"Jack the Pipper's" rhetoric

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I am a daily reader of BabyPips and a successful Forex trader. I enjoy the many daily blogs that are posted at BabyPips.com. But I have a bit of a gripe with what I consider a lack of professional etiquette from “Jack the Pipper” in his “currency currents” blog. It seems to me that he has a habit of peppering his blog with political, anti-current US executive administration sentiment that isn’t necessarily an example of his disagreement with the practicalities of the current administration’s actions as they relate to Forex. As a quick and current example I took this snippet from his May 27th entry:

Whether or not one agrees with the strategy of the current administration’s approach to economic recovery is one topic of discussion and a fair one to be having. But to insinuate that the election of the current president of the US was due to a “skewed thought process” is going too far I think, if one wishes to be seen as a professional.

Besides that, the assertion of askew logic is a strange one to me in that the current president was elected through the process that we have used in this country since it’s beginning; we elected who most of us thought would be a good leader for the time being. It remains to be seen if we were right and until one can view things in retrospect it is difficult to say with any certainty how well things are going. That’s just the nature of our country’s political process. If Jack has a problem with the election of Barack Obama then perhaps his real problem is with the American campaign and election process. In any case I see it as unprofessional for him to comment on that in a posting on BabyPips.com as it subtly injects a political leaning into this otherwise politically neutral website.

This is not the first time that Jack has said something that I found very unprofessional. In a posting here on BabyPips that was promptly taken down and now I can’t seem to find anywhere titled something like; “A lesson about defying Mr. Market” (that’s a paraphrase of the title), Jack first caught my attention several weeks ago with his political rhetoric. But as I can’t find the posting I can’t quote from it. Anyways, I’d love to see less political conversation from him. I’m all for freedom of speech. But there is a time and place for certain conversations and as he is a professional I expect him to act with the discretion that fits his role.

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I disagree with him in a lot of topics (Gold for instance), but liberals like you make me sick! If you would really do what you pretend, you would not have posted your little puppet posting.

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I don’t think we have to take a discussion into the territory you’re headed towards with your comment. I simply think a professional investment type would best appear professional if they refrained from airing their political views in discussions about investment. One doesn’t have to have a political party or ideology to adhere to in order to be a successful investor or currency speculator, nor does one need to infuse political leanings into advice given on the matter of currency speculation or general investment. The notion that maintaining and navigating the free market is somehow the political property of a particular group of like minded thinkers is simply untrue, so I fail to see the practicality of associating politics with investment strategy.

For the record, I’m no “puppet” nor am I pretending anything. I’m not certain what you meant by that but I assure you I’m acting of my own accord and I’m not someone else you might suspect of pretending.

4

Jack Crooks is great. I agree with just about everything he writes, including his political potshots at the regime.

But, I understand how you feel about him — I understand your angst. I feel exactly the same way about George Soros.

There is the [I]Financial George Soros[/I], whom I admire and would love to emulate.

Then, there’s the [I]Political George Soros[/I], whose socialism-verging-on-communism is totally reprehensible.

If I could separate the two George’s, I would retain a totally de-politicized [I]Financial George Soros[/I], and the other one could go to hell.

But, that fantasy will never become reality. So, I read Soros’ books, and study his financial insights; and when the stench of his politics becomes totally overwhelming, I hold my nose.

You should try that approach with Jack Crooks’ blog.

And, speaking of blogs, where do you get the idea that the content of a blog should be politically neutral? It’s a [I]blog[/I] — it’s one person’s exclusive point of view, and you don’t get to add your two cents to it.

So, read it, or don’t. Take it, or leave it.

Oh, one more thing: As for puppets, the Soros/Obama relationship is a classic Puppetmaster/Puppet relationship.

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And that’s your opinion and it’s your right to have that view.

As it is, you don’t decide what he writes and if you don’t like his blog posts you should avoid them. I enjoy them and I also find his views to be not too far from my own.

Your opinion about his mixing his political views into his professional publications being unprofessional is imho flawed as politics is a major factor in what makes up the fundamental side of the markets.

I have to side with buckscoder here. I don’t like people who have opinions about what other people should or should not be writing. Period.

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Exactly! Why is it that you put everything so much more eloquently than I ever could? :o

Btw, congrats on a very well deserved entry into the exclusive FX-men club. You’ll be receiving the keys to our bat cave soon! :smiley:

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Thanks, MacGyver. I’m honored to join you guys.

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Interestingly enough, when you put it as you have it does seem much more tolerable. I think I agree with you in that it’s probably impossible to separate a person’s political opinions from their investment ideas. I suppose the real root of my discontent is with the place Jack’s blog is located. BabyPips hasn’t ever been presented to me as a political place. I’ve always gotten the overwhelming impression that politics are not the thrust of this website’s mission. That being the case it seems exceptionally off-putting to me to read one of the prominent members of the site repeatedly injecting political sentiment into investment discussion.

In practical terms I think it’s probably best for the website’s reputation if it’s perceived as politically neutral. I don’t find anything wrong with a person blogging their feelings. But as I mentioned before there is a time and place for everything. I’m not convinced that BabyPips is the best place for politics.

For the record I agree with you about Soros.

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Well, you can think what you like. You can also write what you like. No problem! As Jack or I do. The issue lies in the fact, that you disagree, everybody can write about what he thinks at any place, if it comes to political topics. You combine profession and sick political correctness. Then you pretend, you are for free speech. That is pretending and nothing less. I quoted exactly your speech, where this comes evident for everybody in your sentence and particularly obvious in the word “but”. There is no “but”. There is free speech or not. Period. I guess I am old enough to read and understand what people write and what they intend. If people defend their opinion with something and then write a “but”, this is clearly nonsense.

My opinion about the matter is that particularly in the currency market there is nothing unpolitical. As every currency is tight bound to a political system and everybody who has a bit understanding of currencies and political news reflecting price changes, knows this.

There is also no investment without politics. Even if you buy a pencil at Walmart you are paying tax.

Plus even if Jack opens insight to his private political opinions I welcome that! What is the problem with that? Lack of profession? Ridiculous! Look at other financial websites. There is a flooding of political opinions and babypips is in no way comparable to this flooding.

There are people who can respect other (political) opinions even if they disagree. And there are people who can’t or won’t. I sort you into the latter category. No “but” here.

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You make a lot of assumptions about me without knowing anything about me. I have yet to say what my political views are. I might support anything. The fact that I take issue with a financial adviser airing their political views while operating in a professional capacity is not a matter of me agreeing with him or not. It’s a matter of me thinking that practice reduces the credibility of one’s image as a professional. In business one’s image is a powerful force and the finest professionals I know can be trusted advisers to people they politically happen to disagree with. However, neither party in that scenario would ever necessarily be aware of such disagreement because a consensus on political views is not intrinsically linked with the sharing of financial advice.

It may indeed happen to be the case that politics and finance do overlap in matters of discussion and strategic approach. But my argument is that this is not a necessary development, only incidental. In an era of extreme politicization of nearly every controversial social issue I think the last thing we need from an open educational resource such as BabyPips is the politicization of currency speculation. Will we have to consider politics to some degree when analyzing fundamentals? Perhaps, but the matter is debatable. Do we then need to bother with seasoning our analysis with political jabs and innuendo? I hardly think so. I fail to see it’s practical purpose aside from further entrenching the very toxic generalizations and over-simplifications of our already strained sense of nationhood.

At the present I see no practical way that a financial adviser on BabyPips could adequately present comprehensive financial advice, simultaneously engaging in balanced, accurately informed and healthy political discussion. The task is perhaps too great to attempt in this medium in my opinion, which is why I think it often leads to childish, pointless name calling and opponent bashing. That sort of behavior has no effective purpose in furthering the apparent mission of BabyPips and thus, I see it as inappropriate for one of it’s leaders to flirt with in their postings. Obviously it’s my opinion. But as I do agree with the notion of the free transfer of ideas between equals, in order to arrive at our best approximation of the “truth” I felt is was warranted for me to mention it here.

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[B]MoneyChick[/B]

It’s true that we know nothing (well, almost nothing) about you — you just popped up here, for the first time, yesterday.
But, we’re learning a little about you. The more you write, the more we learn.

So far, we’ve learned that you are very thin-skinned. Not a good thing for someone who wants to survive and prosper in the rough-and-tumble, often brutal, world of forex trading.

If you think that Jack Crooks’ blog is full of partisan politics, you probably should avoid most of the forums here at [I]Babypips[/I]. There are some folks here with very extreme views on certain topics, and they aren’t shy about sharing those views.
I suspect you would be intensely offended by their robust exercise of free speech.

Whatever you do, avoid the forum called [I]Melting Pot[/I]. It gets really hot and heavy, over there. Most likely, that forum would make you crazy.

———

I think we’ve just about exhausted this subject of [I]who’s allowed to say what[/I]. I hope you’re getting bored with it. I know I am.

You claim to be a successful forex trader. That’s what we should be talking about.

Why don’t you tell us a little about what you trade, and how you trade?

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You do really want to argue about trends don’t exist around trolls with empty rhetoric? I only say [B]deja vu[/B]. :wink:

I smell this troll a hundred miles away against strong winds.

As my robot smells a profitable trade the same way.

Well, never mind.

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I smell this troll a hundred miles away against strong winds.
It appears to me that by “troll” you mean anyone who might say something you don’t agree with. If that’s the case then by your definition I would be a troll. But if we are to have a meaningful discussion I think it’s worth noting that there is really no need to take a conversation into the area of childish name calling. People who disagree with you aren’t antagonists by default. However there is a level of maturity required for an individual to understand that point in the first place. I hope expecting that from you isn’t asking too much.

@ Clint,

I’m a day/swing trader for about four years now. Occasionally I’ll do some scalping during the period between the close of the US session and the open of the Japanese, but that’s pretty rare. I turned professional, meaning I quit my day job for trading, about a year and a half ago. In that time I’ve managed to make a good living with trading. I’m currently big into trading the EURUSD and AUDUSD but I’ll trade any major pair that’s trending and that the fundamentals support. I have a simple system that anyone could get into. Every morning I get up at 6am, check the market news online, read the opinions of some industry advisers, then scan the daily charts for a trending pair. I trade from the 4-hour chart but I use the daily to see the overall trend and I use the hourly to get a feel for what’s happening close to real time. I use stochastics, RSI, trend lines and Fib to decide when to enter and exit a trade. I very, very rarely trade against the trend. Since I’ve become a “professional” I don’t risk more than 5-10% of my trading account on any given trade, though I do have a micro account that I trade high risk with, where I will risk as much as 30% per trade. But that one is just for kicks. At any given time I have anywhere from $80-$100k in my standard trading account. Every evening I’ll check the market news again and start to plan my trades for the next day. On Sundays I like to take some time and outline my trading for the week. I don’t trade on news events specifically, but I do use the news to get an idea of market sentiment and to keep tabs on fundamental developments. I suppose I would describe myself as a fundamental and technical trader with an emphasis on effective money management. My average trades are anywhere from a few hours to three days. On rare occasion I will position trade and stay locked in for a few months. But that’s not a primary strategy for me. I’m a couple of months away from my 29th birthday. I love dogs. What else can I say?

I don’t happen to think of trading Forex as something that a person would need thick political skin to do. I’m very relaxed about my trading. I just think we have too much politicizing going on in this country and I find it a bit disheartening. But my discussion here was never about causing trouble. I honestly wanted to respectfully share my opinion and see what others thought. If we can’t get any fruit from the discussion then that’s fine, we can let it drop. I have however, enjoyed my exchange with you so far.

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[B]MoneyChick[/B]

Let me reply to your most recent post in reverse order, from the bottom up.

First, I’ve enjoyed our chat, as well. And I hope I haven’t offended you with the “thin-skin” comment. I considered deleting that post right after I wrote it, thinking it was a bit harsh; and I still think maybe I should have done so.

Second, anyone who loves dogs is okay in my book.

Finally, thanks for the detailed account of your approach to trading.

You mentioned some things which surprised me:

(1) Your combination of technical and fundamental analysis. I’ve pretty much given up trying to interpret fundamentals. Consequently, I’m no good at applying fundamentals to currency trading. So, I’m interested to know how you use them.

(2) Trading (occasional scalping) between the U.S. close and the Japanese open. That’s the proverbial “dead zone”, when only New Zealand and Australia are active — and, most days, both of those countries seem to wait for Japan to take the lead.
Why would you scalp that particular time period, rather than, say, the active part of the Japanese session?

(3) Your 5%-10% risk per trade. I’m surprised that you would put that much of a well-established account at risk. We all did it with our $500 starter accounts, of course. But, most traders who post here on the Babypips forums, and elsewhere, claim to risk less than 5% per trade. And — unless they’re all blowing smoke — 2% seems to be the accepted “prudent” risk level.

— — —

Anyway, we’ve let this thread stray way off-topic. You began this thread as a complaint to the owners/administrators of Babypips, regarding political discourse on Jack Crooks’ blog. If you have more to say on that topic, this is the place to say it.

But, this probably isn’t the place for a continuing discussion of trading approaches and strategies. For that discussion, one of the other forums would be more appropriate: [I]Newbie Island, Forextown,[/I] or either one of the [I]Show Me the Money[/I] forums, for instance.

Or, you could start a blog. And go head-to-head with Jack Crooks.

By the way, in your first post, you referred to an entry in Jack’s blog which you had read, but could no longer find, which apparently got this whole controversy started. You said that it was titled something like “A Lesson About Defying Mr. Market”.

Here it is, still available in the Archives of Jack’s blog:

A short story about denying Mr. Market | Forex Blog: Currency Currents

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I agree that this thread is off topic but to end it I’ll just respond to your numbered points.

1.) Using fundamentals for me isn’t really an exact science and I’ve never been able to pin it down as such (for that matter trading in general isn’t really an exact science). But I find that it helps for me to determine whether or not it’s worth getting into a trade that might have a relatively wide range of price action to endure before ending near my profit target. Basically I look for the trend from the charts, then double check the reports about the countries in the pair I’m interested in to see if any reversals might be waiting in the wings or if I’m too late and the pair is about to go sideways for a while or if an economic storm is brewing for a potential breakout. All of that can be suggested by the technical stuff but without some reasons to support the pure technical signals I don’t ever feel comfortable getting into a trade. About the only time I’ll trade on pure technical signals is when there is no clear fundamental data to be had for the time being; much like the early part of last week for the Aussie. The AUDUSD hit a double bottom and I was expecting it’s movement upwards but there was no fundamental info that I felt was worth noting, so I waited until the price started to travel up past the neckline and I put in a staggered entry with a 350 pip stop. Eventually things worked out. But when it’s purely technical it can be a hairy situation.

For me fundamentals are more of a process of staying plugged into the economic developments around the globe. Anytime I’m away from my trading for a few days I feel very lost until I read the econ data and re-orient myself with a rough outline of how things are probably going to move. For me it’s kind of like there is a huge economic puzzle being laid out before me when I trade. The pieces are dynamic and you can only know how things are going to look for a little while because of the constant change, but if you can keep yourself plugged in and pay close attention to the currents of movement you can guess just before it happens most of the time and that’s where the money is. I’m sorry I can’t really explain my general fundamental “analysis” better than that.

2.) I do scalp on rare occasions between the US and Japanese sessions because for some strange reason there is sometimes some very short term, totally irrational price action that I’ve been able to profit from every now and again. But it’s rare and there’s really no clear method to it. I’ll just be watching the charts sometimes and I’ll try something that looks like it’s moving 20 or 30 pips. It’s not a major part of my strategy. I don’t recommend it to anyone, unless they’ve got money to burn.

3.) Why 5-10% per trade? Because I trade about once a week on a typical week, two or three times on a busy one, even though I engage in reading up on the market everyday and I check the charts all day from my phone and computer looking for opportunities. I also was taught to trade by an experienced friend and he got me in the habit of the 5-10% rule. Also, I’ve got some pretty lofty long term goals, so I need to risk just a little more than some other people. Am I afraid of losing? Not really. I lose sometimes but it’s much less than I win so it’s not a problem. When I started out with only a micro account I learned the hard way about risking too much. But as I lost I continually reduced my risk percentage until it was at the place that I felt I was much more often a winner than a loser and that I could easily manage. With trailing stops and good picks it’s really not a big deal to me. However, I wouldn’t recommend a person take this approach unless they really knew what they were doing.

Oddly enough I find that trading is about as un-scientific of a way to make money as anything. Sure there are the technical tools and the economic data and the industry analysts and all of that. But when I started being consistently successful it wasn’t really about all of that stuff specifically. It was more about getting a feel for the rhythm of the market and gaining an intuition about which signals to trust and which to verify. Ultimately the “market” is just a representation of the collective decisions of millions of human beings. Since people tend to have certain habits in decision making I’ve found that economics and trading are really about understanding how people make decisions enough to sort of beat them to the punch. Sometimes it’s completely irrational and you just can’t know and you lose. But for me it’s been a very profitable endeavor overall.

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The definition of “troll” is well written in Wikipedia.

Do you remember? It was not me who started this thread and asking for censorship of anybody or anything. I just wrote my opinion about your pretending free speech and real free speech.

Your reaction then was the same as this troll we had here for a while. At first you ask for censorship plus pretend you are a fighter for free speech, then if this is criticized by anybody, you tune the truth around.

You start criticizing things or people without hesitation and if you get a proper feedback, you are close to crying. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!

All of your behavior is already nailed in the troll thread of Clint here anywhere. I am to bored to post a link.

Well, as I said. Never mind.

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Lot of assertions there. Not a lot of sound reasoning though. But obviously you’re free to define me as you please. I’m fine with the discussion however. It’s seems it’s you that has gotten all riled up, tossing about accusations of anti-free speech and trolling, calling me a liberal that make you sick and telling me I’m a pretender. To me that seems like the behavior of a troll. At the very least it lacks tact and civility.

Really this thread hasn’t been heated in the least to me. I’ve had a good conversation with Clint. It appears that it’s you that wants this to be a fight. I’m afraid you won’t find one from me though. Maybe it’s best for you in the future to ask questions first before shooting off, you think?

@ Clint,

Thanks for the chat. You make some good points about Jack and after rethinking my position I suppose it’s most fair for all that he speaks freely and that I ignore what I find unnecessary. I’ve no problem with that.

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@MoneyChick

Yes, I am not very political correct. Because this would waste our time. Other ppl might waste their time with pretending, but I won’t follow.

How you interpret my behavior is upon your personal interpretation and I have not a problem with that!

About those assertions. I take just your words and do not interpret something into those words which is not there.

However. It seems, you have opened your mind a bit in the direction of free speech. Congratulations!

Ops, I forgot: Welcome at babypips. :smiley:

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[B]
MoneyChick,[/B]

Thanks for your very detailed, well thought-out, and well written reply to my questions. You and I agree on many things.

Politics may or may not be among the things we agree on — you haven’t said much about your political views.

What you have said is that you don’t think political views should be expressed here on the Babypips forums. And that’s where you and I disagree. But, let’s agree to disagree. Maybe we’ll even become friends.

I hope you will hang around, and continue to participate on these forums. Evidently, you are way ahead of most of the members here, in both experience and trading success. Those folks could learn a lot from you.

I hope to see you around!

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Soooo… You’re all for freedom of speech… as long as the said speech in question fits into your criteria…??? I’m confused. Freedom of speech = good, as long as what people say has been pre-approved??? Either you think it’s ok for people to say what they really want to, or you’re not.
Calling democratic electoral process balanced is a little skewed in itself, what with having ballot’s ‘misplaced/miscounted’, and millions in taxpayers’ dollars spent on TV commercials and slander campaigns and band-wagoning and on and on and on…
Over recent years, it would seem to me people are more quick to vote for whoever says the most ‘buzz-words’ on TV, and who has the better diss against the currently elected. Seems to me people would rather vote for whoever will lie to them the best.
I think the best thing people can do is follow the advice given to them by their parents. Namely, if you don’t like what someone is saying, ignore them. Works pretty well, usually…