cftc closing retail forex market $$

i think it's clear that the cftc has every intention of closing the USA retail forex market. this new 10:1 margin regulation will do exactly that.

there will be three knock on effects from that.

1. i'm going to have to move my accounts out of the US. and so will everyone else. the US business environment has become unstable. can't operate in it any more. so outflow of cash and loss of reputation.

2. the result will be the failure and closure of the US brokers. leaving the fx trading in the US to those big and very responsible players, as we've seen of late, the big banks. and of course unemployment for the staff in the industry.

3. we can't do business with americans as we can't get european brokers who will take US business. we tried. the european banks and brokers aren't interested. a lot of them are operating in the east as well, and even there they won't take US clients. so that means for your average US retail forex trader the industry is also closing.

so in summary, outflow of cash, unstable business environment - loss of reputation, unemployment and loss of income for two groups of people. how is any of that good for the US?

i actually think europe will follow sooner rather than later. so i'm going to move my trading east, to singapore and hong kong. especially hong kong won't jump every time the west snaps it's fingers and there's a bigger volume of business to do there. more wealth by far.

their business environment seems substantially more stable than the US one. which is almost beyond comprehension to me. this is third world stuff from the US here. i would expect this kind of behaviour from inexperienced administrators, not from a supposedly stable wealthy country like the US.

don't know what the US traders are going to do, i feel sorry for you unless can stop it, but me i'm voting with my feet, whether the legislation happens or not. not going to try and operate and an unstable business environment. so i'm taking my dosch to the east. those folks are a better bet all around.

$$ trading update

fighting back hard the last few days. starting to look likely we'll end the month in profit or just below. no nfp trading any more. we got nuked last time. definitely be green before the next nfp.

bit of a shaky start to the year, but so it goes.

$$ trading update

nfp was a complete disaster for us. we went in heavy and got smacked like a farang trying his hand at muay thai. and it's not over, the fall out will continue till wednesday at least.



so before i cry myself to sleep in my beer, what happens in between nfp's?



clearly nfp is having a huge negative impact on the system. half the profit disappeared in two nfp's. the question is - what's my goal? is it to trade fully automated or is it to make money?
if i leave it to run on it's own it'll probably putter along quite nicely, doing about 15% or so a month, if i intervene once a month i think it can do 30%.
i mean, how much of an inconvenience is it really to switch of a computer once a month for 10 minutes?

$$ trading update

wafting around. have a range of about 1 to 2% on balance, equity hovering around 2 or 3% change a day. activity is about 25% of normal.





basically all the majors have gone into tight ranges. nfp prognosis is not to good either. last two years all it does is cause high speed ranges. rarely do we get going after the data release.

not much else to say, just have to wait out the doldrums. long as we don't lose money, which we are not. so all good.

$$ trading update

32.58% up since december 8th, another 1% since last report. but we have 6% open unrealized.





banked so far 0.2% for the month of jan. we restarted well and fast, which bodes well for future close outs. nfp this week, so depending how we go in i might close out again.

$$ about the 25 000 pips wednesday

i got a few questions about the 25000 pips last wednesday. think it was wednesday anyway.

truth be told, thursday with 3000 pips was a bigger day. pips rarely reflect what's going on. i've asked fxbook to do a milestone posting instead. so when i'm up say 1% they'll post that instead.

the big pip counts come from partial tp's. i open at say 1 lot and tp say every 10 pips move 0.1 lots, so i'll end up with 10 partial trades each broadcasting like it was a full trade, tp10 x 0.1 + tp20 x 0.1 + tp30 x 0.1 etc at partial lots. for what was a 100 pip move, I'll bank 550.

what is relevant is the entry signals. the big trades. sometimes if the markets are slow i'll turn a pair in a few hours, but mostly i'll keep them for a few days. although they are at least 5 min delayed, because of the length of time they last, they are a very good reflection of my current view on a pair.

to see what's going on in the account, best to pay the blog a visit every now and then. twitter is ok for general overview of how the day is going and a broad view of entry levels. about 80% of my trades close in profit. so they're quite good entry signals. wouldn't suggest trying to follow them though, unless you're at the wheel 24/7...

few positions

about the tax

so south africa wants to take 40% of my global income on all my trading activities. then i have to pay another 14% in VAT on everything i purchase. then if i buy a car there's about 100% tax on that. and then there's about 60% fuel levy, all the local taxes, ground tax and so on. and then all the hidden taxes.

if i stay in south africa i'd lose about 70% of my income, while for example all those taxi millionaires don't pay one cent.

south africa's internet is probably among the top 10 most expensive in the world. to put it into perspective. a hotel room in thailand for a month with unlimited dsl internet is cheaper than my phone bill in south africa.

added to that, even with all those taxes the country is having rolling power cuts, as they didn't use the taxes to add capacity.

as a trader i need internet and electricity. having had poor and extremely expensive services probably delayed me for at least three years. eventually i gave up and had to hire servers in other countries to run my software.

the short answer is no. i'm not doing it. 70% of my income for rolling power cuts and internet that's being delivered at a 1000% mark up? don't think so. not going to happen.

then there's exchange controls. if i build wealth in south africa i can't take it anywhere else. so between the tax and exchange controls i can't think of a single reason to do anything back home. i'd rather pay tax to the thai, at least they paid for my diving medical the other day.

and if it doesn't make sense to me, it's not going to make sense to anybody who has enough resources to have options. in other words, everyone with 5 spare cents will go. and this is true for most countries. the world has changed. the rich shop around for the best tax rate. heavy taxes kill the golden goose.

hong kong will charge me 17% and if i run it through to singapore it will cost me 0%. i'm not working in either of those countries, or any other country, and i am no longer a taxable resident in south africa as i'm never there. and haven't been back long enough for some time to become one.

i'm afraid everyone's going to sit in the dark in south africa in a decade or so, wondering where the hell the money went. it's in the east. do come visit...