THE “WHOOOOOOSH” SYNDROME

 

“Some things are meant for each other!”

And another couple of things that go together; “the whooooosh syndrome” & 

Cable trading, cuz when trading Cable, you never know when the next shoe to 

drop is gonna hit you right in the face. In “floor culture”, all it took was one 

disgusting look from another trader, who simply was expressing his total 

exasperation from a trade or series of trades, to know what the problem was 

… he got caught in the “whoooooosh”, and it sometimes really left a mark.

And simply, it goes like this; you stay long or short for what seems like forever, 

fighting the move against you and trying to keep your nose above the water line 

… finally, you throw the proverbial towel in, and anywhere from 1 second to a 

few minutes later it screams in your “ex” profit position … and nowhere does 

this manifest more than GBPUSD among the major FX pairs.

Yesterday was a clusterfark from the get go, and I got nobody to blame but 

myself … Cable algorithm worked to perfection, wishing only I could say the 

same about myself … after reviewing my trades last night, there’s no doubt I 

did “stupid shit” by trying to chase the market down … if I had simply done 

what I was supposed to, I’d have been backing the Brinks truck up to haul the 

money away, and telling the driver I think we’re gonna need two trips to get it 

all … and, I wouldn’t be telling the Mrs. it was the dogs fault [“bad dog, bad”!] 

… I “effed” up worse than a high school kid on his first big date … worse than 

the first day of class and I got a pimple the size of a golf ball on my forehead 

… I looked worse than a guy talking to a babe in the mall, and then realizing 

my zipper is all the way down … I felt like “Flounder” from “Animal House” 

… getting a general idea how badly I screwed up?

So, I can put on my “big girl” panties and own up to it … look into the mirror 

and tell myself what a Schmuck I was in FUBAR-ing that one up … Ok, time 

to refocus and make sure it’s a “one off” … back on the horse, in the saddle, 

time to ride. “I ain’t afraid of the horses”!

But, the secret to “screwing up”, is if two things come out of it that are positive; 

1) don’t make a habit of it, and 2) keep the loss as low as possible … this sage 

advice I got early and often in my floor trading career. In fact, after sitting 

back last night reflecting on my trading “prowess” yesterday, with the dog 

laughing hysterically right next to me, it came back to me why I developed the 

Cable algorithm in the first place; “which is to avoid massive whiplash on 

market direction, and attempt to be on the side of the trade that has the highest 

probability of success, cuz as we all know, this stuff can move and create riches or 

it can do some real damage … the riches come, the damages can make everything 

go “buh bye”, and nobody wants to say hello to the Pudding Business anymore 

than the next person”.

Turning to today’s GBPUSD market … “well, that escalated quickly to the 

upside out of the 06:00 server time open, didn’t it”? … and of course, it meant 

being long, something I’m not real crazy about early in the day, in this market 

environment of being down 800 PIPS in 12 trading days … and as I stated in an 

earlier blog, trying to sell the highs as it goes up can be very risky business. 

Today’s rally produced 8 new highs and then a double top high, so even if you 

got the price right the first 8 times, and gave it 5 PIPS of loss, your down 40 

PIPS on the 9th trip up … and if you sold it, you needed that break otherwise 

you’d have been “toast” … all above the “blue box” zone for being long or short 

… even back in the day, I don’t want to be in a position of “prayer” for any 

position, cuz at some point the trading Gods ignore your pleas and you find 

yourself in big, big trouble.

Directly below, the GBPUSD algorithm M15 chart for today.

 

FED rate decision out … mostly a nothing burger. Cable so oversold at the 

moment, looking like some short covering after the announcement. And once 

again, the “wisdom” of the algorithm shows its mettle, cuz it doesn’t call for 

being short unless the bottom blue box boundary is violated and the market 

stays below that level. Next up for Cable is tomorrow’s U.K. services PMI at 

08:30 server time … that, in my opinion, more important than today’s FED 

announcement. Anything can still happen, of course, but it looks like another 

“doji” type day for Cable, albeit one with a slightly larger range than more 

normal “doji” patterns.

Three trades today … PAMM up slightly about half of 0.1%. Not much here 

today, and I have no desire to trade after the FED with no time left in the day.

My three long trades today all came early, and it wasn’t one of your typical  

“blow the roof off” the top short covering affairs … yes, the first half hour was, 

but after that, it was like watching the fattest kid in school climb stairs; it 

eventually gets there, but it was tough sledding. And all the while, I’m thinking, 

when does the “whooooosh” come, and how much on the downside? Well, we 

found out later, and it’s these early rallies, with NO REVERSAL pattern after 

almost straight down 800 PIPS, that had me scalping out of long positions every 

time they got threatened … simply not willing to hang on without some kind of 

retracement to the downside, which we finally got, but being long in that into 

the FED announcement is a very tough way to trade and not expecting disaster 

on the horizon.

I think the upside could have produced a better range high, if we had started 

out and gone lower some before the ramp higher … cuz we opened, went down 

a few PIPS, and then blew the lid off … a move down to the 1.35500 - 1.35600

level would have been ideal. These type of small reversals have great power, as 

they tell the market that the initial direction has failed, and it’s time to go the 

other way. Remember, approximately 64% of the time, GBPUSD makes some 

kind of reversal off the first M30, and over these last few days, all we’ve gotten 

is straight shots out of the starting gate … a little weird, but not out of the 

ordinary either.

Tomorrow’s another day, and that report at 08:30 for Cable will most likely set 

the direction for the day … we’ll see. I don’t think, though, that even if it beats 

expectations, you’ll see Cable take off to the upside … it’s gonna take a while to 

undo the chart damage the last week has inflicted on this market, and what I’ll 

be looking for from the short side are higher 06:00 - 06:30 opens, that go slightly 

higher, and then reverse lower, setting the tone for moves down. Not much we 

can do on FED days, they’re somewhat tricky … although we got the rally the

 algorithm called for on an upper boundary breach, the action was horrible 

… it looked and felt very much like the proverbial “dead cat bounce”, and 

staying long as it rolled over wasn’t an option.

Obviously, I would have liked to make more today, but the setup was all wrong 

… you don’t want to see early rallies, if you want this stuff to go up, you want to 

see the lower price first, and then the reversal. But, anything on the plus side is 

better than the FUBAR I laid out and participated in yesterday … on to better 

trading … and with that, I’m outta here … until tomorrow mi amigos 

… Onward & Upward!!

PAMM spreadsheet is down again, and I have another tech support chat with 

Google in about 2 hours … after it gets fixed, I’ll update and post after 

tomorrow’s trading.

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

OUR TURNKEY FOREX “PAMM/MAM” IS NOW OPEN AND

OPERATIONAL; SEE “PAMM/MAM MONEY PROGRAM” IN

“DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION IN RIGHT HAND COLUMN

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I DON’T LIKE WHAT I’M SEEIN’

 

“Yup, I see it …. and I don’t like it !”

With increasing regularity, I’m seeing a phenomena in FX I don’t like … no, 

it’s got nothing to do with scumbag LP’s, although that’s a good guess …  it’s 

the increasing insistence of markets to make moves just “prior” to news 

releases; doesn’t matter the data, it could be any or all of the following 

… inflation numbers, PMI’s, ISM, retail sales, employment numbers, or 

central bank decisions. And once again today, with U.K. PMI set for release at 

08:30 server time, just prior to that here comes the selling in Cable … no 

matter the country, no matter the data … who is doing this and why?

Cuz to me, it smacks of somebody trying to muscle the market before the data, 

and knowing bids/offers start thinning out as we get closer to a release, uses 

their money power to move things in the desired direction and profit 

… meanwhile, after the data, it’s a gap and then “crumbs” for the trading 

community to fight and squabble over. And once again, we see it today with 

U.K. PMI. Fast forward to the U.S. PMI, and Cable … sure enough minutes 

before release plunging to a new low for the day. Is this the new paradigm for 

trading?

Of course, it doesn’t help either, when the LP’s turn the machines off, like they 

did today 20 seconds before the PMI was released, and turn them back on at 

08:33 … directly below, my M15 screen right after the feed came back, and 

you can see for yourself the gap the missing time left via price.

 

And of course, they did it again right before release of the U.S. PMI & ISM. So, 

twice today, got the machines turned off on us … nice. Directly below, the M15 

for today in GBPUSD … notice the 2 gaps in price … both were just prior to 

releases, and by shutting the machines off, not only did we lose opportunity, we 

lost pricing.

 

You have to fight the market, and every day fight the damn banks as well, who 

pull shit like this at their convenience, cuz they don’t want to trade with you if 

they think you might be able to get a price advantage by mistake. I asked 

Turnkey management after the second one this morning, “Is it too much too ask 

to have a market, or is us being here an inconvenience”? See my shocked face, 

they haven’t answered back … “crickets” all around.

And as a result of the front running of the reports, all markets have done, 

specifically GBPUSD, is get “monkey hammered” 40 - 100 PIPS lower, and 

then fart around and wait for the next event to roll around and it happens 

again … since it was at the 1.40000 level [now at 1.36000 - 1.36300 level], this is 

the complete M.O. for this market, with not much in the way of anything, 

besides the “Flying Wedge of Death” [FWD] yo-yo machine, but up/down of 

30 - 50 PIPS … today, no exception.

Turning to today’s GBPUSD market … clusterfark of gaps lower and short 

covering … that’s it in a nutshell. Have tried to be short all day, from every 

level, and almost without exception, got it shoved up my nose, sometimes 

quickly.

A shipload of trades today … PAMM down about $360, or about 0.6%.

No way to sugarcoat this donkey mauling, as all day long, outside of a couple of 

long trades, I attempted to stay short, and every time had to fight a market that 

wanted to go higher … and even when I had a lead in price, it came roaring 

back so fast to the upside, the trade provided little in the way of profit.

I feel like the grade school kid, whose Mom sent him to school one day when it 

was raining, and she got him all dressed up in his rubber boots and raincoat 

with hat, and put his books in a plastic bag, and sent him off to walk 3 blocks to 

school … and when he got there, he was soaking wet, and got sent home to 

change. What the hell happened?

I wish I could say, “well, I was trying to buy the bottoms all day long and got it 

rammed up my nose … that at least would make sense … but no, looking at the 

M15, I should have made a frickin’ killing today, and instead I got paper cut to 

death … very frustrating, and it’s a miracle there is anything in the house 

electronic that still works that didn’t have my fist go through it”. Aside from 

having the machines turned off twice, I’d cover a short position and it would be 

higher than where I sold it, and I’m looking for a signal or a good place to sell, 

and then … BOOM! … down it goes 4 - 7 PIPS in less than a second, and starts 

to run to the downside like a horse galloping out of control, and you either 

“sell it in the hole”, or watch it get the “Thelma & Louise” routine. In any event, 

I’m not in it, and minutes later it’s anywhere from 20 - 30 lower, and the 

process starts all over again … where the hell were you when I was short?

Well, here we are, down around 1.36000, from 1.43000 in 11 trading days 

… from here on down, until this stuff bottoms and rallies some, staying short is 

going to be rough going, and my hypothesis is that Cable needs to go lower at 

our 06:00 open, and then reverse off a bottom, and then look the hell out on the 

upside … I’m not saying it’s gonna rally “bigly & yuge”, like 200 PIPS, but 

there are so many shorts in here right now, it’s a very crowded trade. 

Tomorrow sees a FED meeting on interest rates, so anything goes at 2 P.M.

What I’m going to do going forward starting tomorrow, is give the early initial 

trades more “room to work”, and I won’t be nearly as quick to liquidate them, 

thus allowing the trade more time to take a hold of the short term trend … it’s 

a long day, and with the way this stuff moves, it’s what we’re looking for 

anyway.

Trader rule top ten: “put it behind you and move forward … it happens”. But I 

will tell you this; “unless I’m dead, the short covering rally off of this on a 

reversal bottom, I’m gonna be all over like white on rice … whenever it is, and 

whatever level it comes from … not prejudging anything, but I know it’s coming 

and coming very soon”. I’m outta here for a cold one, maybe 2, maybe … until 

tomorrow mi amigos … Onward & Upward!!

I’ll have the PAMM spreadsheet updated and posted either tonight or 

tomorrow.  

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

OUR TURNKEY FOREX “PAMM/MAM” IS NOW OPEN AND

OPERATIONAL; SEE “PAMM/MAM 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”!