Virtuoso, a question, the mad as a bag of badgers spike on EUR/CHF...

[Black Swan]

yesterday at one o'clock...wtf? :-0 Did you see that one coming? To say it took out my stop would be the understatement of my fledgling trading career, in fact I'm almost 'proud' to be fookin taken out like that, it was an honour

 

[virtuos0]

Each intervention has been at a steadily higher and higher price, and the Swiss FinMin had said that continued intervention would be on the cards at the end of last week. I went long at 1.51 as soon as I heard that, but at a small size. Where I really played it was going short at the top of the spike, I went into that at SIZE.

 

[white_goodman]

i couldnt imagine shorting that close to 1.50 to be honest

 

[glyder]

virtuos0,
How did you know when the spike has peaked?

 

[poborsky]

I read something about the intervention here:

Ashraf Laidi : Insightful Forex Articles

or in the analytics section. I think it said keep an eye on the 200 dma.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

It was the same on the USD/CHF, although in that case, although it also fell back, it then rallied and then went sideways for most of yesterday and into today. It's just dropped again now. I guess a lot of that was the dollar rally that occurred yesterday generally, but wondered if in addition, the intervention was still working, albeit at reduced level, to try to keep the CHF stable for a while.

Seems like the original intervention was a bit heavy handed. Might have been deliberate I suppose, pour encourager les autres.


PS: Anyone know why the Bund was on steroids yesterday? Is this connected with the fall in equities/ rise in dollar?
What other factors might have been involved?

 

[Black Swan]

Each intervention has been at a steadily higher and higher price, and the Swiss FinMin had said that continued intervention would be on the cards at the end of last week. I went long at 1.51 as soon as I heard that, but at a small size. Where I really played it was going short at the top of the spike, I went into that at SIZE.

I know, the second mouse gets the cheese ...aren't charts great for when that kind of 'ting 'appens?

 

[Black Swan]

virtuos0,
How did you know when the spike has peaked?

er...like...his charts?

 

[glyder]

er...like...his charts?

Very good guv,
I play a lot of retraces myself, I started it a while back on the Dow openings.
How do I judge the extremes?
Mainy looking down the timeframes, perhaps up a TF or two, and looking at pivot levels, but also a huge chunk of intuition is involved (I can of course be wrong on any or all of these methods)
I also saw a successful trader on another thread playing these, he's usually able to articulate his methods and reasons for trades and timing very well, but said much as he hates to say it, the way he plays these retracements is governed 70% by experience.
That spike on the Eur/Chf was not an easy one to judge the top (imo). Central bank interventions cause spikes that can go further faster longer than others... I wondered the technique used...any of the above ?
Or sell when you think its spike is over and hope to have enough liquidity/deep pockets to get through any continuation.?
Or is it the 200 day MA?
Or none of the above.
Be interesting to hear.

 

[virtuos0]

i couldnt imagine shorting that close to 1.50 to be honest

For me I considered that going long at 1.51 was the risky play, not going short. Although it's 90% likely the SNB were going to intervene this week, it was never certain. If you go short from the top it's absolutely guaranteed that you're going to get a giant raft of people covering longs. I only stayed in the short for less than an hour, I'm not gonna hold a short!

 

[virtuos0]

I read something about the intervention here:

Ashraf Laidi : Insightful Forex Articles

or in the analytics section. I think it said keep an eye on the 200 dma.

If there's one thing you can be certain of, it's that the SNB and BIS could not care less about the 200DMA.

 

[virtuos0]

As far as judging hre top goes, I'm interested in looking at the rate of change of price, or you might want to call it the velocity of price. For that I tend to just watch the tape, but you could use a chart.

As Glyder says, it's nothing but experience.

 

[glyder]

As far as judging hre top goes, I'm interested in looking at the rate of change of price, or you might want to call it the velocity of price. For that I tend to just watch the tape, but you could use a chart.

As Glyder says, it's nothing but experience.

Cheers mate,
just wondered if I was missing a trick.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

If there's one thing you can be certain of, it's that the SNB and BIS could not care less about the 200DMA.

Er, yeh but, no but, yeh but, for we mere retail minor players, isn't it a sort of surrogate for a level they are prepared to defend?

I mean they might defend absolute levels as well on occasions, but depending on market conditions, their view might adjust and the MA is something for us to go on. Perhaps?

Must admit I was using a couple of MAs on that occasion to keep hold of what was more like "normal". (Not 200 as it happens, but one was not far off that).

 

[poborsky]

Er, yeh but, no but, yeh but, for we mere retail minor players, isn't it a sort of surrogate for a level they are prepared to defend?

I mean they might defend absolute levels as well on occasions, but depending on market conditions, their view might adjust and the MA is something for us to go on. Perhaps?

Must admit I was using a couple of MAs on that occasion to keep hold of what was more like "normal". (Not 200 as it happens, but one was not far off that).

I was working off a fib level but thats a different story

 

[Black Swan]

Very good guv,
I play a lot of retraces myself, I started it a while back on the Dow openings.
How do I judge the extremes?
Mainy looking down the timeframes, perhaps up a TF or two, and looking at pivot levels, but also a huge chunk of intuition is involved (I can of course be wrong on any or all of these methods)
I also saw a successful trader on another thread playing these, he's usually able to articulate his methods and reasons for trades and timing very well, but said much as he hates to say it, the way he plays these retracements is governed 70% by experience.
That spike on the Eur/Chf was not an easy one to judge the top (imo). Central bank interventions cause spikes that can go further faster longer than others... I wondered the technique used...any of the above ?
Or sell when you think its spike is over and hope to have enough liquidity/deep pockets to get through any continuation.?
Or is it the 200 day MA?
Or none of the above.
Be interesting to hear.

Sorry bud, sarcasm doesn't translate too well on forums...Virtuoso is our own 'Jesse Livermore' he's kinda passed charts and stuff, he does the big hunting 'stuff'.

He's 'in', and as such was probably in Geneva at the time, chewing the fat and drinking the warm blood of a just killed albino dwarf calf, whilst attending a bizarre Bildeberger ritual in Geneva (with Tony Blair, Geroge Bush and Rupert Murdoch by his side)...

Suddenly Hank Paulson lifed the hood off his robes during the incantation, he violently spat out his cognac, whilst choking on his Ortalan he proceeded to tap his nose indicating Soros had just phoned...

Mandleson was busily shining George Osborne's shoes after 'polishing off' Nat Roschild in a darkened corner, he could be heard muttering; "Patience Mandy, climb the ladder..." ...

 

[GammaJammer]

it was fairly well telegraphed this time, and tbh thats why all that dough they spent has basically had naff all effect. ECB long dated liquidity tender had co-incided with the previous two interventions and was exactly the same again. Plus they didn't seem to do much in size terms. Only difference seemed to be a slight shift upwards in percentage of usdchf as opposed to eurchf in the mix, and how many banks they called.....

 

[Technically Fundamental]

You're the man Gamma

Any idea why its 150 they're protecting? (as opposed to another figure I mean.)

 

[glyder]

Sorry bud, sarcasm doesn't translate too well on forums

.

not at all, mate..it was taken as intended,
and at least it prompted me take the effort to explain myself a bit more.

 

[GammaJammer]

It isn't necessarily. There are usually not hard lines in the sand as that more often than not acts as a red rag to a bull. Look at a daily chart and you'll see what I mean. Put simply, the more predictable intervention is, the less effective it is, all other things being equal (which of course they rarely are).....