Head For The Beach

It’s the height of summer and over here in Spain we are mere days away from the entire country shutting down in August. Yes, I am dead serious. Starting next week it will be impossible for anyone on the Iberian Peninsula to make a doctor’s appointment, get a haircut, fix your car, meet with an attorney, negotiate a contract, etc. Just found some tentacle growing out of your ear? Tough luck José – it’ll have to wait a few weeks. Got hit by a truck riding your moto and you may have severed your spinal cord? Better walk it off tough guy – those x-rays will have to wait until the doctor’s back from the beach.

Anything business or health related will have to wait until September as most offices here simply shut down for a minimum of two weeks, economic crisis be damned. For a born German who spent over 20 years in the United States this is a rather alien concept to wrap one’s mind around. It’s not that the Spaniards lack sufficient holidays during the rest of the year, if you get my drift. So apparently it will once again fall on me, the lowly Mole, to keep the Spanish economy running for the next four weeks as my lair will apparently be the only business open during August. Hey, but I can’t make any promises – it is brutally hot over here and it’s getting hotter by the day. I think I may have to raise subscription fees just to be able to afford the electricity bill as my industrial scale air conditioner is blowing day and night. And did I mention the humidity? It’s not California, that’s for sure.

Alright, and now that I have properly set the mood let’s see where we are this morning. Still bouncing around in the range of pain – the high volatility sideways range persists and entries near the center are veritable coin flips. But the good news is that it gets worse:

This is the event calendar for today and tomorrow and guess what, it’s that time of the month again. Wednesday the Fed is scheduled to announce its interest rate decision and also report on its MBS and treasury purchase programs. I don’t expect any type of resolution before tomorrow at 2:00pm EDT and most likely we’ll be seeing sideways flat or gyrating tape in the interim. May actually be a good time to watch the Zero Lite indicator if you happen to be a sub as sideways days like that make for good scalping/swing trading opportunities.

For the rest of you guys I recommend you discover your inner Spaniards and find yourself a nice beach, preferably with bar service. And if there’s no beach nearby you live then find yourself a lake, a cool mountain resort, or if everything else fails head to your favorite coffee shop or watering hole. Bring a book and turn off your laptop/ipad/iphone what have you so you’re not tempted to check the tape. Anything will be better than trading for the next 30 hours. That’s it – see you guys tomorrow!

What – you’re still here? What part of taking the day off wasn’t clear to you? You are an addict, you know that, right? Well, I understand because so am I. Which is why I kept hunting around a bit for short term setups to bridge us over until tomorrow. Very loose correlation to U.S. markets would be good. Here’s the EUR/SEK (swedish krona) which is in a very interesting configuration. I want to be long above 9.185 with a stop below the 25-hour SMA.

And then there’s platinum – may be affected tomorrow at 2:00pm of course. So if you grab this long above 1490.6 then be out and about by 1:30pm tomorrow. Otherwise it looks like a solid long setup after a nice correction. Decent odds and worth 1R on my end if it makes it over my trigger.

Alright, and that’s it for today. UNLESS of course something very exciting/dramatic happens during the session 😉

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Cheers,