The Final Roll Over

As I am growing a bit older I increasingly am amazed by how time seems to just fly by us. I’m 52 now and at the projected acceleration curve I will be 90 years old by next summer, dead by the next. So better enjoy those charts while they last! Now seriously speaking, one curse of being a trader is that of constantly having to project forward in time. Especially when trading futures contracts you are always ahead of the curve and at least for me that induces a bit of a time accelerating effect.

Take the bond futures for example, which are about to roll into their December contract. Crikey – is it really that late in the year already? By the way, that reminds me that next Tuesday is Labor Day, so I don’t expect much movement on Friday through Wednesday morning as many participants will be taking a few days off. Here in Spain they call those days ‘puentes’ – which roughly translates as ‘bridge days’.

Anyway, this ZB campaign looked solid for a while but never made it to the 1R mark where I’d have advanced my stop to break/even. If it’s not already stopped out sometime today I will close it out before the roll-over and go back to watching the action for a while.

This was more of an exploratory position and my exposure was small. But it reaffirmed my initial perspective, which incidentally I shared at entry time, that bonds will remain a difficult sector for time to come. My original plan was to start accumulation on a medium to long term basis, and perhaps it’s worth another shot after the roll over.

Silver on the other and already rolled over and seems to be getting ready for a push higher. Here I got triggered short last week (binary thresholds) upon which it instantly reversed and stopped me out. Per my original plan I’m now long after a spike low touched my original entry zone.

My E-Mini campaign continues to shine and I’m now advancing my trail to 1.5R. I’m not one to pad my own shoulder (much) but I’m pretty jazzed about having maintained a solid edge in equities throughout this year’s whipsaw.

Okay forex, and once more we start with the dud, which in this case is the USD/CAD. Let’s just not talk about it, okay? Alright I’m kidding – let’s talk about it. This is actually a textbook example of a setup that looked excellent on paper, especially on the LT panels, but then screwed the majority of bulls by turning on a dime.

I would usually not be surprised to see a counter push here next week, but given the bearish picture on the USD I think the bears have it for now.

Okay, the USD/JPY is starting to look more positive and I’ve tightened my stop here to about 0.8R. Yes, it’s quite tight but given the formation on the hourly I believe that this either continues straight up higher or will drop though 111 for a much deeper retest.

So basically, either this turns into a runner now or I’ll take my chances finding a lower entry again.

Kept the best for last – my old nemesis the EUR/USD. The bastard seems to be in break/out mode now and I think we’re going to see 1.18 in no time. Bad for my exchange rate here in Spain but good for my campaign. Hey that rhymes and since I don’t like poetry let’s just call it a post 😉