He put this recomm up just after the ifo data hit the tape hawkmoon & logged out 20 mins later (apparently he’s off away early for a long w/end break), so he’s not personally trading it.
It finally triggered an hour later having consolidated 4150, but it’s gasping for air above that support & requires a shot of oxygen to get the blood flowing.
If you’ve earnt decent money this week then no need to stress about missing anything today.
Good call on the supports yesterday by the way.
thank to you tess.
i think you right, today is lack of interest so far. i was wondered if he wuold take this trade becose i saw the hook at the support leval and it is good risk for to test for more bull moves.
i will now go and enjoy the weekend and it nice to see you here. 
Could very well do.
Shame it wasn’t a New York Tuesday or Wednesday morning instead of a Friday.
Just don’t get caught in the middle of all the pushing & shoving (end of week profit booking & squaring).
I think I’ll let the end of week excitement play out & see what the land looks like again on Monday.
Good luck though if you get your slot.
You can’t really hang Tuesdays or Wednesdays hat on todays price action behavior Matt. The circumstances leading into a level will react & behave very differently according who is dealing it & why.
As you know part of our prep pivots around the current market (pairs) drivers & influences as well as technical positioning & relevance.
If the current bias is bullish & I’m looking to either get a foothold or add more juice to a core stake, then a pullback will be one option. But the price action leading into the potential pullback opp & the influencing factors playing out at the time still have to offer a valid reason to engage & commit funds.
If 1.41 interested me & I got an appropriate set up trigger to climb on, then depending on what was influencing the price at the point of entry (& the type of trigger that was tempting me in) would dictate where I placed my risk stop & why. It would also exert a major influence on my initial bet size.
I’m as tight fisted as the next person where value & charges are concerned. If I can get away with not having to pay an exhorbitant price to get my entry you can bet I’ll snatch it.
But if I couldn’t get a cheap risk placement to test my entry & I still fancied climbing on at 1.41 I’d slot my stop back underneath the current weeks low at 1.4050.
Each add-in is treated as a separate cog within the bigger wheel.
Not necessarily.
I’ve never bought into the deal that one needs to operate wide stops in order to negotiate safety or trade off some kind of breathing space regards entries.
Andre, Jimmy et al wouldn’t exactly label themselves as intraday traders, preferring to run intra & multi-week positions when circumstances dictate, yet on more occasions than not they’ll sniff & hunt down cheap risk if they can get it.
Ok - that’s a straightforward, logical appraisal of the current state of play.
I’ve just been discussing exactly that scenario with a group of people this evening. So I’ll ask you the same couple questions I asked them.
I take it you have (or you’re now considering implementing) your plan A & plan B tactics for next week?
If so, then what do you need to see happen from Monday onwards to bolter your confidence in maintaining a bullish stance on eur/usd?
And what do you need to see happen from Monday onwards to change that view & consider swapping hats?
My chart (& levels) is basically a replica of yours so I’ll leave mine where it is.
Your objective is clear
Your commitment to your plan is logical & succinct
And you’ve got a plan B if prices don’t quite go to plan.
If you approach all of your potential trade opportunities by identifying & addressing those points & continually ask yourself the 2 questions I posed above, then you’ll begin to create an orderly & disciplined structure in your mind which will cascade down onto your technical chart appraisals.
One thing I will add here Matt & I know I’ll begin to sound like a broken record again, but don’t overlook the potentially easier option when identifying & analyzing your opportunities.
I appreciate you have to maximize your time management due to work & other committements etc, but if you’re struggling to make any sense of the popular eur/usd & gbp/usd pairs then ensure you keep abreast (by way of end of day market wraps for instance) of what else the market players are focusing on & dial into the appropriate currency charts to see if any of them are displaying any of your favored technical behavior triats.
Libya & the Middle East has loomed large on the radar lately, so too has the co-ordinated intervention rhetoric from the G7 ministers.
Specific events such as that will cause waves across a variety of risk vehicles.
Commodity prices being one recipient of extreme reaction to risk.
Whenever turmoil, uncertainty & excessive positive/negative risk appetite raises it’s head it pays to cast an eye toward the currency pairs that will be directly influenced by these heightened (economic) psychological events.
You can match up the fundamental drivers with your favorite technical set ups/triggers & grab some terrific entry & risk bargains. And what’s more they will play out very clearly across the 60-240 minute timeframes to allow plenty of time to catch the ride.
I know you’re a keen observer of the 1-2-3 set up.
So if you know that the positive risk card is being dealt by traders, you can pull up the commodity, Aussie, Canadian or New Zealand Dollar charts for example, scan thru the various crosses & identify likely opportunities.
The 1-2-3 is simply one example of a reliable technical signal that consistently reveals itself at potential swing turns and/or trend continuation zones.
What better way to combine current market drivers with reliable, favorite technical plays than to focus on pairs that are directly absorbing those influences to go bag yourself a value deal.
These extreme & current influences don’t play out every week. But when they do make an appearance the footprints are pretty easy to track & the risk-value ratios can often be heavily biased in your favor.
Just pull up any one of the Aussie crosses on either a 60 or a 120 min chart going back to the 17 & 18th when the risk card started to be dealt to see what I’m talking about.
I was looking forward to your reply Tess after Matt put up his chart. Mine is unexpectedly the same! Its a real good time to be Australian and great to order something from the USA and find the dollar figure in AUD is lower
Hello Tony,
I would have been somewhat shocked had it not been.
Lots of different price influences, risk drivers & fickle money has churned through the market since you first parked your car in ATT, yet the basic tracks & footprints running away from the same old levels & zones are as clear & fresh last week as they were in 2007 & no doubt they’ll be just as easy to track in March 2015.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
Hey Guys,
Based on my positive live trade history evidence I’ve managed to negotiate & aquire access to an impressive bank roll with a very acceptable split deal, thanks in no small part to the material & information you’ve so kindly provided on here & helped me with.
I’m intending to use this opportunity as a stepping stone & further down the road would like to explore alternative funding streams for future consideration. It may or may not also involve a tie-in with other traders in the form of a collective unit, hopefully opening doors that would have otherwise remained closed.
Obviously my experience in this field is well below yours & was wondering what types of providers to begin casting an eye over.
I know you guys have a business relationship with NewEdge but they are out of reach to me for now.
As usual, any help you can offer will be very much appreciated.
A lot will depend on available capital, prior experience & whose backing you. It’s a little more relaxed & lot more accessible these days than it was even 5 years ago, but that can be attributed to the squeeze in participation than anything else.
If you get a foot in the door, & depending on your backers, cash status & volume throughput, you can do a deal on costs & comms.
You could start by contacting any of the following & get a feel for their minimum entry requirements, what they’re offering & how they might be willing to accommodate you.
ADM Derivatives
BGC Voice and Electronic Brokerage
Foreign Exchange Prime Brokerage - INTL FCStone Inc.
vCap Futures | Institutional Futures Broker | Online Futures Trading Platforms
Sounds like you’re accessing a filtered or sub-account of a larger funding pot. If their exposure allows you to deal decent clip sizes & they’re not too fussed about minimum volumes I’d milk it for all it’s worth & delay going it alone until (if) you really need to.
There’s a lot to be said for riding slipstreams!
If your current backers are well connected then consider taking the easy route & tap into their contact network.
A good working relationship majoring on impressive activity results will open more doors than you can imagine if you’re intent on flying solo, especially if they’re dealing with top tier price suppliers
Failing that, if your numbers are hot you could always pitch Tess or Andre with your deal.
You might even succeed in shaking Jimmy or Sean out of their seat.
Be nice to have a half decent conversation for a change.
Thanks Jocelyn, appreciate the links. I believe Carll mentioned FC Stone last year, so I’ll store those for later use.
Yes that’s essentially it. They run credit lines & allocate whichever platform they want me to deal out of. I log in, check any limits in play, size & grade my bets, they confirm any hedging considerations & away I go.
It’s working fine. They get another leg of volume - I get the elevated ramp up in size & more bang for my buck.
Ha ha ha ha you crack me up apache.
But I do note & agree your comments in the first paragraph.
Thanks again guys.
Hi Matt,
Presenting the account evidence was a small part of the overall process. But to answer your question it was 2.5 years worth, the past 12 months based on a much larger account balance/risk & bet sizing config.
I agree with Jos, don’t be in any rush to push the boundary.
Providing they’re quality players, use this opportunity to gain some valuable experience & confidence mixing in this type of company & start building yourself a competent track record handling large bet sizes.
Don’t try be the hero, just do what they expect of you & do it well.
If you establish yourself they’ll be only too pleased to increase your limits & cut you a little slack.
The upshot being when or if you do decide to either pitch your own deal with a quality broker or link up with another spec outfit you’ll be a far more marketable commodity.
The quality end of the supply network are always looking out for established players who can walk the walk to match up with some pretty heavy duty investment capital + the contacts you generate & nurture hanging around these circles have plenty of fingers in some tasty financial pies.
Good luck.
So how hot do those numbers have to be in order to get their attention?
For starters they’ll need to be based on a sound, profitable model evidencing decent bet structure & sizing.
If you’re coming in via the non-industry route then the longer (3-4 yrs min) your track record the better, as it demonstrates stability & consistency.
The rest would be down to the quality of the pitch.
Thanks for the insight! It’s nice to know the entrance requirements into these kind of professional circles. How about in the way of Degrees and Certifications, are there any kind of requirements there?
You’ll certainly require a degree as minimum entry level ticket if you’re going down the Investment Banking route for sure.
It’s pretty tough these days to get a seat at the premier firms.
Recruiters heavily pitch candidates from the top tier establishments (Harvard, Princeton,Yale, Oxbridge etc) & work down from there.
Although there’s no requirement for top educational medals in the types of funding opportunities mentioned here recently, most of the traders will bring that background with them. It’s an extremely competative environment & it’s shrinking compared to even a few years ago.
Although it’s by no means impossible for non-industry guys to get a seat (as Carll is testement to, & Kevan Reynolds looks to be), they’re few & far between & have to demonstrate very high skill sets.
You’re simply being allocated access into a basic interbank price engine with daily/weekly funding limits.
It’s an umbrella type set-up.
As long as you cut the mustard & can demonstrate a consistently above average track record you’ll get the opportunity to show what you got. They’ll put you through any industry required certification.
Profit is profit. These guys don’t discriminate on educational ability. If you’re smart enough to sit in the seat & deal your hand, they’ll make it worth your while.
would a good programer with thes skills work with you guys apache?
on the bid & jocelyn have said before that spescalist skills are high sort after by firms. i guess you all have your own skills.
Those types of specialists are usually on renewable contract or permanent payroll hawkmoon.
We have specialist input on tap 24/5.
To be honest, with all the industry wide shrinkage & personnel wastage the past couple years you can more or less take your pick of extremely talented, highly skilled stats guys & instrument specialists pitching their wares.
You might get periodic contract work with outfits who have split from larger firms & negotiated their own funding streams or small, well financed teams seeking specialists, but you’d need a decent contact base to get that kind of deal. It’s becoming saturated out there.
It’s pretty much a mixed bag here.
We’re mostly jobbers. Short-medium term directional momentum cash & ftrs traders. A few of the guys operate across multi-exposure markets & carry diverse skill sets, but majority are fx specific, either ex-prop or spec fund.