MOVING DAY 2

                                          Out Of HotForex

All monies are now out of HotForex and the PAMM has been dissolved. Our new PAMM is open for biz, and those who are new to the website can email me at vegasxau@ymail.com for more details. It takes a couple of days via wire, to receive funds and then get them wired out again, to finally get monies into our new PAMM at Forex FS.

As I stated on my other post, I had to change my twitter account because of technical problems; now I know why they call it Twitter – all the “twits” who work there. So, if you would like to follow my thoughts throughout the trading day, including closed trades of the PAMM, simply follow “@vegastrades” [minus the quotation marks of course].

What got me so upset last Friday was the way our PAMM account got treated by HotForex. Not only did the trading platform malfunction and the feed dropped repeatedly throughout the entire trading day, but four separate times – count ‘em – 4!!! – I tried to buy gold and got a “server busy try order again later” message in my order box. Of course, this is on a day that saw gold go up $80+, the largest daily gain since 2009.

You think maybe I was a little heated?

Forget slippage, I couldn’t even get into the system! Repeated attempts to get into chat were ignored by their system. Now, I did get off 2 small trades in the currency pairs, but both were met with 30 second + delays in fills. The first order in EURUSD got filled 8 pips away from where I wanted and expected a fill.

It is not my desire to down grade HotForex; they do a good enough job on their own to do that and need no help from me. But I will say this: anybody who trades at HotForex today, with their execution problems and slippage issues, is NUTS!

If we hadn’t been asked to leave, I would have switched out anyway. Over the last 4 months they have repeatedly lied to me about upgrades, new liquidity providers, and reduced spreads. Not much else to say except I would definitely not trade there any longer.

So, water under the bridge now, and no need to revisit HotForex again.

I will start commenting on action in the market tomorrow. Until then, have a good day everyone.

-vegas

MOVING DAY

                                   My Message To Twitter Staff

As if I need a new problem, today I got my @vegasxau twitter account suspended. I’ve sent out exactly 5 tweets, to nobody in particular except followers and #forex, #fxtalk, and #trading discussion forums. I was responding to someone who tweeted me, and when I clicked the send tweet button my account was suspended.

The first meaningless cow chip corporate form I got was asking me not to violate their “aggressive follower” terms and conditions. Huh?

So, I’ve sent the customer service staff members, which are probably skateboarding and eating tofu and way too busy to respond, a message to get on it. Maybe a year from now they will respond and “un” suspend me. And people wonder why other people absolutely hate with a passion, that burns as hot as the sun, corporate Amerika. And yes, especially left leaning, technocrat hypocrites like Twitter [Microsoft comes too mind also] who think they are doing God’s work, while ignoring you or making life difficult for you.

No trading today, as it is moving day for funds out of HotForex [hooray] and into the new brokerage house, Forex FS. It will probably be a couple of days until funds are in the new PAMM, so be patient until then and I will comment on the markets at that time.

On Friday, I said I would lay out today what happened that got me so upset. Let’s wait a day or two for that explanation shall we?

For those of you interested in participating in the PAMM, drop me a line at vegasxau@ymail.com and I will send details.

Have a good day everyone.

-vegas

CAN TRADING CONDITIONS BE ANY WORSE?

                     What I Really Need Is Just One More Problem

On Monday, I am going to address today’s trading issues. I’m going to hold my tongue for now; discretion being a virtue and all that. But come Monday ….

The fact that I made a $1.10 today is a miracle; truly, under the same set of circumstances I don’t know how anybody could have done any better. It could have been worse, and I am slowly counting to ten every 5 minutes to cool, what is otherwise a very hot cauldron of frustration, my temper.

But, like I said, I’ll have a lot more ro say about today on Monday.

Today was our last trading day at HotForex for our PAMM. On Monday [or maybe Tuesday at the latest], the remaining monies will be wired out and switched over to our new brokerage house in a few days.

Over the weekend, I’ll be updating and revising this webpage to reflect our new paradigm. I’ve got a few surprises coming next week so stay tuned.

Have a good weekend everyone.

-vegas

THE DAY BEFORE

                                      It Was That Kind OF Day

The day before NFP [which is tomorrow at 7:30 A.M. Chicago time] usually is a choppy affair. Complicating things today is the fact that most markets have been beaten down to a point where some kind of snap back rally is to be expected. Most of the Asian session and into the European session saw sporadic bouts of short covering in the Euro [EURUSD] where prices moved erratically higher.

As we moved into the U.S. session, we stayed within a few pips of the high for about an hour before the market started losing ground. Now, there aren’t many sure things in trading, but you can pretty much count on the high and low of the day to be very brief in time. Errr, except today.

This was the reason for not selling; we simply spent too much time there for it to be a high. What I was looking for from this area [1.2420] was a spurt of 10+ pips to a new high followed by a quick retreat; this I would have sold. Unfortunately, we didn’t get it.

Later, as prices moved to a new low, the algorithm did give a buy signal down near the bottom. I basically ended up scratching the trade [Ok, a few pennies when it came back] as I am reluctant to be long EURUSD in this environment. So, pretty much a nothing day except for a few pennies.

Tomorrow should be interesting as weak jobs data should prevail; question is how much does the market believe QE3 is on the way at the June Fed meeting? We’ll see tomorrow.

Over the weekend I will be making changes to this website to reflect our new PAMM. If you would like to participate, drop me a line at vegasxau@ymail.com for details.

Have a good day everyone.

-vegas

THE ONE-WAY TRADE

                                              It’s Never Easy

Right now, EURUSD looks to be a one-way trade; sell it anywhere and come back when it’s zero; history says otherwise.

Today we got a brief glimpse into what a market that is vastly oversold does when confronted with a rumor that makes no sense; up 50 pips in about 2 seconds, thus wiping out a whole lot of shorts who piled in earlier today.

We had a couple of scalps that were basically scratch trades and I have positioned in an EURAUD short position that I’m hanging on to over rollover; we are long AUD and short the EUR. We will see how this turns out, but it gives us a play on further Euro weakness with at least some upside protection with AUD [hopefully].

Have a good day everyone.

-vegas

Update 3:10 PM

I decided to close the EURAUD short position with a tiny profit and not take it through rollover. So, on the day we made a couple of dollars but nothing like I was hoping. Gold retreated and so did equities, and I'm thinking the only thing holding up AUD now, relative to the EURO, into the rollover is today's [Wednesday] 3 day charge for short AUD positions at 4:00 PM [Chicago time].

Update #2 4:05 PM

Continued erosion in stocks and gold after hours saw AUD make new lows into the rollover. Very good thing I got out when I did with profits.

A BAD DAY FOR SPAIN

                                               3 … 2 … 1…

It was a very slow day from the Asia open into the U.S. session. EURUSD only had a 60 pip range and gold was sitting there with about an $8 range at 8:00 A.M. Chicago time this morning. Trading was very slow, with action more like the stop hunt variety; sharp moves with no follow through in any direction.

Then Egan-Jones down graded Spain from BB+ to B, at about 10:40 A.M. and the race to the bottom was on; gold hurling down $30 before it was over [the last $10 a pure 100% dealer stop hunt] and the euro going down about 60-70 pips.

Earlier, on a buy signal from the algorithm, I got long EURUSD and we rode it up for about a 0.2% gain on the day; I got out when prices stalled but equities kept rallying.

Today was one of those days that really lacked any kind of trading action. Granted the ranges got put in, but not in the traditional way I would like to see. We get much better action when prices start making their move in Asia or Europe, then finishing up in the U.S. session.

This is our last full week trading at Hotforex. If you would like to participate in the new PAMM at our new brokerage house, drop me an email at vegasxau@ymail.com for details.

Have a good day everyone.

-vegas

PUMP & DUMP FRIDAY EDITION

                                  You Did What In The Euro?

I came into today’s trading extremely risk averse; A) it’s Friday, B) the U.S. has 4 day weekend with Memorial Day Holiday, and C) Greece and Spain are imploding. Just about every cross-current you can think of was in play today. To say the markets are nervous is a vast understatement.

Today I lost a #6 meal at McDonald’s. I gave it a couple of shots in the EURUSD and the market just wouldn’t go on the algorithm signal. If I had waited and given the trades more room [read more risk] they would have made us a little money, but at the expense of a much higher threshold for loss. Sorry, not today, and not this Friday. I’ll get the meal back next week. No biggee.

The algorithm actually performed very well in this Friday mess; at the bottom today in the EURUSD it gave a nice buy signal that I chose to ignore because of the weekend risk. But again, the risk in my view wasn’t worth the potential gain. I don’t like trades that are asymmetrically skewed against me.

For those of you who are relatively new to trading [5 years or less], I want to impress upon you the degree to which trading, these last couple of months, has evolved into. I often mention the “Flying Wedge of Death” [FWD], for the simple reason it is a big account killer. Double and triple reversal days, with large ranges, are simply a version of the FWD where the back side just keeps going instead of stopping; so, the “W” at the end is taller/lower.

I can remember years where you didn’t see 2 double reversals the whole year, and as I stated the other day I don’t think I’ve seen 5 triple reversals in 30+ years of trading; they are that rare in gold and currency trading. Now, in the agricultural and food commodities sphere, you see these all the time, but not in the financials.

As a professional trader, I know that my top priority is to avoid these FWD and be aware of reversal days; nothing kills an account greater than these two. We have seen an inordinate number of these over the last few months; in fact more in the last 2 – 4 months than in the last 5 years total. This has been the single biggest reason I have scaled back my leverage and become cautious in my approach.

OK, so I take a couple of extra months making you a millionaire; so what?

With my most recent update and revision to the algorithm [The Vegas Multi Time Algorithm, which is the newest version of the old BFSG Algorithm and not available to the public – only PAMM clients], by definition we can’t get hurt by these developments. We might not make much money when they occur, but any losses are insignificant to our goal.

Next week will be our last full week of trading at HotForex. If you would like more information on becoming a PAMM client at our new brokerage house, drop me an email at vegasxau@ymail.com and I will send details.

Have a good weekend everyone.

-vegas