Monday 30 January 2017

2017 Trading Resolution

I wrote my trading resolutions last week and one of them was a trading resolution for myself.

Basically I wanted to achieve a 20% gain in my main speculative account with Saxo.

And it has not been a good start at all, with the following significant positions:

1) A large USDJPY short exposure hoping Trump's protectionist policies require him drumming up weaker USD rhetoric. This hasn't gone very well and is currently hovering around the 114.40 area as Japan tries to ease in order to meet its 2% inflation target.
2) A large VIX long via ETF (VIXY:arcx) which has dropped to some of the lowest levels with the US market on a tear upwards. Still holding out for a huge spike though.

Here's the poor performance thus far.

Tuesday 24 January 2017

First Berserker Rage Of 2017

Pui!

I did it again.

I think the fault lies in the fact that IG Markets is an online gambling portal.

Also I have a gambling problem.

So combine these together and there is a very dangerous concoction.

A mixture of Spot, Sprint Markets, and Binary Options (now sneakily named Digital 100s, it all contrived to empty my bank account.

Total damage, SGD 2,000 within one day.

Put!

Sunday 22 January 2017

DJT Is POTUS

Following his shocking elections win, Donald J Trump is now the 45th President of the United States, after his inauguration last Friday.

How will the world change from here?

How can be benefit from the markets?

For one, we all know a lot of his policies will be protectionist.

I see a weaker USD as he starts to make US-made products competitive again.

I see a lot of trade deals revisions, leading to less globalized trading.

I see Asia being used as a pawn for many of his policies (especially China and Taiwan, but in part Japan and Korea as well).

I see a lot of conservatism coming back. Big pharma will prosper, defence will prosper and so will the banks.

I see the stock markets going through a lot of volatility, as the optimism is not matched by the actual earnings. Gold will experience a resurgence, the stock market will have more violent swings.

Anyway these are just my personal views. I am quite excited to see how everything plays out.

Setting SMART Goals

There has been a lot of focus on training lately and one of the key concepts is setting SMART goals.

This simply means:

Specific
Measurable
Ambitious
Realistic
Time-factored

Geddit?

And it really makes a difference when we all try to do this properly. The goals are so much more tangible and achievable.

Towards a 2017 of growth and prosperity!

Sunday 15 January 2017

Blogger App Is Down

Wow this will surely chase away a lot of bloggers off the Blogger platform.

The Blogger App is down and there are no suitable replacements. The top two replacements I've tested suck big time.

When I searched online, it appears that Google/Blogger has no plans to update or replace the app anymore, so latest iOS updates result in the app being unable to run, or crashing it easily.

Two of the key advantages of the app were:
1) Ease of posting - just open the app and blog and post, so easy! Going through blogger.com just meant trying hard to post something on a clunky small screen
2) Easy to post pictures - without the app, pictures are almost impossible to post

I'll try to make do with blogging with no pictures for a while more while considering making the switch to other platforms.

Sad!

Monday 2 January 2017

Death By China

Just trying to get a better idea of how 2017 will pan out.

Peter Navarro was recently announced to be joining Donald Trump's team as head of the White House National Trade Council.