Long XAUUSD

It's been in the doldrums for so long.

The time has come for Gold to make a comeback!



Huat ah!

Property - Sengkang Is Too Crowded

After 7 years of living in Sengkang and having blogged about how densely populated it is (read: here, here, here and here), I have finally moved out of Sengkang. And what a relief it is.

Sengkang is definitely too crowded.

Even at this stage of moving out, there are still stacks upon stacks of uncompleted HDBs and condominiums still under construction. Even at current capacity, the roads are visibly heavy (just look at the morning and evening jams), there are very few inlets and outlets into Sengkang and Punggol, and public transport mass is saturated (trains are full at Sengkang and Punggol stations).

I wonder if the next General Elections will see a rezoned Sengkang being it’s own SMC (Single Member Constituency).

I had this conversation recently where given what we have correctly projected of Sengkang some five years ago, the next five will also be fairly simple to project.

Basically as the various HDB dwellers (akin to ourselves previously) meet their MOP (Minimum Occupation Period) and can finally sell their BTO HDBs, the more affluent ones will almost definitely move out, being sick of the population density. This means that those who remain will be of the lower income bracket or those who choose to stay on and bear with the dense crowds. Couple that with the oversupply of flats, prices of apartments will be cheaper than most of Singapore and will be more affordable to the lower income. Finally add the upcoming hospital attracting older folk coming up and you can see where I’m going.

Sengkang has the potential of turning into a slum in ten years.

Not that I want it to turn into one, but if the government doesn’t do anything about it (or worse yet, is deliberately forecasting it!), then this is what Sengkang will become.

There is no better time to move out of this town.

FX Trading - Trading Smaller Sizes

Of course in FX trading every broker drums into you how using leverage of 50 - 200 times is a key selling point of trading FX. Yet it is actually the key reason why the vast majority of traders lose money. However, if you've read reputable educational sites on FX trading, the key takeaway is actually to trade no more than 5% of your account value at all times. This equates to a maximum of 20x leverage at most.

In FX terminology,

1 Standard Lot = 100,000 in nominal value of the currency pair where 1 pip usually equates to about $10 of the currency equivalent.
1 Mini Lot - 10,000 in nominal value of the currency pair where 1 pip usually equates to about $1 of the currency equivalent.
1 Micro Lot - 1,000 in nominal value of the currency pair where 1 pip usually equates to about $0.10 of the currency equivalent.

It is very important to know this because some brokers impose minimum trade sizes in order to coax traders to trader in larger volumes.

With that said, since the turn of the year, I have switched from trading in Standard lots to Mini and even Micro lots at times. This is the primary reason that firstly, I am hardly losing any money in FX trading in 2015 (touch wood!), and more importantly, I can concentrate on appreciating other things around me like my family and my hobbies without feeling the strain and stress of having to constantly check FX prices.

It is well known that the biggest indicator that stress and strain has gotten the better of you when trading FX, is the frequency in which you feel the urge to check FX prices. And these days I hardly check them any more than once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once at night. Truly a far easier task by far.

So I urge all traders to review their trade sizes and not fall into the leverage trap that I've emerged from.

Trade safe.

USD Has Too Much Strength?

Today an idea was put into my head.

If every other major country aside from the US is perusing monetary easing policies, then just how strong can the USD be before it all implodes? 

Is the US of A able to stomach a currency that is far stronger than any in the world? Even before it has even had it's first rate hike from 0%?

Maybe the FED might surprise every by NOT raising rates at all this year?

Let's see.