Trading is the only job for me!

Everythings coming together! After I properly chartered that spead, it looks even better now.

I calculated my profit per trade in Eurex from my long log of trades and worked out the maximum I could realistically pay in comissions. I then set about researching every broker I could find, emailing dozens and dozens of firms asking if they offer ASX, which is the exchange I would be trading on.

Found very few who offered ASX and even fewer who didn't ask for a huge amount as a minimum balance. Then I encoutered a problem with margin, the margins for the products I want to trade are huge, and I needed 25% margin. As I am trading a spread it's frustrating to need a bigger margin than those trading outright because they add the margins on each product and seemed no one is willing to offer me a margin offset. Finally I find a broker who will offer me a manageable 50% margin and reduce my comissions in the 2nd month to something realistic for the strategy I will adopt. After dozens of emails and phone calls I negotiated 25% intra-day margin and much cheaper comissions with a cheaper structure on hitting 6000 lots a month.

I finally got a decent ratio for tick value in the spread vs comissions and should have roughly £300 in costs (massively cheaper than my previous arrangements when I was trading of ~£950-£2000) for platform and charts, have used the charts previously and the software in the last few days on demo account.

Plus I should get 3 months (100%) rebate from the exchange as I am new to the exchange. I found a new place to live, which is cheaper due to the locaton, but has a nice big window with sunlight streaming in and a big desk and spacious enough to trade. A club house next door, for virtually nothing each month, so I can work out at the gym, should help keep positive during the bad times!

Secured part time work 6.30pm to 8.00pm which covers rent and saturday work to help cover expenses, teaching English. Plus I can drop the work pretty easily, but gives me some stability. The markets open at 5.30am in Hong Kong so I pretty much have 11-12 hours of trading initially. I love how the markets are 23 hours, maybe I will one day hate that, but it seems the spread moves about throughout these hours, so can really put the hours in, eurex really died after 4pm, but I am still to see the markets actually move. Nonetheless everything has fallen into place. So this blog will resume! still trading spreads, just different products. Trading smaller size than before but overall my costs will be cheaper. Hoping to really build my account in these first 3 months and get my size up and hit even cheaper comissions, whilst I get exchange rebates. Updates to follow!

An opportunity to trade from Hong Kong

I have been in Hong Kong just over 3 months now and I still think it's amazing and the only place I want to live in right now. I ended this blog in July, but I have been itching to be trading almost the whole time. I got rejected by BNY Mellon despite answering all their statistical/technical questions correctly. I recalled bionomial disutributions to solve their last question, but they had to remind me the calculation for variance. Anyway it's been so tough to find trading jobs, without much experience and only speaking English, but still my previous self employed job (in partnership) was amazing, just spreads on EUREX are too crazy right now. So maybe I will be restarting this blog as I have found an awesome spread in Australian Bonds, 3 year against the 10 year and found a good ratio to make it a good spread. Below is the spread for last few days, from one horizontal line to the next is 1 tick, so it just seems so good to trade!

Have been researching and playing around with numbers to get to this point and now waiting on my previous backer to see if he will back me in it, unfortunately I have some requirements due to being low on living funds but hoping we can make a deal and I hope to be trading from January!

The End.

I quit trading on Monday, I should never have traded this horrible spread, I can understand why its not a spread but it was good until I traded it, what can I do!

Although I am really happy because I am going to Hong Kong with an open return in a month's time, just booked the flight. I have 1 job interview lined up for when I get there and I am hoping to find work and live there, it's been my dream. A dream I have had before discovering trading. I love HK and Cantonese language and so much more. I only been to HK once but can't wait!

Perhaps I will update this blog with what happens in Hong Kong haha.. I dunno. Although I would like to resume trading eventually and set up a company one day just for now I am focussing on getting an income in HK so I can stay there.

Although it's the end of this blog, its also the start of a new beginning for me.

GL to everyone who read my blog and all the nice comments (I never published them all) but did read them. ^_^

Huge Rant

Yesterday I completely lost it and was seeing red most of the day. I get fed up of being unlucky, stopping out of gold at 1050s was awful luck, as I puked almost the very low and I leveraged every penny into it. Then when I go into spread trading its really tough and then I quit for 4 months and the spreads are incredible, giving easy money and not blowing out. I return in April and by June everythings blowing out regularly, as in at least once a week. Then last November went to surprise a girl in HK and she had flown out to the US 4 hours before I got there!! then I got glandular fever and other things wrong with my health and had no travel insurance, so cost a fortune and had to delay my flight. I then get better and find out my letting agency have taken all my stuff, £2000 worth of stuff, most the stuff I owned infact. Still I am getting legal advice for it and no compensation yet.

My parents have now finally divorced and I am still yet to hear back from my biological father who said he would let me know when he's free, its been like 2-3 weeks... So much stuff makes me angry, I am becoming an angry person through no fault of my own. My backer banned me from trading over trichet along with most people he backs as last trichet we lost alot of money collectively, me and others. Although I lost my money on the bobl ted which blew out the day before and the moment I decided to trade it (see previous posts). So I watched as the spreads behaved beautifully over the conference and I was up 530 (which is very good) by 10am and I honestly think I could have broken 1400 on the day to make it my best day. It was just so good and people I know who trade same spreads made a killing.

So today I am trying to trade well and forget the fact its retarded to try and guess which days are gonna be good or bad. Plus trichet days have made me good money on average, so because of one bad one I am now so frustrated, I wish I could just have things go well for me!! both in trading and outside.

The week

I probably wouldn't have posted this week as yesterday I posted the month but its been a great start to July! +1367.5 euros, my 2nd best day plus this week ended so well, making 3500 euros in 2.5 days. Today the spreads moved around quite nicely but also two of the spreads drifted lower all day, but luckily I was really aggressive to get out and back in taking small losses on many of my trades. Before I would struggle to push above 600 on the day but with this new spread I am trading I feel like 1k up is really possible on non bad days. I only average into the bobl ted and the fly or the schatz ted and the fly never the bobl ted and the schatz ted but I trade all 3 and today I was constantly trading all 3. Taking my positions off in profit on 1 spread whilst putting on another and trying not to miss any opportunity in all 3. So I am excited to see just how much I can make like this as I feel this set up suits me better.

I feel more positive now but not only because of a good run recently but because a year ago I was happy to make 300 on the day but my stop was also about 1000 like it is now (although I over run it often) and then when I stopped out it would take a fair few good days to make it back what with all the costs but if I am capable of up days as good as my down days it makes me able to relax a little. The reason is also due to the fact I now do 14 hour days everyday except Fridays and now my account will be almost recovered before I pay desk fee for this month, never could have imagined it had really given up. I think perhaps people think I am bad at taking losses but its totally different when its your job and you need the money to live. Fingers crossed. I just scratched the lowest price of the day in the fly as I realised its near 4pm on a Friday and things can drift after 4pm and the price I am buying which is the lowest of today is actually relatively high on the week and I could end up having to hold a huge position over the weekend. Since then its already pushing lower, maybe I am learning!

Wishing my blog followers who are also traders a good July ^_^

The week:

June

All I can think to say is my PNL is more mean reverting than these spreads. To a good July!

EDIT: just updated the graph as I made some just now, all the spreads blew out within 5 minutes massively! 5 minutes seems like a long time when your waiting to sell the spread so obviously sold into it and kept doing so until I was like oh my god, need to get out looks like its never gonna stop. Each of my charts had a sharp line up, bobl ted went about 12-15 ticks in those 5 minutes, considering how I was complaining about a 25 tick move over the day in my previous posts, so it was a huge move. The schatz ted went 5 ticks and 4-5 ticks normally stops you out if there are no retraces which there weren't. Then the spreads reversed  so fast and came back most the way and I profited 400 from the move. Actually a really nice move in the end. July has cost over 5000 euros in comissions and therefore a bad month but I feel my results are good considering how bad the spreads have been. I have made 2100 euros since mid day yesterday (after I stopped out) which is impressive considering spreading is all about frequent small gains and infrequent big losses and normally when I stop out it takes longer to recover. Although the bobl ted has been really bad since I started trading it I really like it as I can leg prices a lot easier than the two other spreads I trade. The euribor schatz spread has so few opportunities and I am trading it less and less each day. Trading the euribor further out against the bobl means prices move faster and ranges are bigger so its alot more exciting too and I feel it's not so impossible to make a bag (1k) in a day trading the fly and bobl ted so I am hoping to recover my account and whack it back into positive figures so I can start drawing again.

Almost game over

This Euribor Bobl spread having blown out on the downside retraced all the way back up to near its high. I stopped out basically twice on it and was thinking about writing my final blog entry. I played half life 2 deathmatch and watched dexter and then saw the it had pushed higher past its high and sold it again and if it goes more I couldn't see the point of continuing this "job". I made some back and scalped it on it's high and held some overnight trying to run it as much as possible. I kept going 300 in profit to 0 and I scalped it with a 2nd clip whilst it did that and the 3rd time I was 300 in profit I just took it. I have recouped 1400 euros since I last stopped out yesterday so I will keep going. At least I know I can make decent money I just need the spreads to not move huge amounts.

Its been almost impossible to spread trade and yesterday the markets were moving so fast and what seemed to be erratic unlike anything I have seen before. I think that shows just how screwed the EU is right now, which makes spreading in these products a mission.

Can't believe it!

Last Thursday I stopped out -1900 euros, the Euribor-Bobl which I had just started spread trading literally collapsed! I can chart it for the last 3 weeks and it has about a 12 tick range and has been bouncing around perfectly. Almost as soon as I decided to trade it it fell massively. It stopped me out on Thursday along with the fly which made a reasonable move. Then on Friday I was up 1100 euros by 9am and I am not sure how I did it as the spreads had barely done anything. The Euribor-Bobl spread had retraced a bit and then continued to move down. I was down to 100 euros up and was getting out, I stopped out half my position on the Euribor and got a ticket for the bobl 1 price above market ready to take it if it got there. This gave me a chance to put my Euribor back on at a better price and avoid stopping out. I qued various prices and got filled on all of them and made 500 euros. I put my spreads back on full size and was up 900 not too long later.

Then the spread pushed lower putting me to 0 and I got half my position off and did the same thing, profiting 300 euros on the Euribor. I thought surely I have survived this huge move, please don't make all this outright trading for nothing. I am soon printing up 700 and then about an hour later -85 euros and I am getting out again! I trade the Euribor and Bobl outright loosely and not really as a spread but remain very much in the spread. I get it positive and put everything back on that I had taken off. I sell 1 clip 2 ticks of the low of a 25+ tick move and hold 75% of my maximum position over the weekend and I am printing +500 on the lowest traded price, so seems a success.

This morning I come in and improve my average position and then quickly am able to get my position off completely as it retraces 6 ticks and then continues another 6 although I am already out. This brings Fridays trades to +1400 euros, which makes it my best day in trading, suprisingly. I survived the huge move which just seems unbelievable and below is the spread which I took a screenshot of on Friday (the left one has a timeframe and the right one is last 2 and a half months)

Mr.Bobl

aka the 5 year german bond, I prefer this market to the others that I trade and perhaps hoping to eventually learn to trade it outright. So today I have added a new spread the bobl ted, euribor - bobl. It seems fun because you use an euribor quite far out, I am using March 13 so it moves alot quicker to March 12 for example. Although the spread is quite dangerous and can make some big moves but its been pretty solid recently. I made my first trade a quick 50 euros, I hedged and unhedged myself on the euribor within 2 minutes, I didn't want to hedge but not ready to trade outright yet.

I have only made two trades today its been very slow but I feel a lot more positive today, I have 3 spreads and 5 markets all lined up across my screen to spread across and can roll from one spread into another more fluidly now that I am doing bobl against euribor as well.

Btw if anyone trades bobl outright please leave me a comment so I can ask some questions!

Trading video

Last Friday I was down a fair whack and I decided to record part of my screen over non farms to avoid trading badly. Seeing as so many people have been messaging me about how to enter a fly here is a link to the video I recorded.

http://imageshack.us/clip/my-videos/62/jdz.mp4/

Sorry for terrible resolution, the 1st ladder is euribor, 2nd is schatz, 3rd is bobl and 4th is bund. The first trade I do is entering euribor-schatz spread. 2nd is shorting the fly which starts with buying the bobl. Then I exit the fly by taking market on the bobl.

Dan

Losses.

Alot has happened since I last posted. I had two really awful days, on Wednesday and Thursday. My long term bet wasn't so long term and I stopped out of it -1200 euros. If it wasn't because of that it wouldn't have been so bad but other trades were going offside and was hard to hold them as the combined losses are too big. I tried really hard to not stop out this other spread and was making up to 250 euros a trade trading outright and made around 600 euros in total trading outright. I was trading outright leaning on stopping out. I recovered 200 euros at one point on Thursday and I was on the offer of the bobl and all markets just moved a huge amount up in less than a second and I lost like 400 euros instantly and was pretty pissed off to say the least, I finished early and tried to cool off.

On Friday I saw my statement quite negative now although I had withdrawn from my account to make it close to £0 just before. Then on Friday at about 1pm I was down -1000 to -1200 euros and didn't want to stop out because then it feels like game over...

I ended up having the best recovery ever. I didn't do anything different just got in and out as many times as I could and I was even trying to work bids and offers in the last 10 minutes of the day. I ended up +848 euros and now my account is a little better and can make it positive in a good week. It has just been really tough  this last 2 weeks hopefully things will calm down next week.

Last week

Not so good..

A long term trade

I have been watching the Euribor March 12-September12 spread for a while. Although not charted it I could see its been tanking. I decided to long it today, 8 by 8 and if it goes up try to hold it, I won't take any off until at least 20s. The interest rate between the two are really close and there 6 months apart. March is predicting 1.89% and September 2.05% and today the interest rate is 1.25%. I think they will be hiking rates during this period more than the market thinks and this spread is really low. Although it can always go lower and even negative. Below is the spread since just before March and I am long 16.5s, 1 tick for me is 200 euros (EDIT: I thought it was 100 euros and just realised so I have put more on than I thought! but already in profit and I wanted to do more so will keep it) I never do Euribor spreads so its a first time thing for me.

Huge loss :(

So yea the fly went down more and literally on the low for this day I panicked as I printed 350 euros over my stop and I thought I'll just take it all off at once and I qued the bobl and got filled and had to take market on the schatz but the bund just went and I missed a fair few prices and stopped out -1750 euros. Considering I was up 655 on the day and I lost 200 euros more later on the loss is to depressing to add up. I know for a fact others trading over those two days had some horrible losses as well. I stopped out at such an horrible price and within 20 minutes it had retraced a little and the bid, which would be at market to get out at was 1250 euros better off than where I got out. I really screwed it bad. I took the rest of thursday off and went clubbing came back at 3am and was trading by just gone mid day, although I was planning to take the day off... I made 380 in no time at all and now I am short the euribor-schatz with big size over the weekend and around the zero mark from the last traded price which seems pretty good considering how far it went, I was pretty conversative on it.

My week although unfinished I thought would be amazing, half way through I was up 2000+ and now around zero, with £1000+ in costs! Eitherway it's not so bad and I have been able to make many withdrawals including another one just before this loss.

Fack

I was buying the fly all day, ranging really well... and then I scratched the low of the day and thought this was gonna go lower, already really low. I had a 15 minute break and came back and saw I would have been in profit so got in and got a bad price and bought all the way down, it ended up making a huge move down and I was so pissed off because I thought it would. Just its a spread and its low so it goes against logic, so maybe I shouldn't be so angry but I sold some on the netting to get out as it was printing something good initially and then the prices changed in last 30 seconds to lower than the days low and it's too risky to pull my order incase I am unhedged and I am not sure I can so late and so I sold an awful price. Was doing really well and well over a 1000 down on this fly since it tanked with 60% of my limits on overnight.

ARGGG..

Non stop trading!

Hmm.. was doing well half way through the day, low costs and up 500+ euros. Then the fly was going down nothing to frustrating but everytime I entered and exited the spread I got so fucked. I was scalping the fly like 5 times in a row making a loss each time and the spread was bouncing around within a range :( The spread came down a little further and I was down 200 euros, one trade I lost 200 euros on because everything fell so much at the wrong time.

Then something weird happened later on, the bobl went up to 115.94/95s and back to 115.92s and then back up and then back down, in a nice smooth motion but fast and kept doing this for a while... the bund was trying to keep with it and the schatz staying still. I qued the 94s and 92s and legged the bund and repeated and made a couple hundred on it.

Its actually taken me a couple of hours to write this, so much is happening with quite a lot of pauses but still the fly is so sweet since 5pm, its moving and really thin and the best I have ever seen it in the evening. I have done a personal record number of trades for the day, 1333 lots so far or about 50 trades (in and out) and almost up the same amount as earlier after costs! Also 3834 euribor march 12 was sold at 7.47pm which is huge and massssive for this time, generally no volume on any markets. That pushed the TED down and I bought some and now offside, looks like I will have to hold this overnight now.

Edit: not having to hold too much overnight, last 5 minutes liquidity decreased loads, 2 to 3 prices on most of the markets had no one buying or selling, mental! today was so much fun, sleeeeep now.

Last 40 trading days

Two months have passed since I restarted and I have made almost 15,000 euros in the markets during that time. I am hoping it wont be so long until I am debt free, it's been a while since I bought something I wanted! and thank you to all my regular followers mainly from UK, US and Denmark :)

I know it doesn't include costs but hoping soon I can claim to have taken 50k out of the markets (lifetime), still a little way to go though, wish me luck! :D

Reflecting on life

Finally feeling well! I hate trading when I am ill because I find it harder to let go of mistakes and sometimes I try and overcompensate them, anyway I am ready for the week.

Yesterday I spoke over the phone with my biological father, I have only met him once when I was about 16 and it was really cool. I will probably meet him next weekend, my step dad failed me and even though my biological father did too he admits his flaws and I can relate to him and I find him pleasant company. He is a risk taker too and will be interesting to learn why I am the way I am.

It got me thinking about my life, I made this blog recently more about my trades, blogging results and my emotions on the tough and good days. Although perhaps its more interesting to reflect on how I got to day trading. I think I had a good path in software development and not so long ago I was in contact with the president of BT for a job in Hong Kong and also in contact with a guy who wanted me to be the new junior developer, someone he can teach and he took a liking to me I think.. I would have started somewhere above £30k if I was successful. I never applied and I told my friend to tell the BT president I am going back into trading and thanked him for his help. I would have been miserable developing although being in Hong Kong would have been sweet.

If I could enjoy life, to want to comment on sports, the weather, go to the cinema and actually enjoy it, I could have been at peace with a more normal route. I get bored, I get frustrated by others but I am very quiet in my frustration. Although not to my closest friends who I unload it on, sorry! I must also have some sort of bi polar thing too. I hate falseness and hierarchy, my mum said as a child I always wanted things to be fair and would go out my way to make it so. I was in the lift once at work, two guys entered the lift from another company, one was clearly senior and the other clearly a new starter. The senior guy was so patronizing in how he spoke, it was unbelievable. I listened to the whole conversation and was so disgusted I could feel my blood boiling and instantly said "that sounds like fun" as sarcasticially as I could and looked at the senior guy like ye fuck u.. for someone so quiet it should have been surprising but they didn't know me and I was obviously ignored. Around that time I also put my neck out to get my friend off a bad product, the whole team was shifted to fixed income and then I complained again when they weren't aloud to average, lol. I wasn't gonna let them emphasize their profit heavily on comissions at the expense of my friends career.

Perhaps I shouldn't have picked such a tough entry into trading, I could have tried to go to a bank or perhaps worked in software for a bit closely with traders and migrated or whatever. I did this route because it makes me happy and I thought I have a good chance, although I admit there's many ways for me to fail, but then if there weren't it wouldn't be the job for me. It's not such an easy game, spreading is good and all but for me it's a stepping stone to something bigger and more secure. I can only try and stop and review where I am going and keep a level head, there is a balance! Things are going well, better than I had hoped since I restarted in April but always good to reflect.

For any newcomers, I wrote a few blog posts (kinda articles) about a year ago on: zero sum games, what I think the perfect strategy is and about the worlds biggest economys.

Week 9

4.30pm now and I think I will leave the screen, people are rolling to new contracts and I will roll over on Monday. Right now its quite thin on the new contracts so best not to leave overnights and I don't want to leave overnights on the current ones I am trading as they expire on Wednesday so best call it a day!

Non Farms was good to me, I was decisive and legged well, I basicially made my day on it and had a really good week too, which seems surprising as it didn't feel like it was one along the way.

The week:

zzZ exhaustion, more blow outs etc

Yesterday was going well until I sold the Euribor-Schatz (TED) in the afternoon which carried on until 9pm and was buying the fly. Was around -100 at 9pm having been up about 400 euros. Held it overnight and this morning the TED went further, 8.5 ticks from yesterday which is a big move but no big shock with everything that is happening with Greece. I hit my stop and traded outright, anything before taking the -1000 euro loss and made a little. -900 and was then outside coughing, choking, been feeling ill since monday, can't tell you how badly I just want to sleep, but I gotta commit to this job! Then the TED tanked and I got out about 900 euros better off. I didn't want to buy the TED even though I knew others were, it still seemed high, but then it came down another 1.5 ticks and I bought it and is working out.

Actually I think I am gonna lie down I feel like I might pass out.. I am flat and up 355, I did just get out of my longs for a scratch and bought bigger size further down and took a tick. Rarely do that.

Gross profit for May

Broke the 9000 mark! first time ever.

Yesterday already recovered!

Thursday was a bad day, I ended up finishing down 1080 euros as I put trades on overnight which lost a little. On Friday the Euribor-Schatz spread went more and then retraced enough to profit. The fly had a ridiculously tight range, about 4 ticks for most the day, but amazingly there were so many opportunities. Although you had to get the legs almost absolutely right on entry and exit. There was a really good hour in all 4 markets that I trade around 3pm to 4pm and by 5pm I was out the office and up 1000 euros exactly on the day!

Unfortunately I am down on the week after costs, I did a huge amount of trades, but that was because it was so tough, the 1200 or so euros I made all eaten up by costs. Anyway I think i did a good job on a tough week.

Sweet

Carrying on from my last post.. I sold the high again before the close last night and still had 1 clip on from Tuesday. This morning everything opened lower! 2 ticks below the high, I bought 77.5s and then the rest at 77s. I wasn't sure if I should have left just 4 by 5 on, but it was soon back up and I sold 1/2 tick of the high and took 1.5 ticks on it and it has been ranging nicely and now just waiting for US jobless weekly claims.

4 days left of the month which includes today and I have just broken through what is my most profitable month since I started trading in May 2010. To think I was applying for jobs back in software just 2 months ago, it wasn't until I spoke with a local taxi driver about his story which involved shares and he asked what I did so I told him how I was trading, by the end of the conversation he made me realise I shouldn't give up on trading. I think it was the following day I got in contact with previous backer.

14 hour days are really taking their toll, I feel so drained and feel less socialable than ever haha.. too much pc time.

EDIT: Just stopped out for the day, -955, the figure blew the spread out... what can u do.. just hope I didn't puke the high. After feeling so good earlier this sucks but meh I think yesterday has helped to soften the blow emotionally, as I made 844 after closing trades of this morning.

A long and exhausting day

Yesterday the spread came down a bit and then pushed back up and through new highs, I was doing well until about 6pm when it pushed higher and closed on a new high. I had over 60% of my maximum size on and held it overnight. My position was €250 a tick and this morning it opened up a further 2 ticks against me. I put on the rest of my size and was trying to figure out my PnL, as settlements from yesterday affect my PnL due to the fact I still had positions on from yesterday. I figured when I was printing -1200 I was pretty much at my stop. Once again I seemed to have dodged a bullet as it didn't push anymore and the spread had a 1.5 tick range for the rest of the day. I did my best to get in an out and reduce my position. I felt dizzy, tired, nervous at times... bored and excited, there was one point my PnL was going from +40 to -1000 within a minute as different prices traded but nothing moved, I was just thinking this is so insane. I had some flys on at this point which wasn't helping me relax, hence the huge swings.

Right now its trading 79.5s and I am short just 12 by 15 and printing +145, I don't have much on so my PnL is actually around this figure. I tried to picture me blogging about an amazing recovery about 10 hours ago and I couldn't picture it. It seemed too likely I was going to have to buy the euribor at so many points to stop out. These last few days and even last week or so have been incredibly tough, I don't know what to do differently other than just admit its been tough and keep on being aggressive to survive and not ever let myself hold huge positions and hope it goes my way. I have fighted to reduce my size at every opportunity and need to always make sure I continue with this attitude as it helps me out on days like this. The spread has become more volatile recently. From December to April I was out of trading and seemed I missed an easy period for spreads. In December I screwed up badly, although spreads were insanely tough to trade, I just hope it's not gonna be like that all over again, as that would mean I only got about 7 weeks of good spreading in!

Tough day

Today the euribor-schatz spread went up, about 4 ticks is enough to stop me out if there are no retraces, so I was pretty close to stopping out earlier. 76s was my stop :D

It opened quite high, so I sold 71.5s, which I thought was good, as 71s were kinda tricky initially, I sold up to 72.5s and bought back almost all of it at 71.5 and started selling at 72s. I sold everything up to 73.5 and then it went to 75.5 and I couldn't sell anymore, I was maxed out.. when it came back I unloaded 37% of my sells off between 74 and 74.5, above my best sell. I then just traded the range and now positive so now aiming to cover costs, which would be awesome. Made a record number of trades today, and really concentrated hard from 7am to 6pm to try and dig myself out the mess I was in.

Edit: finished +€195 not enough to cover todays costs but to have a result like this on a day like today, I am very happy!

Probably done for the week

Almost 5pm and won't stay too much longer.. just over €2100 for the week. I have chance of making this month my best so far.. getting close and still 7 days left. Averaging €445 gross a day for the month thus far!

~ ^_^

Reflecting on the week

Thought I might blog to relieve a little bit of stress. Last week was good and Monday of this week was also good. Since then it's been so frustrating I have been so pissed off at times I can't describe it. The euribor has been massively implied/spoofed and u can't lean it, sometimes the offer has next to noone selling and then the bid gets all taken and the price below too.. and your left going what the hell! If I were to buy the euribor and sell it 3 prices higher it would be 300 euros. So when 2 prices dissapear you can imagine how that completely kills your day when you just took the schatz off. Yesterday I had bought the bobl and sold the bund and was leaning to sell the schatz to complete my entry and 3 prices got sold on the schatz in one order... so I was like er what.. next one went and I took 130 euro loss legging out the bobl and bund.

Basicially legging in these markets is all u can do because its so tight but its just screwing you over so badly at times. Today wasn't as bad, I spent 3 minutes waiting on the schatz then scratched the bor then everything went and I saw I would have made 100 euros 2 minutes later, bought the bund and lost 80 euros on it then it went rocketing up and I sold the lowest point to get out, left just even more frustrated.

Despite that, Tuesday and Wednesday I pretty much broke even and would be up after rebates and today is going pretty okay up 500 euros now, having been down about that amount earlier.

Spread blowing out

The chart belows shows the Euribor Sept12 - Schatz June11 spread which I have been trading.

Since thursday it has blown out, going up and barely retracing. Today I bought the dip and messed up as I got disconnected whilst legging out and then started to sell at 87.68s, I sold every half tick up to 87.71s and was then getting ready to puke for -1000 euros at 87.72s. Luckily it bounced of this level and ranged between 70.5s and 71.5s for several hours. I made the most of this opportunity, taking over 60% of my size off and being aggressive to improve my position. I am now short just 1 clip and its 8.30pm so probably holding this overnight. The spread originally blew out over Trichets conference in which he made a comment about rates being on hold until August (I think it was)... also concerns about Greece and the Eurozone have made the euribor rally, meaning the markets now expect less of a rate hike than they did previously, which is why this spread has blown out, as the euribor has been outpacing bonds. The spread is now at 70.5s and I am printing up 75 euros! so feeling very happy to have turned this around.

Biggest week yet!

Pretty sure I am done for the week now, prices are moving away from anything I would be interested in trading. I pretty much just doubled my day in the last 50 minutes between 5 and 6pm, glad I stayed! Everything just thinned out and there was a schatz stop and all worked out nicely for me.

This week has been my best yet, around £1600, net!

I couldn't be more happier to have had such a good start. Also the spread blew out massively during Trichets press conference yesterday and then this morning went up again and I was really cautious to sell and picked my levels and traded smaller size as conditions were extreme. It has been a long week, stressful and fun, i feel absolutely shattered, so I guess that means its pub time ^_^. Graph is gross profit for the week.

April

My first month back, not a normal month because I don't pay desk fee until next month and I only was able to trade 14 days. Nonetheless the last 4 days were good! and after costs and rebates I made about £2000.

I will withdraw £500 as I need the money and look to withdraw another £500 next month. I hope my account will still be able to grow but already I am realising how much easier it will be now that my desk fee is half as much as before. Trading remotely suits me alot better, I can trade easily up to 9pm because I can go between home and the office without travelling! I can sleep in longer which is great because I aways need a lot of sleep to fully function.

I also think I did well scalping the bund/bobl/schatz fly when the range was tight, it's tougher because there's 3 legs but I prefer it to the euribor/schatz which gives little room to improve your skills on.

Profit!

Finally the 4 day wait is over, the fly opened marginally lower and came down a little over the first 3 hours. It was trading 53s to 57s late on Thursday and I bought this morning 47s and 44s, so pretty happy to have held on to them! That puts Thursdays net to +965 euros, making it one of my best days. Today is really quite boring, plus I think I am feeling ill, but I have about 1000 lots to do this week to get onto the eurex rebate scheme for another year.

Manipulating the order book

I just wanted to summarize on what I learnt today as I thought it was really valuable to anyone who is trading, and even if you don't learn anything from my post I am sure you will be able to from reading the thread on t2w.

Its always been my intentions to trade outrights eventually. I do struggle when it comes to reading the order book, but it is a tough thing to do! It seems so random and crazy. Although I knew the markets are massively spoofed and somewhat controlled by a few big guys, this thread really opened my eyes further into these three markets that I trade, the bund bobl and schatz.

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/money-markets/29286-bund-bobl-schatz-thread.html

It starts getting good around page 12 onwards. To summarize briefly, it talks about how the markets are maniuplated by a few big traders, which is something I already knew. Although people posted some really insightful information. Firstly they talk about two types of orders, one from locals and the other from paper.

"Since locals are liquidity providers and usually trade the opposite of paper and fade large moves they should be sitting on the bids/offers and not giving up edge. When every tick counts they don't want to give up edge so I could find it entirely possible that most locals are making the bid/offer and not taking the bid/offer. While on the other side the paper which is usually longer term does not want to mess around with giving up a tick or two and just wants to get the order filled and move on."

An interesting point was these big traders are doing everything to exergerate moves, they try to push the market further in one direction, then locals will have to cover their positions aka puke their positions and this drives the market further and the paper then takes the opposite side. The really interesting thing I read was about crossing, which from my understanding is big traders buying into themselves to create the illusion that there is buying in the market. If a trader is offered at a price and has a large proportion of the offer he doesn't just have the option to flip it across (printing a small buy on the order book) or create a spoof on the bid he can buy into himself which neither makes him long or short. Apparently crossing is more likely to take place when the markets are quieter and attempts to get other traders to push the market where they want it to be. Most traders know its smart to follow the paper, as you typically lose money going against it, so this is why the paper is trying hard to fool others and trick you into taking the other side of their trade. Fascinating thread though and worth a read!

Leaving a trade on for 4 days

Eurex was closed yesterday and also is closed on Monday. I knew this on Thursday but decided to leave a position on which I had averaged into once. For a scalper this is pretty scary, the size I have on is a decent size (relative to myself) for scalping as well. Although I would often leave this size on overnight, but 4 days is a little different.

I guess it could open quite far away from me as the markets are shut for 4 days but the thing is, I am short the bund/bobl/schatz FLY which is on such a high right now and I think it was likely pushed up too far on Thursday as many people would need to be flat. Also not many people are going to put new positions on so I think it drifted and if there is no major news I think it will open lower. I also had a really good day on Thursday, it's hard to know how much I made because I carried positions over from Wednesday and took a bigger loss on them by holding it. And also I still have this trade on which is about 200 to 400 euros offside from Thursdays prices, but if I include only the trades I opened and closed on Thursday I made 1025 euros! which would beat my biggest day. My daily results always include trades I opened on that day no matter when I close them so I am hoping to close the trades I still have on somewhere in profit.

Working to scratch a bad entry

Just now I was looking to sell above 20 in the bund/bobl/schatz fly. I buy the bobl, sell the bund and everything tanks and I miss the schatz and end up selling 17s when its now 18 bid. A disaster having waited all morning for a price to trade to now find myself offside. It then went 20 bid 26 offered (it has a 6 tick spread) and then back down to 17 bid 23 offered. If you want to buy 17s and its 17 bid you will need each market to trade into you in turn without moving away from your ques so realistically you end up with 18s at best and typically around 19-21s.

During this very very small move up and back down all within 35 minutes, despite selling 17s I managed to make 5 ticks using an aggressive style holding a 3rd clip for minimal time possible. I start by selling a 2nd clip at 24 and then I go to take it off and get a quick profit using bobl and bund so remain short 2 clips, but improve my overall position. I then buy bobl looking to put a 3rd clip on but take immediate profit on it (equivalent of 3 ticks in the fly). I then sell 26s on a good leg and buy back at 25. I don't sit and wait for a better opportunity as I want to be in and out very quickly as having 3 clips on so tight together is risky. I then buy back everything at 21s, giving me 100 euros profit on a bad initial entry. Note I don't try to buy the last clip back at 17 because it already moved against me and now 20s are looking like a good buy and its seems im more likely to be able to sell above 21s, so I buy it back at 21 (aiming at 20s) and now I am looking to sell above 23. Even though I made most the money using 1 or 2 markets instead of all 3. I still would have scratched my 17s if I don't count the outright bobl trade and the bund/bobl trade. Just an insight into what im doing each day! :)

Bad luck, stress and huge positions

Gawd my head aches.. yesterday I was up 370 euros with minimal costs, went to the local shop came back.. saw the spread was on its high, sold the euribor, 2 seconds passed I didn't lift the schatz because there was no need, then... the US was given a negative outlook I was just short euribor outright and it climbed and climbed, I clicked buy, everything jammed and I couldn't put any orders in. 2 minutes passed and I was finally able to buy and bought it near the top of the initial move. I blew my day and was now reasonably negative, I was frustrated and sold the spread where I intended, sold it 1/2 tick higher with full size instead of half the size out of frustration. It's crazy what happens to me in these markets what more is there to say. I seem to be gifted at putting a position on seconds before unexpected news or big stops.

The spread moved up further and I went to sell another spread and bought the bobl which then instantly fell 4 ticks, the most extreme move in a couple seconds I had seen since returning over a week ago and doing 14 hours a day! I sold a price so low it was ridiculous, I sold the original spread and got 1 lot out of 10 and missed the next price too. I was printing down just under -1500 euros. I decided my stop for the day would not include the money I lost on the news as it would just mean I get stopped out too often. I brushed past my stop very slightly and held maximum size overnight.

The next day the 2nd spread I had sold was printing 20 ticks higher and I was feeling numb, but luckily it didn't open that high. But because of this I missed an opportunity to get out of my massively offside position. The opportunity lasted seconds so didn't feel so bad to have missed it. I got 1 clip of my 4 off and put it back on at the same price, the spread slowly came down throughout the day and I managed to get it all off. I was confused what my PNL really was as settlement prices make it complicated. I traded based on prices of last night knowing roughly what my PNL was, and early on my PNL spiked to -945 and now I have only 1 position on and it's showing +465 as I write. I believe I am quite close to scratching the two days now, a near 1500 euro recovery and a seriously stressful experience.

Update: Flat and done, up 40 euros over this two day period before costs. w00t ^^

First 6 days trading remotely

The graph is net and it has indeed been a consistent week! It has been a long first week back, putting in just under 60 hours, so I guess my hourly rate after costs isn't amazing, but I watched loads of online TV, countless msn conversations and enjoyed every hour!

Spread trading!

Nothing going on right now in the markets, so great time to show you what and how I trade.

I trade using ladders (shown below - click to enlarge) which is a very normal way to trade. the coloured numbers are the prices, on the left are buyers and on the right sellers and the numbers on far right is todays volume at each price. The green block highlights the last traded price.

The darker shades show the high and low for today which is quite narrow because I screenshot this less than one hour after the markets open. I trade the first two against each other and the last 3 which is a spread of two speads, also known as a fly. Below is the fly spread for monday, the idea would have been selling high and buying low because the spread is quite mean reverting intra day.

Although if you look at the bigger picture, the fly over the past few weeks.

You wouldn't realistically be selling this fly intra day on monday, although I remeber doing so for a quick profit. Its relatively low so you would be trying to buy the dips during the day. Right now the fly is really low, I picked up 205.94s last night which was nice. Long the schatz (2nd ladder), short the bobl (3rd) and long the bund (4th) makes you long the fly.

Today I am looking to see if it breaks down to 90s otherwise maybe buying something below 206.00. Although likely gonna miss out if it goes up.. but I bought below 00s loads of times last night and it never got past 206.05 so just watching for now as its very tight and could make a move down as its been trending down for a week. It opened up where it is now about 206.01s and as the range has been so tight I don't want to buy what could be near the high for the day because I think it's best to trade todays prices and only to keep in mind yesterdays.

Reflecting on the last 2-3 days

Well the spreads are really tight its been just over 2 days since I came back to trading. It's been tough to make money and so far I have found myself hovering around breakeven almost all day and then within half an hour I make a reasonable amount. So it's kinda of hard to leave the screen because you don't want to miss the move. I have spoken to friends who trade same thing and it seems to be how the markets are behaving. I have been doing 14 hour days, taking 3.30pm to 4.30pm off and taking a small break around mid day.

I have left a position on overnight every day so far including the weekend when markets are closed and all have worked out. It's already been quite draining but plan to stick to trading 7am to 9pm so I can give myself the best chance possible.

Today I traded pretty well I had a couple of spots where markets shot through me and I had to take an instant loss, the bund-bobl-schatz was very tight and I managed to get amazing prices by either luck or watching the markets carefully. The euribor-schatz spread trended up all day, retracing most the way but in a very tight range which was challenging to watch for hours incase something happened!

Regular updates to follow :)

Started trading!

Yesterday at 4.30pm I was up and running and traded that day till 8.30pm. Nothing much happened but I made a couple of profitable trades. Feels good to be back after a long 4 months.

Welcome back to myself :D

I am going back to the company I traded in partnership with before, although this time I am trading from home. This means my desk fees are about half as much and I don't have rent to pay as I am living with family. Therefore it should be a great chance for me, although right now I am £2000 overdrawn and £0 balance so in desperate need of some cash... so many obstacles, I hope by writing the negatives in full along the way I can then look back at this blog and feel good at how far I have come. I have a free month of fixed costs initially so I hope to make money and withdraw it just to help me afford internet bills, charting software and food etc.

I feel bad because I owe my step dad money and also my mum for paying for hospital fees. Although I don't speak to my step dad and he doesn't deserve anything but I will have to pay him back sometime I feel. So things aren't amazing.. but it's not really my fault I had so much bad luck all at once, and why should that stop me when I obviously had some kind of career in trading.

Likely starting in about 2 weeks time. :)

Coming back to trading

After my bad trip in HK which cost my mum money to pay for hospital bills, my landlord taking my things and other such things. I then traded my account to £0 in 6 days and quit in December. It has been nothing short of a disaster, but I had good results in trading and maybe quitting where I was was a good idea because the costs were ridiculously high, I paid over 17,000 euros in costs which is just ridiculous. So I am trying to get backing as I have found many brokerages that will give me the software I need, link me to LIFFE and EUREX and give me cheap comissions and my costs would be sooo much less. If no one backs me I think I will just take out a loan somehow, business loan, there are ways. I wouldn't be risking much but because I spread trade the margins on each product add up and I do need at least £10k prefably £25k. I would start by aiming for 200 euros a day in the markets and supplement it with poker.

My plan is to trade at home and keep my costs low and trade all hours and then play poker at weekends and when the markets quiet. I am thinking after several months I could start generating some good money as I know I can beat poker as I did it for years and have started to take interest in it again (after over a year) and I can see it's still profitable for me, but anyway I would play lower stakes just to be safe. I realised its what I do.. I love the challenge and have shown myself I can beat both poker and the markets over a long period. I thought I had quit forever but it's just the start :D

So hopefully soon I will be updating this blog again!!! below is net profit from trading in a 9 month period, which goes from day 1 to the day I blew out.