The Challenge

[stir-trader]

I may not be 100% correct in the following as I am assuming that e*trade clears just like any other company in the derivatives industry.

You are right in saying that e*trade are taking the other side but the way that clearing works is that there is a counterparty to you and a counterparty to e*trade (unless they have an in-house matching application).

If you buy a contract, there is someone out there, another trader, who sells that contract to you. E*trade acts like one of the middle man guaranteeing that you are good for the trade.

For example. When I buy a contract, my clearer sells that contract to me. The counterparty to the trade will go through the same process with his clearer except he will sell the contract and his clearer will buy it, in turn my clearer and the counterparty will exchange contracts.

It all takes place in the blink of an eye. My average roundtrip time to place a trade into the eurex or liffe is about 15 milliseconds

 

[minx]

You make some very valid points Minx. But that is assuming you got the size to try flipping it back but like i said you need real deep pockets and the guys that play with your strategy have very very deep pockets.

Yeah I know, I was just being flippant *groan*

 

[bond_trader1]

stir-trader, since I am spread betting with E*Trade I think they simply take the other side of the trade. They way I understand it, they pay my wins out of their bottom line and conversely, my losses line their pockets. So I think they take the other side of what I do and probably only enter into the "real" market to hedge.

 

[bond_trader1]

I wish I had had the courage to go short at these TL tests...both of them were very profitable...

 

[stir-trader]

Perhaps i should have read the begining of this post. Anyway I have now. So you are spreadtrading bunds on easy to trade to win the challange to make 1k into 10k. Thats quite a big task but achievable. How much is in your P&L now and did you manage to get your hands on a good source for fundemental data? What technicals do you favour?

 

[bond_trader1]

Perhaps i should have read the begining of this post. Anyway I have now. So you are spreadtrading bunds on easy to trade to win the challange to make 1k into 10k. Thats quite a big task but achievable. How much is in your P&L now and did you manage to get your hands on a good source for fundemental data? What technicals do you favour?

Well, I have about seven and a half months left of this challenge and my account equity is actually less than when I started - £896 to be precise. Mostly that is the result of the first trade I did which risked far more than I should have done in an attempt to pick a bottom in the Bunds. That trade cost me £360 - but that's history now and I think I have learnt from my mistake.

Fundamentally I use this site: http://www.futures-house.com/en/analysen/Renten.m to see the levels that analysts are looking at, I get my market preview here: http://www.tradethenews.com/symbol_h...asp?smbl=BUNDS and I use an AFX news feed in the day to get breaking news.

Technically, I watch the daily chart for overall trend direction but mainly I trade off the hourly. I use support/resistance areas, trendlines, fib levels and moving averages and then I look for price action setups where you get confluence.

 

[stir-trader]

What other charts do you use (other contracts) to get a good view of the markets and help you with your trade decisions?

It could be helpful as well if you look at a 15 minute bar chart as that is a very popular timeframe for trading this market.

I trade the levels a lot. You can make really good money doing this. There are some industry standard levels that do a very good job. I can point you in the right direction for these if you want.

A point of note on your chart with the bearish candle at 3pm. Todays sell off was always going to happen because people had to liquidate their positions before the weekend what with all the current problems happening in the money market. This was enforced by the opening rally in the DJI and other indexes as some funds came in looking for bargains.

 

[bond_trader1]

I'm afraid this is where I am going to show how amateur I am...

What other charts do you use (other contracts) to get a good view of the markets and help you with your trade decisions?

I study many different markets but I spend my time mainly looking at the indices (DJI, Dax and FTSE), some forex pairs and some commodities, mainly oil and gold. But none of these directly influence my trading in the Bund.

It could be helpful as well if you look at a 15 minute bar chart as that is a very popular timeframe for trading this market.

Thanks for the tip! I will certainly take this into account. It may be hard for me to monitor the 15m constantly though as I work full time and right now it is enough for me to pull up a chart every hour...

I trade the levels a lot. You can make really good money doing this. There are some industry standard levels that do a very good job. I can point you in the right direction for these if you want.

I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean...what are "the levels"?

 

[stir-trader]

support and resistance levels.

Ift you dont mind me asking what job do you do?

 

[bond_trader1]

support and resistance levels.

Ift you dont mind me asking what job do you do?

I'm a financial journalist...

I usually look for support and resistance levels and areas where s/r has flipped.

 

[bond_trader1]

Not again...

TL coming under pressure...it's holding the price back again for now but for how long?

I'm looking to position myself for a move up through this towards 114.50 or higher.

Incidentally, look how price hit the 114.33 S/R level dead on before retreating...

 

[bond_trader1]

Well nothing transpired to get me long, certainly on the hourly chart which is mainly what I look at. Price looks like it may stay range-bound ahead of the Fed decision tomorrow...

 

[fibonelli]

It's like a broken record; sell the resistance at the trend line and buy the support at 11390 <yawn smiley>.

 

[bond_trader1]

It's like a broken record; sell the resistance at the trend line and buy the support at 11390 <yawn smiley>.

With some great price action setups on the 15m at each turn. I really need to watch this lower timeframe...

 

[bond_trader1]

I briefly thought about going long last night near the close when this was just beneath the ascending TL. Thankfully my patience and discipline are improving.

So - another fall this morning and here we are again heading into support.

Right now it looks like there could be a profitable trade when this breaks one way or the other...

 

[fibonelli]

Hi BT1,

Thought I'd post the 30 min chart. Double click to see clearly!

Looks like short and long stops were rinsed today, see yellow markings.

Had a couple of sell signals but v. busy doing research, so missed them.

Price near base of declining trend line, near/at 78.6% fibonacci retracement and close to support @ 11360-370 (6 Sept).

Thank you for the kind comments.

Regds

Fibonelli

 

[bond_trader1]

Looks like short and long stops were rinsed today, see yellow markings.

Had a couple of sell signals but v. busy doing research, so missed them.

Price near base of declining trend line, near/at 78.6% fibonacci retracement and close to support @ 11360-370 (6 Sept).

Hi Fibonelli,

I'm actually short this from 114.01. I have an S/R level at 113.75 which it went right through and is currently testing from beneath. I have a stop not far above this. That's a lot of supporting confluence you mention in your post and it makes me nervous but I feel it would be a little premature to exit when, as of yet, there has been no significant bounce. If this continues to move down I would like to trail the stop accordingly although I leave work shortly so I am tempted to close this.

Thanks again for your charts and input - it is always appreciated.

 

[bond_trader1]

And so my account goes into the black...

Today was a great day for me - I finally went into the black - the first time that my account has been positive since I began this challenge with just £1,000, almost five months ago.

The setup I took wasn't the best from a technical perspective - the reason for this trade was actually based on instinct.

A pin bar at the descending TL in the first two hours of trading gave the market a bearish tone and the second pin bar a few hours later seemed to prove that it was meeting selling pressure on any attempt higher.

I went short on the break of this pin at £5 a tick. This wasn't particularly sensible since there was, what looked like, fairly solid support beneath, but as I said, I had a feeling that it was going to break lower. The risk at the time I placed the trade was just 13 ticks.

I actually went to lunch straight after placing this with the stop in place and when I came back, it was through the first support and testing the second. The second quickly gave way and at this point I began to struggle over how to manage the trade.

However, since I was leaving work and would be travelling for over an hour before reaching home, I decided to just close the position.

I exited for £170 (34 ticks) bringing my balance to £1,066.

 

[Hoggums]

Today was a great day for me - I finally went into the black - the first time that my account has been positive since I began this challenge with just £1,000, almost five months ago.

The setup I took wasn't the best from a technical perspective - the reason for this trade was actually based on instinct.

A pin bar at the descending TL in the first two hours of trading gave the market a bearish tone and the second pin bar a few hours later seemed to prove that it was meeting selling pressure on any attempt higher.

I went short on the break of this pin at £5 a tick. This wasn't particularly sensible since there was, what looked like, fairly solid support beneath, but as I said, I had a feeling that it was going to break lower. The risk at the time I placed the trade was just 13 ticks.

I actually went to lunch straight after placing this with the stop in place and when I came back, it was through the first support and testing the second. The second quickly gave way and at this point I began to struggle over how to manage the trade.

However, since I was leaving work and would be travelling for over an hour before reaching home, I decided to just close the position.

I exited for £170 (34 ticks) bringing my balance to £1,066.

Well done! I've been following your thread and I've decided to give trading the bund a go. I'm trading on a demo account for the moment to see how it goes. I'm going to trade on the daily charts as I don't want to be chart watching all day. I opened a short position this avo...

 

[bond_trader1]

Well done! I've been following your thread and I've decided to give trading the bund a go. I'm trading on a demo account for the moment to see how it goes. I'm going to trade on the daily charts as I don't want to be chart watching all day. I opened a short position this avo...

Hello Hoggums, best of luck with your Bund trading.

I like to do analysis on the daily timeframe so hopefully we can share ideas here. And good luck with that short position!