than likely you’re looking at end of year for this as I have to write the manual and gather the data for all of you.

Now, I know what you’re thinkin’; “hey, you said you weren’t doing FX, so what gives?” Well, “what gives” is that I got tons of clients [small, large, and small institutional traders] pleading with me for answers RE USDJPY, that won’t leave me alone until I do it. Plus, from a “one trick pony” standpoint, it makes sense to have the deepest, most liquid FX pair as an option to trade any time day or night.

My motivation here is to give you “options”; whether you’re a small or very large trader doesn’t matter in USDJPY; this market can handle anything you got, or any size you want to do and dwarfs stock indices and gold combined. It wasn’t something I really wanted to do, but I don’t live in “denialville” either, and I can logically understand and appreciate the need of many of you of having a viable volatility algorithm in USDJPY. So, it’s coming after the stock indices manual. [Note: don't look for any other FX market anytime soon.]

Turning to gold today … I’m glad I’m taking the week off, and I know that when you get into Holiday week’s, experience tells me to back away because liquidity and volumes are about half of what they are normally … and if there’s ever a time for “stupid shit” to happen, it’s a week like this! … today is a perfect example of this, and seeing gold drop $15 in about 3 seconds from 1203 to 1188 should remind all of you what the break from 1300 down to 1274 back on October 4^th was like; even century marks in gold always have serious stops associated with them; it’s called ‘situational awareness’!”

Sure, I could have wandered in and taken some of the first exhaustion moves and made a buck or two today, but I don’t have ESP, and would rather enjoy my Holiday; I hope you did the same!

No trading tomorrow or Friday, and so I’ll be back on the blog on Monday; until then I’ll be working on all these manuals and data charts to put things together for all of you. To those of you in the U.S., have a great Thanksgiving Holiday and enjoy family and friends; markets will be here on Monday when all of us come back. Until then …

Have a great Holiday weekend everybody!

-vegas

OPEN A DEMO AND/OR LIVE ACCOUNT AT THE LMFX LINK IN THE “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION OF THE WEBSITE TITLED “OPEN TRADING ACCOUNT – DO IT NOW!”

HOPIUM FOR DOPES

GET YOUR TRADING TRUTH RIGHT HERE!

Ok, so let me get this straight; every economic indicator released the last few trading days has seen numbers that make economists nervous [unexpectedly of course] about the economy; if it were a Repub regime, they would be screaming all over CNBC about a recession, but since it’s “The One”, President Empty Suit, they let it pass. And in all of this, I’m somehow supposed to believe the “fairy tale” NFP report tomorrow shows an expanding, growing economy, good enough to justify a rate hike in 3 weeks?

Because, what gold has been telling us since J-Hole, and comments by Fisher et al, is that rate hikes are coming, and you’ve seen gold get monkey hammered from the 1340’s pretty much straight down to 1302 and change this morning; throw in the fact that one of the world’s largest shippers [Hanjin] has just declared bankruptcy, and what we are truly seeing is a world wide mess economically. And with all that, I’m supposed to believe some dumb-ass FED Pie Hole with “dot plots” showing me the upward glide path for rate hikes going forward into 2018? Seriously, did you vote for Obama and just can’t get rid of the “hopium” you are hooked on?

And just as a side note; “Christ, it’s about time the stock market woke the hell up and started going lower, regardless the “Plunge Protection Teams”, because the world is very much going to hell very quickly!”

Which, brings me to today; coming in, I’m asking myself if the bullion banks & dealers got enough resolve to push gold below 1300 and take out some serious sell stops from everybody long since Brexit; if they do, what does that leave for tomorrow? If the fairy tale number tomorrow is “strong”, wouldn’t you want [as the most desirable scenario if you are a dealer of bullion bank] to see a gap lower by $15 - $30 per Oz. and be able to fill all the saps retail stops on the bottom? If you take that “ammo” away today, what’s left for the NFP release?

So, I’m ready to react to whatever they decide to do, and for a while it looked like 1300 would eventually get taken out; but funny things happen in a probabilistic world don’t they? First up, gold moves higher in Asia and then drifts lower in Europe, so coming in we are a lot closer to the lows than the highs, which if you remember, I’m telling you most of the time the U.S. session “unwinds” and goes the opposite direction. Second, the market gets blind-sided with the horrible ISM numbers at 10:00 New York time [49.4, a contracting economy, with new orders plunging] and gold “melts up” $5 in seconds.

Up to this point I haven’t done anything because there isn’t anything to do; move down to 1302 sees about a $9 range, not enough for me to buy that mini-waterfall at the time; from the double bottom low, we get a short covering blitz taking us up to the exhaustion lines before running out of steam and settling back towards 1306 – 1307. At this point, the market is sitting right on the daily white horizontal line, thus making me very suspicious of buying when the plum slope line turns up very near yellow.

And as I sit here I’m thinking, “Ok, this is probably it for the day, but I’ll wait for the ISM numbers at 10, and after that see whatever reaction there is, and if there isn’t much going on I’ll hit the beach about Noon and wait it out until tomorrow’s NFP number.” When I saw the number, and the resulting $5 spike, I’m now on “beach hold” because what I’m now looking for is a move lower so that plum comes close to yellow and the slope changes; this time we are well above the daily white horizontal line, and probability wise, if I can get the trade I want, I don’t see how they can move this stuff lower into my stop before I take a profit. Below is the trade.

So, again today, like I said yesterday, look at how well the exhaustion lines predict in real time short term tops and bottoms; say whatever you want, you can’t argue their effectiveness for trading purposes.

The KEY TO EFFECTIVELY TRADING GOLD IS DISCIPLINE & PATIENCE; if you don’t have it, you won’t do very well. Because of the very erratic nature of the trade, the manipulation by the bullion banks at the behest of the FED & BIS, the spread, and finally pricing by the dealers, you have got to be buying on the way down [at the turn] and most definitely selling on the way up [forget whatever happens afterwards] if you want good fills and profitable trades.

Seriously folks, I don’t care if I’m right about my opinions on price; I could care less if they make me look like an idiot. The only thing that matters is profit, and the algorithm will give me that pretty much every single day. “Hey, it’s still not Noon yet! Time for the beach! Tomorrow is “stupidity day”; follow the rules, make the appropriate trade[s], and leave with profits. Until tomorrow …

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

OPEN A DEMO AND/OR LIVE ACCOUNT AT THE LMFX LINK IN THE “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION OF THE WEBSITE TITLED “OPEN TRADING ACCOUNT – DO IT NOW!”

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