A sweet mistake of 369 pips!!

When I first saw this position still open my trading account...I must say I was overjoyed. But on thinking and rethinking, I realised it is a trade which shouldn't have stayed open. The only reason it happened is because of negligence on my part of even being aware of an open position.

1. Date : 29th Nov 2007
2. Currency Pair : USD/CHF
3. Trade : BUY
4. System : TNT
5. Method : Retracement - Continuation Signal
6. Entry Price : 1.1131
7. Time of Entry : GMT 0539
8. Stop Loss : 1.1101 (later adjusted to 1.150 around 22/11/2007)
9. Target Profit : NONE (THIS IS A MISTAKE!!!) (later adjusted to 1.1630)
10. Exit Price : 1.1500 (On 26/12 GMT 13:07) (Win 369 pips)
11. Commentary and Reflection : Alright. Honestly I love this trade and it shows me the power of longer term trading. But it is a mistake because I did not set a TP at first, and later forgot about the trade. When I saw it is still on around 20th Dec, I went in and put SL and TP levels. Ended up with SL triggered. Could have saved another 19 pips though, because Clarence's advice (which I did not act on) is to change the SL to 1.1519.

I won't say much for now, but this system seems to work pretty well. I've been trying to do backtesting with my sister, but I got discouraged 2 hours into the research. But, well, like the word says , I'll go re-search for the truth.

Do have a wonderful and meaningful last few days. Have a great year ahead!

The season for trading

12.45 (early) in the morning, 2 weeks non-stop no forex and trading actions, hardly done anything since my varsity hols started...but this is certainly the PERFECT time to blog.

For a few reasons of course. But I won't list the reasons.

I note that it's real close to where and when I'm supposed to start trading. And I actually feel I have a better chance trading in school. I picked up trading again while preparing for my varsity exams. And so going back to school quite excites me - continuous wireless, and my laptop's usually with me.

Talking about that, I spoke to Kelvin last night. In short, he's a friend I met during my national service days. (in the camp where I, thankfully, was allowed to slack for more than 1 year) For a brief period, I got to know this guy with some ideals and ambition, but appeared like an educated Ah Beng to me. Well, years go by, and I realised he's really not a Beng (or hooligan, apologies for the colloquialism), is pretty friendly and has learnt a lot since we parted about 2 years back. He picked up English, surprising me with his vocabulary and fluency, having rejected reading Rich Dad Poor Dad in english when I first got to know him in camp.

Anyway, back to the conversation. He gave me my most unusual request to date. To tutor him weekly (and charge him my normal tuition rate) in forex trading. And that was easy to answer. For many reasons, I can't accept a single cent. Simply because I'm as much a student as he is. But I know what he's aiming for, and I agree we should do as he suggests -- to meet consistently at least once a week to discuss trading and stuff. We'll see what comes out of that in our next meeting.

Next, (I hope you guys are tired of hearing this from me) I finished the ebook "Adventures of a currency trader" once more. The first time was during my extended lunch times in the Times bookshop in Centrepoint. And I still absolutely love that book and recommend it to all traders, but more so for traders for have had a little experience in trading but is going nowhere. The book has no answers, but is a great direction pointer. (Firman, I think you should read the book, if you haven't.)

I'm not gonna say too much now, lest it be repeated stuff. But I must emphasize this point to all fellow traders. Trading is NOT about the system. Everywhere in the market, we see trading systems being promoted and sold. Some claiming to be a sure win, others say they guarantee a path to riches. I'm not saying they are not true or can't do what they claim. But that's TOTALLY MISSING the point.

Trading is about yourself! There is no system that works without the trader clearly knowing what's the rational behind the system. And the system has to suit you, the trader. I clearly know you can't use a system that trades on the hourly chart if you can only afford to go on to monitor trades on a daily basis. (or even less frequent than that)

At this point, I must say I don't really know how to substantiate my abovementioned point, so please do leave a comment if you guys have something to discuss or some questions to direct my posting on this issue.

Just a last point. I attended a seminar on futures. Really great info there, learnt a lot about futures and investment in general.

I'm a student, and I believe we all are on this amazing journey.

ENJOY IT!

Reflections and (re)Awakening

I'll be honest, I don't know how to start this post.

It's just a mini looking-in-and-looking-back exercise.

The whole deal of getting any more affluent (not to even mention rich) was partly propelled by my wish to see something and funds and energy being done for and to people who are worthy. I know the words more commonly and easily understood include "unfortunate", "poor", "needy" etc. But that's not what I mean or who I want to refer to on two counts.

One, help should not be blind, even if someone is commonly thought to be in need (eg. African starved babies), not everyone deserves it. I'm no one to judge, but I learnt through my life experiences that one can only make full use of help or additional resources when one is willing to help oneself first.

Two, people who are worthy, deserving help, are not "needy" or "unfortunate". They are the people who truly live their lives (and use their hearts to achieve their goals) They are more than deserving. To me, people with purpose are sacred. (I'm really not apologetic if someone thinks this word should be in the domain of religion)

And these few days, events (again, I can't remember what happened, but I preserved the lesson) told me to look again at this aspect of myself and my desires. I remember setting aside money out of my income when I was working to be used to donate to a cause I thought is worthy.

Well. I failed and succumbed in the face of financial need (rather, wants) of my own. Well, I should say it was desire and wants to caused me to steal my own money and betray my integrity to splurge it on myself. All that money quite a few cents) came from my "charity pool".

I think I owe it to myself, not even to anyone else, to do something about that.

And I will. But when?

The shock continues...

And what's the shock? That so much time has passed since I posted in August. In any case I'm starting again, and with a BANG! (I hope)

Anyway, here's a trade I did based on the system of Clarence, my mentor in forex.

1. Date : 28th Nov 2007
2. Currency Pair : USD/CHF
3. Trade : BUY
4. System : TNT
5. Method : Retracement - Continuation Signal
6. Entry Price : 1.1057
7. Time of Entry : GMT 0430
8. Stop Loss : 1.1027 (later adjusted to 1.1087, then 1.1127)
9. Target Profit : 1.1147 (later adjusted to 1.1192)
10. Exit Price : 1.1192 (at GMT 12:45) (Win 135 pips)
11. Commentary and Reflection : Well, the price went really smooth, in part I attribute it to that the price has been above the PIPS pivot level for some 8 to 10 hours. Also, remember Clarence mentioned about how he observe prices suddenly shoot up upon contacting the MA line? Well, it sure happened here!

Yeah! so happy! (to finally get a proper trade which wins)

This is just a common email that I get within Clarence's yahoo group, full of forex enthusiasts, experts and noobs alike!

The post is a little outdated though, do pardon me for that. I will try to post more trade on the blog to share with everyone too!

Maybe you guys could share your trades with me too?

What?? IT'S ALREADY THE END OF NOVEMBER!?!?

The last post was in August...And to be totally honest (I've been using that phrase quite a fair bit I noticed) I feel like I've been asleep for the past 3 months. (Wait, August-September-October-November, maybe we can count that as 4 months). Anyway I'm in the midst of studying for my exams. My first in NUS (National University of Singapore). Been the most ill-disciplined guy who goes to library almost daily (because I sleep).

The MOST IMPORTANT (penting sekali) thing that motivated me to write again (other than trading again) is an act of kindness by someone on the streets of Singapore. And he/she was walking in the vicinity of Novena MRT station when I dropped 3 cards. Three very important cards - IC, Ezlink card and ATM card. And just today, I picked up a brown envelope sent to my address. There was something flat and hard in the envelope. Well, I gave the story away, but the cards came back to me in an envelope, anonymous, with no return address. I wish I knew who he/she was. I want to thank the person for saving me a lot of anxiety (and money too).

But more than that, I want to highlight how paranoid we can be sometimes. Immediately after discovering my loss, I called up the banks and transitlink offices to cancel the cards. The officer from the latter even advised that I waited for a few days to see if the card is returned to me. And I rejected that flatly. Not that it is a bad decision, but the mindset that I had is ultra-skeptical. I supposed someone would misuse the cards, or at the very least, not return them. I even suspected a particular restaurant's staff and customers of possibly finding but not wanting to return the card to me. When the envelope came, I thought (in a passing thought, maybe as a sort of joke to myself) that maybe it contains unidentified objects which are meant to terrorise (with anthrax or sth) (and, again, I overestimate my importance here). BUT...in the most unassuming manner, someone kind out there returned my lost items. And (pardon my meagre knowledge) all the religions I know of advocate this sort of kindness. Here I am though, to say a sincere thanks and pay tributes to whoever returns stuff to others, hopefully making someone's (like me) day and an unending cycle of "paying it forward".

One more thing. Here's a big "Apa Kabar? Bagaimana Kabarnya?" to all our indon friends. Took up a very basic course on Bahasa Indonesia here on campus too.

I guess the biggest news for myself is that I started TRADING forex again! To be totally honest (there I go again) I haven't been winning many trades. I think it's just a matter of refining my discipline and skill in choosing the right trades. I'll get down to business and talk about trading right after my exams. And my aim remains a constant. I want to trade at the end of this year - LIVE!

Hope you guys haven't been affected by the drought of news from me. (haha, there I am overestimating myself).

And congratulations to my fellow trader, Morris, who is going "live", or getting a-live(-account), very very soon. Phenomenal progress for a newbie when he started just 3 months back with Clarence.

Till then, have a great trading journey!

1(st) post in August!

Alright...I'm getting a little too excited and flustered about varsity that I hardly can spend time on anything else. Even Miranda was pretty pissed actually. But anyway...here's my first, and possibly the only, post for the month of August.


Now, I guess I shouldn't bother you guys with any further info about my newfound varsity life, should I? But just to summarise, it's basically equivalent to having lunch with people, finding time to do non-academic activities, visiting libraries (even on Sunday, yes) and most importantly, to be buried under piles and piles of readings. I estimate I've to read and digest some 200 pages of material and research papers each week. But that aside, school is pretty cool and fun. Learning is supposed to be fun and interesting isn't it?

And as for Clarence's course, I guess that first session was meant for some Forex basics. But honestly, I think I wouldn't be able to learn that many technical terms and understand Forex trading in a 3 hour session. In fact, it was after quite a bit of experimenting and trying out the platforms that I figured out what it is all about. And I still don't understand why my limit orders sometimes are activated immediately when the order's price level hasn't been triggered.


In any case, it is a good refresher. Was really hoping to learn how to read the current market situation though. (Cos, interestingly, major US-linked currency pairs are undergoing major market corrections in favour of the USD.) Studying the GBP/USD, I found a nice doji at the end of the slide downwards for the past week. And the head and tail ends are pretty long, reflecting a whole lot of market uncertainty. Personally, on a pure gambling tendency, I bet the pair will head north now. Well, at least the stochastics agree. Parabolic dots are waiting to reverse, but I guess I'll need both to confirm my suspicions.

As for the system, I'm very glad to know I'm gonna learn alot more than just entry signals. My current belief is any system can work, as long as I can define a appropriate position size and stoploss system to take advantage of the expectancies of the entry system.


Another thing that surprises me is that Clarence's TNT system is applied on all 4 major currency pairs and even others like the EUR/JPY. In fact, he is looking at including the aussie and kiwi too.


As for the project to track my expenditure, and, in general, my entire personal financial accounting effort have been suspended for about a month now. I'm gonna try my very best to bring it on track by settling my financial spreadsheets today. And to truly implement my income management principles I set in place for myself.

Well, the GBP/USD didn'tmove northwards as I thought it would. Haha. Can you imagine? I actually wrote this entry over some 3 days. And so here's my mini-reflection-cum-updates.

Have a great week! Well, at least half of it is left.

The coming of August

Here's the significance of this month is multifold. But of course it's mainly financial.

The first being that I decided to go back onto the tedious but rewarding and informative process of noting my exact expenditure again. I abandoned this project quite a few months back. February to be exact, if I'm not wrong. I did it for a full 2 months and found I spend some 700 bucks each month. And about two to three hundred goes to food. Haha. So here's an experiment to see how true is it that one tends to spend less in varsity. And it'll help in planning my expenditure in future. Well, to be honest, it's not quite in my policy to budget and to stick to one. I rather expand my means.

The second event, as I've been mentioning countless times, is that I'm starting my varsity life proper. And this is truly and exciting new phase. I just realised, today, that there is an investment club in NUS. But the people at the booth, two of them, weren't quite that active in getting people to know about the club. Nevertheless, my conversation with the two gentlemen led me to a shocking discovery that one of them is a fund manager. He said he deals with Forex too. Well, I'll definitely be going for their seminars to learn about whatever they have to offer and to network with some people with similar interests. Wonder how many in NUS is interested in their financial future though.

The third is to give a booster-start to my Forex trading. I, still, am keeping in mind that I intend to go live in Forex trading coming January 2008. Clarence's course would tell me what to do, but finally I need to understand myself and what style I want to trade, and best trade, the market. Reading "Trading your way to Financial Freedom," I understand that the Holy Grail in trading is really an internal search to understand oneself and how one reacts to the market than a perfect system which would gain constant and unfailable rewards. It really mirrors Kiyosaki's comment that investments AREN'T risky, only investors are. So the challenge is not so much to get this perfect system that uses loads of indicators that proves, according to historical data, that one can gain from the market, but to discover how our emotions and mindset limit and make our trading riskier.

And of course it means we have to deal with some of the assumptions and false beliefs and psychological barriers that we, and especially, I, hold about trading and the markets we are involved in. And the discipline to withstand loses, that's one tough nut to crack. But it will become a source of victory in due time as I progress along this path.

The future's exciting and pregnant with countless possibilities.

May we all have a great time ahead!

Stagnation... and my 21st BIRTHDAY!

Things are going just as they do usually. Not quite. Anyway, I've just returned from a trip to Redang Island off the Eastern coast of Malaysia. Really nice beaches and water there! Imagine snorkelling and seeing fishes just some 20 to 30 metres off the beach. And you can feed them by hand. Had to be careful to avoid the bigger fishes though, cos fishes tend to bite and try and grab a piece of whatever food one has in your hands. The small fishes "bites" feel more like suckles, but the big fishes really bite with their teeth!



Haha. So much for my trip. Next up...my birthday! My 21st birthday was spent in a quiet meaningful session with Miranda on East Coast beach. And I was given some 21 gifts! I guess she didn't get the "guilty look" that she so wanted to see that day, but I was totally moved! (quite close to tears...but...) There was just this warmth my heart seeing all the effort in making and the beauty of her gifts for me. Which reminds me of how poor my gifts are. Nevermind...I have her 21st birthday to redeem myself!

And down to the more serious topic. About becoming stagnant. In financial matters in general and Forex in particular. I mean...I'm really getting nowhere. I'm not actively demo trading. Not posting or conversing on the forum. Not talking to my forex buddies. Not quite reading. (Though I finally got down to reading one of the many ebooks uploaded by Clarence).

It's the phase after all the excitement. In technical terms, it's consolidation. If that is so, I sure hope my long term moving average is still trending upwards and the trend hasn't reversed. I seriously see Forex and trading, in general, as a viable means of survival, and investing would be the longer-term way of accumulating wealth. A job is far off my mind now. Even teaching (tutoring rather) is because I really love telling people about the subject. Well, I fail at telling people how to speak and write and communicate in proper English though.

Upcoming events should give me a boost. Will be at Clarence's Forex course in August. And varsity will be starting for me too. In fact I'll be collecting my matriculation card tomorrow from NUS! Many activities will be filling my life. And I wonder if I can cope. End of the day, or year, or my university life, I hope I have gone thru a ride of my life and not have to depend on my bachelor or honours degree. (or even Masters and Doctorate!)

Well. Hopefully it's a good start then!

A major loss

Yesterday I was on my computer and I visited a thread on this forum which has gone very quiet for the past 2 weeks or so. It belongs to a team of 2 admins who started this program to invest people's money through the method of scientific/mathematical/logical betting.

The basic idea was to increase one's bet after losing the previous round. The increase would be sufficient to provide for the profit of the current and all previous rounds of failed betting. Well, I must say I ever heard of this approach used in other gambling or chance games like poker and blackjack. If I am not mistaken, Firman and I also thought of applying it to Forex, applying double of the previous trade in the opposing direction. I don't quite know why we chose to abandon that method. Maybe because it simply was too risky compared to putting in a Stoploss level. And the trade amount might get really huge given a few earlier losses. To give you an idea, we could start with 1% of our trade capital, loss it for the subsequent few rounds and use up to 2, 4, 8, 16 and even 32% if our capital. And that still doesn't guarantee one can have a successful trade.

Rather, why not invest time and maybe money to find and design a system which can historically prove its effectiveness? Well, pretty tough and quite a hassle. Which is why I'm meddling with the idea of hiring a researcher to get me some info.

Maybe I could get some help during my uni days.

Anyway, a few of my friends are coming up with interesting, albeit not so fresh, ideas. One is to set up a Forex brokerage firm. The key selling idea is to make it local, approved by MAS with low pips spread to benefit short term traders.

The other comes from Louis and gang. I met him during my NS stint in Nee Soon Camp. Currently doing a accounting programme, Louis has hopes of establishing an investment firm to save on taxes on capital gains from equities trading. Currently our team's just Louis, Aloysius and me. But we're still looking to pool the expertise and financial ability of a few more investors to make a winning team.

Well, my basic proposal is to send at least one of us for a good course for a few thousand bucks so that we can better manage our funds which should hit some 30-50k. But then again, I really wonder what's going to happen from here on. I don't even suppose I can afford the initial that they hope to get from each investor. But probably that's no problem because I would be involved in live Forex trading the start of 2008.

Which only means I have to work harder now to find my preferred (and preferably winning) approach. Ok, time to do more studies. Next up would be to document the potential of using indicators to decide on trades. I realised from my experiment with parabolic SAR dots that they respond fast enough to reversals at the entry level, but lag when telling one of when to take profit. And it seems stachostics will help.

Have a great trading week ahead, mates!

Why financial freedom?

I really wanted to do this post a few days back when the issue was still fresh in my mind but somehow never found the time to do so. But, well, here I am to explore why we want to get rich...

My desire to do this post is triggered by Firman, who in http://intelnova.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=3507&pid=68486&st=0&#entry68486 exclaimed that we were not enjoying life like some of our other friends who are partying and having "fun". And Firman also reflected on the possibility that being too involved in forex to the point of obession would destroy us eventually.

And I share his concerns. After all, that "fun" is fun, otherwise I wouldn't have had the desire to drink, get high, and party. But...that fun is really short-lived. It leaves one with a headache, maybe some vomitting, and maybe a night of regrettable actions. (haha, I learn that the hard way) Not that I wouldn't do it, but it's good to know and be involved sometimes. But not too often. And as for the obsession part...I think this obsession is pretty good for the time being. While we might lose friends along the way, but that is just natural as one comes into active contact and relationship-building with other friends and associates along the same path.

Remember? The five closest people around you today will define your context and reality in the next 5 to 10 years.

Anyway, becoming rich is very exciting, because that means your standard of living goes up, you get to enjoy more material goods, you have the opportunity to quit you job in the middle of a career, you've no worries about your bills and many other superficial stuff.

But more importantly, the question "But have you ever wondered once we become financially free, what are we going to do?" is, to me, an answer in itself. No, that doesn't mean, just because I have time on my hands, I would laze around and waste time. In fact it is such that now the control over time and financials is returned to your hands, one can do what is most beneficial and important for oneself, loved ones, friends and many others. And if you didn't see charity, read again.

I HAVE A DREAM! That line was made famous by Martin Luther. His dream sparked and motivated the change in attitudes and constitution of America towards the "not-so-equal" people of his racial origin. Today things are alot better but still our brothers have more to do to prove their worth. The dream brought the people through amazing journeys and tough times.

In the same way, dreams will carry us through the toughest parts. Not that we won't get wet or slip or shot on this dangerous journey, but the dream would support us. And what's my dream? I hope to see, above all, that I can do what matters most. Be it to spend time with my gf (and wife-to-be), or possibly being there for my kids' special events, or to meet with my friends to always stay in touch, or to go on humanitarian trips to countries in need (and learn much more at the same time), or simply to sit down and learn to be at peace with myself. For all these reasons and more, I would like to be financial independent. Not of parents, but of a routine which would kill brain cells, stifle creativity, and make you lose what you love most.

So there you have it, Firman, and all, it is not going on this path towards financial freedom or passive income that will make you lose important stuff. But not going down this path would eventually get to you and you would lose even more.

In closing I would like to quote a motto of some ancient army (Greeks I think, or Roman, well, whichever).

ALL MAN HAVE FEARS,
BUT THE BRAVE PUT DOWN THEIR FEARS
TO GO FORWARD,
SOMETIMES TO DEATH,
BUT ALWAYS TO VICTORY!

Developments...

Ok, another long (-awaited, I hope) post. Oh, I mean it's been a long time since I last said anything. My girlfriend also found that she's increasing lazy to post anything.

Haha. So much for that. No intention of closing the blog yet though, not like it would matter to anyone. Ok, that's random ramblings.

Recently re-read Robert Kiyosaki's "Retire Young Retire Rich" and found it so refreshing! I was honestly looking out for the section on getting insurance on trading thru options and hedging but I realised the book's about a lot more!

For one, I hope this was not repeated earlier in my entries, is this idea of content vs context. The basic question from Robert to people is this: "What level of income do you want to retire at?" And according to him, most people would be comfortable if they get 25k to 100k a year in retirement. But rarely do people reply that they want to make millions a year, or even just the 100k to 1 million a year range.

And that's an issue of context! If you can't see yourself doing it or achieving something, there are good chances you won't. I heard this somewhere before, so let me quote this. "If you think you can't, then you really can't." And that is not some far-fetched mind-altering theory. It's very logical. You see, the only time we make an effort towards something is when we believe in it. It's called "faith" by some. I have to have faith that, by working hard, I can do well academically before I'll even put effort into studying right?

Doubtlessly, we can be forced or coerced into making an effort to accomplish stuff. But that's sluggish. Motivated efforts arise effortlessly when one has the passion and belief! It's sometimes known as "fun" by some.

So faith gives you an impetus for action...and coupled with the chances of winning a certain percentage of the time, you increase you opportunities where you can succeed! Now, that's not quite far-fetched a theory is it?

Haha. Just a minor reflection on my end. Recently I had some events in my life that made me aware of the importance of choices. Cos if we always chase after stuff that we think are new and fresh and exciting, we would find ourselves never in equilibrium. It'll honestly be an endless chase. And someone told me I am a show-off. And I admit that. I admit I feel good when I can do something relatively well. I'll also admit that I love getting praised for those efforts. And I don't intend to change that. What, instead, should be my focus would be to follow principle NO. 1 in Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People"...that is to lavish sincere praise on and give due appreciation to people around me. Dale said it well that people often can't go hungry for more than 60 hours, but yet can be so deprived of appreciation, hearfelt praise, and affection for 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months and even 60 years!

Well, I suppose it's a really good time to work on that since I'm entering a new phase in my life.

And darn! I missed Clarence's forex course after waiting so long for it. Cheers to him for letting me go back for the August intake. These months I've been really blessed with many people's guidance and forgiveness.

I hope sincerely that all of us can progress towards financial capability, autonomy, and then freedom.

Forex strategy testing

Ok, so after reading "Adventures of a Currency Trader" at Times Bookshop, I started to do some tests to see what's the effectiveness of strategies purely using indicators.

For a start I've completed the Average True Range of GBP/USD for the period of 1st Jan to 9th Jun, 2007, and found that the daily average is around 119 pips and, the weekly is 290 pips.

So that leaves me some sort of way to know how to position my stop losses.

I begin my strategy testing with using the Parabolic SAR dots reversals as signals as my trading strategy, buying on day 1 of reversal and selling on the 1st day of next reversal. SL levels are placed at the level of the dots and are unchanged for the course of the trade.

Data was collected for approximately a year on the daily chart from May 2005 to Jun 2006. Parabolic settings at Acceleration = 0.020 and maximum = 0.20. And guess what I found? This indicator works superbly well only in a strong trending market, otherwise the signals could just result in whipsaws.

Over the period there were 20 trades averaging 17 days each. The best gain was a 1081 pips gain in a 44 days trade and the worst trade resulted in a loss of 422 pips that lasted 17 days.

On average, there were loses of 44.2 pips per trade. And the reward to risk ratio, calculated by taking the quotient of dividing the pips gained by the potential pips loss as dictated by the SL level, found that the potential gain is rarely even 100% of the potential loss. The sole exception is the strong upward trend resulting in the 1081 pips gained. That one has a reward to risk ratio of 2.92 : 1.

So I realised that the Parabolic dots are only useful in strong trending markets which present themselves more frequently towards year 2007. Still they cannot be standalones in deciding trading decisions. And a trailing SL level at each day should be set as indicated by the new period's Parabolic SAR dot.

I've also to device a way to find a better time to exit trades, since I realised that the indicator is good in telling direction but quitting the trade only by the next reversal signal would mean there would already be some downside to the earlier gains.

My next study will be on Stachostics alone to see if they work as reversal signals.

I'm also attending a course by Clarence and I should be able to gain much from there. Did see in an email from him that some of his students are still quite lost though, hope I'll be a good trader who can pick up the right signals as his TNT system dictates.

Hope you guys are doing great trading and having fun yeah!

Updates

Now what's coming up man?

Of course, I had my orientation. And now I'm wondering if I should go ahead and do another one to know more people and have more fun! Haha, still on this "high" wave since Arts Camp...

So if I'm considering another one, it would be the sociology camp, which is packaged and advertised as a camp for socialites...

Haha, that's not what I am but I think I can turn to be a little more sociable. So far my networks are pretty limited and I don't quite know how to broaden its depth or breadth.

Or more like I don't know how to use my network extensively.

Well...in any case, I'll see if I should do the camp. Having another consideration, though. Gonna be overseas with my secondary school guys from 24th to 27th July. Destination: Redang. KC had to give up his notion of a historical/cultural trip. He told me why, but I can't remember.

So if I do go for both events...that's 2 whole weeks away from my gf! Which is really the opposite of the aim of quitting my job.

Sigh, I'll try to decide.

Back from the Big "O"

Haha...if that gives you the idea that I'm referring to something sexual, you must have not read my blog before. Well..."O" is for ORIENTATION! And what I just came back from is the camp for NUS Arts Faculty!

And now I'm on a emotional high! It's always sad to leave those fun times, but what I brought away are lotsa memories and a whole new bunch of friends to start uni with! (Sorry about this post, cos it isn't biz or economical in nature)

It's kinda late though and I might be having a long day of tuition tomorrow. So let's see what updates I can make sometime later yeah.

Meanwhile you guys out there have fun!

The Flaw of Capitalism

But, still, there's hope.

I think this news must have gotten to most people now. Brick workers in China being abducted or lured using sweet words to work in brick factories where they are ill-treated and poorly paid, if paid at all. And the best thing is there are appears to be some cover up on the law enforcement's end.

And this is not an isolated event. Neither is it limited to China or any single period of time. I believe slavery and abuse have been practiced from ages unknown till this moment.

And in some sense, it is actually the moral gap that surfaces in any capitalistic system. The fact is the system, assuming I'm right about the profit motive, drives companies or producers to cut cost to gain the most profit. And this sometimes occurs at the expense of human welfare. Or should I say that always occurs? While we try to get goods at lower prices, sometimes we have to ask ourselves if we are selling our conscience, simply because the dollars you save caused some others to lose precious time, comfort or even their lives.

Informed consumerism is a keyword we have to look at having known such realities like sweatshop and child labour. And in this case, forced labour. In fact, does it sound very different from rape in the activity's nature?

But the same system that caused the profit motive and problems would solve itself. Through a more perfect flow of information, we would know what to choose to buy or reject.

And if that sounds impossible to achieve, the real issue is if we have the conscience and heart to choose the right, over obvious benefits like enjoying more goods.

Downtimes

Would it be surprising that I'm undergoing a rough path at work? Well, just part and parcel of life I suppose. I honestly don't quite know how to put in words what I've been going through at work over the past 2 days.

To sum it all up, I'm just more willing to quit my job. I don't feel there's much to hold me back now, since I am aware of the complaints against me. There's a Chinese saying that says the wise knows when to go and come at the right times. And this is a time to leave.

It's not some injustice I suffered though. It would be without doubt that their complaints are true. I use the internet during working hours, my chats with colleagues from the corporate sales side is a "little too loud", I go for break that are a little too long. And the best one is that I slack on the job. I slack? Well, I haven't quite seen my predecessor do more work in a week as compared to what I complete in a day. My team, which include my colleague and I, covered up a backlog of an entire month's work in a mere 2 weeks.

And what are we told? The previous guys in my position said this job can be completed with OTs(overtimes). Well, I should say to my superiors that they should learn how to fire those who can't and can't be bothered to work then. Is it not more important that I finish more than a day's work on a daily basis than focus on my inequities?

To be fair, my supervisor was nice, truly, to have not mentioned all this to me until I approached him to discuss when I should resign. He thought he really didn't have to bother me about such things since we were doing our work, coupled with the fact that I'm leaving soon. But alas! It revealed to me the undercurrents of politics and arrow pointing in a corporate environment. And in a recent chain of events, I realised there's tai-chi, an ancient Chinese martial arts school and philosophy, played in this company.

Well, enough said for now. I'm just looking forward to a good break, away from unseen eyes which spys on and scrutinizes our every action and dangerous mouths that spit forks of flame and daggers to your back.

And I think I should think about how to avoid having a job in future.

Hopefully my free time is used properly to increasing my forex power in July.

Interesting times for USD

While the USD is still on a long term upward trend according to the 200day moving average, the recent events, particularly over the past 3 trading days. With almost no particular news on forexfactory.com that is in USD's favour and GBP's detriment, the G/U pair actually dropped some 300 pips!

So there's the drop on the daily, which came to be quite a shock to me at first. My mentor told me that the downward trend since mid April is actually a retracement of the previous uptrend since early March, and that the long term trend is still upward as indicated by the blue line beneath all the price action.

Well, nevertheless, i drew channels for the current uptrend as well. In fact I drew it for the downtrend since mid April and the uptrend for the past 2 weeks. And so on the 4 hour graph that's what I saw. The red arrow indicates where I first observed the situation where the price is sandwiched between the upward and downward channel.

I boldly predict that the market doesn't know where to go now, and it would decide by entering either the short-term upward or medium-term downward channel. On that day itself, it was the last few hours of the market when the trend entered the downward channel. And so I shorted the pair at 1.9668. My current SL for that position is at 1.9750 and the TP at 1.9550. A risk of close to 100 pips and a reward of 200+ pips. So that's a comfortable risk-reward ratio.

And this is truly paper trading. Because I didn't even open a position using virtual cash on the platform, but stuck a post-it note on my desk to remind me of this action.

And the reason for the drop? Was anyone wondering? To me it's pretty technical. On the daily chart, the big selloff started when Parabolic SAR dots reversed and the Stachostics crossed too. I had a look at forexfactory.com's news indicators and found nothing that would have given the USD such a boost. In fact, the news there were very much more in favour of the Pound.

So I consulted Grace Cheng(or rather, her blog). And she told me that yields on 10-year Treasury Bonds have hit highs, beyond 5%, apparently a high for the past 11 mths. And there are speeches made by guys at the Fed Reserve that indicate they are still willing to up overnight interest rates to curb inflation, which is still seen as a threat. Well, I do have to agree 3% per annum is a little too high.

Anyway, I think she can say it better, so you guys can read her post at http://www.gracecheng.com/blog/413/Forex%20universe%20revolves%20around%20USD.html

I think I'm moving towards a professional trading system and practice. Haha, and it is said right, that "I think, therefore I am"?

Wishing all traders and friends out there a great week ahead!

A Call to all Service Providers

Now, as a semi-service provider myself, I would like to bring this attention to all those who face challenging customers, especially when they complain.

Read this article in The Star, a English-medium Malaysian newspaper, which featured a political viewpoint. That there should be a "third way" in politics. The essence being that not all who criticise are against you or the organisation. Instead, the key proponent of this concept said that "those who don't care, don't bother to speak".

And this is easily applied to the service sector. In fact, as long as there is human interaction, there are bound to be unhappiness because there are imperfections in much that goes on around us.

So how do we respond? Do we groan and complain to our colleagues? But why do that? To gain some sympathy? Well, on the other hand, complaints allow us an avenue to know what can and is going wrong, and is moving in the counterproductive direction.

So remember guys, THOSE WHO DON'T CARE, DON'T BOTHER TO SPEAK.

PS. Had my hair cut and styled, looked pretty out of place on my head, but no issue with that ego issue I mentioned earlier. Doesn't quite have an effect on how I feel, just that I have a much lighter head.

Trades and such

Haha. To be honest, there will be no mention of specific trades here. Well...I did do a trade. But it was in a sheepish effort to gain some pips. Imagine, all that just to gain more money in paper trading.

Well, as previously said, I've been reading this book at Times. And I completed it yesterday, and I still plan to go back to read it up once or twice more while I'm still at working at my current position.

By the way, the title is "Adventures of a Currency Title" and I highly recommend it to everyone who is thinking of, or is involved in, Forex trading. One of the reviews put it very well. Raghee Horner said "The search for the Holy Grail (of successful trading) begins and ends in the heart and mind(of the trader)". And that is amazingly true. Because we can always buy a system, or learn how to decide on which trades are low in risk but high in profit, but we can never buy or acquire discipline. In fact, the main character, when guided by a mentor, was never told how to decide on trades.

There were 3 rules. And here they are:
1. Thou shalt not lose more than 25% of thine account.
2. Thou shalt test before trading.
3. Thou shalt stand accountable to another person in thine trading.

And that sums up what Harry, yes, that's the main characters name, was taught or induced to develop by his mentor. And the end is beautiful, because the person Harry stood accountable to was his wife.

Maybe I can hope for Miranda to join me in this journey.

Reflections and Doubts on my character PART 2

So here comes the actual stuff I'm supposed to talk about earlier this morning. These thoughts were actually triggered after watching Spiderman 3 the movie.

Just a slight deviation again. Been reading a very expensive book at Times Bookstore. It's a first-person narrative of a person's journey in learning how to trade forex. And one important lesson today is this: The person who wants to and depends on winning most would not win. Simply because when one's survival depends on trading, he tends to trade emotionally without a system. And that's a killer. The best trader trades according to his system, checking his every trade against a list of factors that must be met before he enters a position, and knowing that the system has a certain long term yield which would not be undermined by short term losses. So it's not about trading more or less, winning more or less pips, but following one's system and perfecting one's discipline.

Ok. Back to topic. I just got back from Malaysia, and one of the highlights of the trip is collecting a photo album done some 2 months back. Well, my relative set up a bridal boutique, which, of course, does more than simply bridal stuff. So our entire family was convinced to have an album done. Just in time for my 21st birthday. But that doesn't matter.

And this thought, supported by other events in my life, arises. I can look good. Well, not boastful at all I hope. But at least I can look more acceptable than what I appear as now. And I told my girlfriend that I should have my hair done with her at a saloon. A proper haircut. First in my life. And that I should go for some sort of makeover. I can feel my confidence growing.

But is it certainly positive?

Remember what spiderman did when he was infested with the "black creature"? The way he treated his ex-girlfriend (sorry, I truly have no aptitude for names) at the jazz bar. I know the cause is the evil nature of the "black stuff" that affected him. But can looking better, and thereby boosting my ego, lead me down the same road? I've been discussing, with my girlfriend, her concern about the possibility I might look for another girl during my varsity days. Is that possible? I can't even say it's an absolute negative.

Maybe I shouldn't change.

I wonder what the future holds.

Reflections and Doubts on my character PART 1

Just before I go into the topic proper for today, let me just say I've been in Malaysia for the past 4 days and learnt some stuff from my Dad. And did some thinking on my own too. From my Dad:

1. Our Western counterparts in America, Britain and many other European nations, apparently, have access to more sophiscated investment tools than what we have in Asia, or at least in Singapore. While it is common to hear returns of an average of 5% to 8% per annum locally for mutual funds, the corresponding rate in the States is around 20%, according to my father.

2. Wanna know why MNCs choose to rent properties for their offices instead of buy the space when they expand abroad? And they do that despite the huge probability that the value of prime land appreciates over time, and the fact that they can well afford to buy properties. Odd isn't it? Here's my father's take on it. Corporations aren't interest in anything that doesn't give them 20% returns a year, or at least a similar benchmark rate of returns. Can they be assured of 20% increase in property value over the long run? Well, not quite. And even if it's possible in boom times like recent years, they still sustain huge costs in administation and loan burdens in owning such properties.

And my thoughts struck me the last of the trip. In some sense they are simply extensions of the earlier post on "luck"...but I do realise that life indeed works that way! The Chinese have this saying that goes "An army has to be fed for a thousand days, but would be deployed usefully in just but a day". Pretty poor translation there, but the main point is that all major successes are built over a long period of ardous effort. Another saying goes "the performance lasts 3 minutes, but it takes one 3 years to prepare for it". Again, this saying reflects that spirit of vast preparations required for a short period which people can judge and value your skills and abilities.

Which, come to think of it, is very reflective of life, even in modern times. A middle school (or secondary school, in local context) student would spend some 4 years preparing for just one examination to prove his/her worth in the world of academics, and even then this system is insufficient to judge his aptitude for knowledge. And all things work this way. We prepare in all ernesty to face the task when it comes. And all our efforts goes unrecognised without the test.We face the same end if our prepartions are insufficient or are not done in the right way.

And, it might shock some of you guys who hear this, it applies to dying. In fact, it's an epitomy of sorts. We prepare for death (if we ever do), but yet we can never know when it comes knocking on our doors. Which means we have to be constantly alert, and do full preparations while we are still alive and kicking. Not unlike life and its challenges. In fact, all our effort is directed in building networks, learning to be smart, acquiring knowledge and much more is a prelude to the test, which could be an unexpected situation that is thrown at us. We prove ourselves in the "3 minutes on stage" when we face our audience. Maybe our bosses, managers, relatives, friends, family etc.

So put in all your effort and be always on the alert for opportunities yeah!

I think I would talk about my reflections on the Spiderman 3 later, pretty tired now.

Do you feel lucky?

Strictly speaking, lucky is not a very proper word to use. But...well...I'm not writing a grammatically correct essay here, am I? In any case, this little entry would somewhat be slightly philosophical, but I'm pretty sure it can be understood by everyone.

But first let me start with some events that occurred for the past 2 days. One, I sustained a fall and, according to the doc, some deep abrasions, due to my stupidity in rollerblading down a slope on the carpark road. A bit of a swollen wound there, but shouldn't be an issue in a week or so.

And, two, I watched the Beauty and the Geek show(on prompting from my gf), and was amazed how geeks can look so cool! Haha...makes me wonder if I can do any better. But I'm sure my gf and I will work something out.

Ok. To the subject proper. I was chatting with my friend(I honestly can't remember who it was) some days back and I was lamenting that the Cashflow game is pretty dependent on one's luck(as with any board game, since it's always an uncertainty with dices and such). And guess what? Instead of objecting to that statement and telling me we can still learn stuff from the game despite that problem, he told me it isn't a problem. In fact, to my friend, it's reality. We don't always have opportunities come along. And what the game requires us to do is to keep trying and lie low till the right opportunity strikes.

And then when "luck" is on your side, wala! One must take all action to take advantage of one's position and work quickly to advance in one's desired path and towards one's dream. On reflection, I noticed that during the game, I can accumulate huge sums of cash-in-hand because of just one deal when the opportunity strikes, but be struggling up till that point financially.

Guess what? My father ever taught me that philosophy(well, very practical philosophy) through this chinese principle. To the traditional Chinese philosophical scholars, they would recognise that in various texts, the triple treasures in the universe is identified as "Heaven", "Earth" and "Human". (Pronounced Tian, Di and Ren in Chinese).

A further expansion of the 3 words would be "Tian Shi", "Di Li", "Ren He". Sounds confusing? Haha, not meant to be yeah. So here's a simple explanation.

"Tian Shi" refers to the element of timing. And it is coupled with "Heaven" because it is pretty true (at least to me) that alot of things we do and encounter are preordained. After all, we can't quite control what occurs to us even if we can take control of how we spend our time on earth yeah?) And we can never know which is the most opportune time for us to make the right decisions.

"Di Li" denotes geography. This refers to being at the right place for events to happen to catapult us in the direction of our life purpose's fulfilment. Again , here we see that we can't control where we are, or rather, whether we are in the right place for such events to occur.

"Ren He" speaks of orderly and harmonious human relationships. But, to my father, it also denotes human effort. And this is absolutely necessary, whether it is relationships or effort, for success to happen.

Oh, and if I haven't mentioned, this is actually a philosophy of success. The key idea is that of the 3 elements, humans, to a great extent, often only have control over the last element. But yet, it is required for all 3 to concur before success can come. For a project to work out, or an aim be fulfilled, the right timing, correct geography, and full effort are all required. Yet, we can only control the last.

So what's the lesson? Should we second guess when the timing and our location be right to act? If we can't control or predict when and where the wind of opportunities come from and arrive, shouldn't we do our utmost to make sure we always have fully exploit our position by maximising our effort and building networks?

So, we can expect that with maximum effort, we could and will still fail. But beyond that, when finally we have our taste of success with the confluence of all 3 elements, then we begin to exert our influence over the first 2 elements. Well, to be honest, I still need to figure out this point and it's validity.

Well, guys, for now, put in your best efforts yeah! You never know when the other 2 elements surface to help you in your quest for your deepest desires.

PS, I disabled the screening for posting of comments. So do try again and post as much you would wish to!

A successful trade

Hey guys, just an update on a recent trade that I did yesterday. I believe many people should have made some cash out of the same opportunity. But here's the basic details.


This first graph is a 15min one. And basically I longed the currency close to the bottom of the that steep climb you see there. The entire movement is about 160 pips, stretched over several hours. BUT, as any and every trader knows, you would have set a stop loss and target profit. In this case I took profit at 50pips.



But that wasn't the reason why I entered the trade, the parabolic dots had no influence on me in this trade. But if you guys would care to look at the 4hour chart, it would be easily to realise that the GBP/USD pair has been on a downward trend for the past 2 weeks or so. So according to the channel, the pair was at the lower end of the band, which under usual circumstances, are an excellent place to buy to gain from a northward movement of the currency.

But I guess that's still not enough, so here you can see, on the daily graph, the stachostics actually crossed over the day before the huge move upwards.

At the same time, the pair (if you enlarge the daily graph you'll see it) broke thru the mid term MA in red, which means it has gone back into the long term direction of GBP strengthening/USD depreciating as indicated by the long term MA in blue.

So I hope that's not too difficult to identify? Right? No problem, we all can do it and earn something from this interesting market.

PS. I'm in for a long swing trade for the pair, but it's losing right now. But I've set the stop loss and wait for the retracement action to subside, then I can see some profits.

Numerous Updates

Well...I've no idea where to start. First of all, many thanks to my readers for giving me increasing support. In fact, the stats show thatyou guys are reading an average of 2 pages when you visit my blog! Well, it's a good jump from the average of 1.something before this. But you guys aren't numbers on the report! I appreciate the feedback, both on- and offline, regarding my blog. But...please...use the comments section alright? Let's develop some sort of communication flow here.

Ok. Investment updates. My "high risk" investment in a duo who uses a system to gain from international horse betting have scaled down their expected profit margin from 50% to 20%. Accompanied with that, they took in more investments, and would be using a more conservative strategy next month onwards. So their strategy is to pay investors first(20%), build reserve funds, pay themselves, and then distribute bonuses. And so the estimate is a week to accomplish each task. Pretty good idea actually, except that the accumulation of reserves would take more than a week I think. And I totally agree with fund managers paying themselves, but not at the expense of investors. Obviously, we can't have fund managers of losing funds who continue paying themselves substantial amounts, and adding to the fund's negative returns right?

Next, tuition. I just realised my schedule is packed, especially for June, during which my tuition with Miranda's brother would double. She's my girlfriend, if it hasn't been indicative in this blog as yet. And so, to track all this commitments and details of each lesson and homework I dole out and et cetera, I HAVE TO GET A ORGANISER! (well, that serves as a reminder to myself)

I'm beginning to feel strongly about acting in the position of a value-adding tutor. And I'm very happy that I am of assistance and able to help my students understand concepts better thru examples (and yes, I remember I'm supposed to develop a game). Have my doubt regarding one of my year 2 students though. She seems well-equipped for now. But that just means I have to build on that foundation and work with her other problems in interpretation of questions and answering skills.

Did I mention I'm going for the FASS(arts faculty) orientation camp? Sure hope I have a rolling gd time meeting and knowing people. And if possible, get closer to some as well. And, no, that doesn't mean towards girls only. But on a serious note, it'll be a challenge to me to develop my social skills, networks and habits. And at this point in time, it's still a tough nut to me. But I'm still positive I would have lotsa fun then!

Last but not least, congrats to Clarence for the successful trading months, and developing a good trading system which has been well-adopted by the pioneer students. I'm gonna go for the course, and I'm sure I'll gain alot from that. Though battling the urge to forget stop loss levels would still be an uphill battle!

Have a good weekend guys!

Meeting of the Forex Tripatite

Haha. We met on Saturday. And here I am talking about the meeting on a Tuesday morning. In any case, Firman, Eusof and I met up for a little chat of how we're doing and our approach and foreseeable future in the world of money.

So we had the usual talk. Firman's got a job that can potentially give him more than 2.5k a month. Of course, they expect lots of talant and hardwork from him. And it's a major international marine paint company that just started to venture into Singapore's shipping sector.

Eusof is, well, not very interested in going for any sort of training with any company. He has gone for a marketing company's training so far, and find it full of motivational crap. He's supposed to go for another company's one next. Apparently this company sells oilfield investment to the retail investors, with the minumum to invest as little as 20k.

Now Eusof's direction is mainly to look for ways to boost his passive income. I suppose that makes sense, but I thought that can be done in one's free time, which means time apart from an official activity (like having a job, and tuition, for me). But pretty good direction there. After all, I'm also trying to make sure I can receive a sizeable sum of money that I don't have to work for during my varsity days and beyond.

And, of course, we talked about forex. And, putting aside the possibility that Firman wouldn't have time for forex trading with his involvement in a new job, we decided we should go into an experiment. The basic concept is this. Based on Firman's experience in poker strategies and my understanding of a winning horse-betting system, and Firman's current system of hedging, we decided to try out this system that would basically trade in cycles.

So we would start with a small percentage of our total tradeable volume. And based on our own sets of indicators of reversals and trends, we would trade using standard stop loss and target profits levels. So based on a fixed risk-reward ratio, and the doubling method of increasing our trade amount for any subsequent trade to include the profits of the previous losing trades as well, we would experiment to see if this system works its magic.

So now the next step would be to find out what's the target profit and stop loss level. Firman suggested we find out the historical minimum daily pip ranges and take 2 levels off that. 75% and 50%. And we'll take one each and see who comes out doing better.

Now that's a cool experiment. And I'll be going for a course in July.

Anyone cares to join me to make some money?

Now, who's the tutor?

It shouldn't be any surprise at all that I, and the rest of us, learn from people around us.

Confucius said that "When people walk in the company of 3, at least one is my teacher."

Well, I never quite figured why the number "three", but what I think he is trying to get at is the principle of learning from any and everyone around us. It also means we have no right and in no position to despise anyone or being around us.

Well...and here I am...giving tuition to one of my most hardworking and enthusiastic (maybe not towards economics) students...and she taught me a thing or two. Or more. Haha...and I thought I was supposed to be the tutor?

Anyway, I mentioned this issue before. Of changing my image. Of becoming more concerned about the way I look...and most importantly how I feel about myself. At my current stage, I can't say I know how to look and feel good but I don't choose to do it. At least not in the way I perceive.

"We (I) only live once." Her words. Not unheard of before. Basically a call to treasure and make full use of life. And living is...taking daily risks. It is in the willingness to take the chance to get to our destinies that we truly live our lives in full.

My first risk? To get my hair done by a proper hairstylist? And attempt to maintain a...intended hairstyle?

Well, I'll give it a try, and start living.

Forex Preview Seminar

And, in a bid to write everything I experience and reflected since last friday, here's my second post for the day.

Basically I went to Apollo Centre and attended a forex preview seminar offered by FX:1, a forex-trading company. And they have an investment arm, as well, which is something new on the market. Claim to be MAS-regulated, but no way I can verify that. Nor did I bother. Well, it's honestly not a bad investment, with an approximate 4% returns MONTHLY. Again, I didn't ask it is compounded monthly or annually. But taking the bare minimum...it should be close to 50% interest a year. A very good investment as compared the standard options of Fixed Deposit, Bonds and what not.

But not to me. Maybe, just maybe, it would be a good option later. When I've excess cash, still wouldn't want that money doing lousy work at 3-5% a year. So I'll consider this, or similar, options by then. But for now, I'm willing to take the risk to earn some 20 to 50% a month, partially compounded. Those are supposed to get me more than 500 a month in passive income during my uni days. Possibly surpassing my income from tuition. But those are, at least in theory, supposed to stay in the investment account to make sure the growth of the fund is exponential.

The people were great though. I'm very certain they are all very successful people in whatever fields they are involved in. Especially this guy called Mario, now this guy can really sell by getting to the crux of the matter. Just too bad 3k is still pretty much to me and I've a cheapewr alternative which might not be any lousier.

Moreover, like I told those at the seminar, I think the problem is not so much the system but self discipline. After all, what good is the best instructional manual in the universe if you can't follow the guidelines right?

So that's my journey now. To explore and develop persistence and discipline and emotionless trading.

Get SMART! Don't trade the news!

To be honest, this trade happened before this weekend...and so I can't remember a single detail about it now. But the general idea is this. I longed the pair, GBP/USD, because of various indicators. On the 15 min graph above, the stachostics and parabolic dots have shown a reversal, which I have been waiting for, since the 1hr graph also shows an upward trend.

In any case...I...didn't notice there was an impt news for Britain at 4.30pm that day. And that's what caused that full candlestick of some 30 pips drop to appear. Well...silly me, but I learnt my lesson and will check forexfactory before I trade in future.

Forex gains

And so after some rejuvenation from a good morning (though I'm still letargic from the previous few months' work and increasingly hectic tuition schedule) I managed to find the drive to trade in the forex market again.

And, as usual, I'm on the GBP/USD. So here's a screenshot of what happened.


So as you guys can see, I wasn't actually at the top of the channel when I shorted. Fundamentally that's not a very ideal price to short at. In fact, it was a emotional response to my losing short at the base of that steep uphill.

In fact, I was prepared to lose until I hit the upper limit and short the pair again with an increased traded amount. Of course, my belief in that the mid-to-long term direction that the pair is going south is not unfounded. I base that view on the daily graph, which showed that the pair has broken a 40days Moving Average line, which is a significant support line. Parabolics dots also indicate the pair is on a downtrend.

In any case, the pair headed south prematurely on news that the US economy is not doing that badly. There were mixed data on the housing market, which, I quote, "is an indication of a soft landing" and growth in the industrial outputs. In both cases, the Fed Board can be less worried about sluggish economic conditions due to their policy of maintaning the overnight rate of 5.25%, targetting high inflation rates.

Honestly, I can't figure what's the obsession with keeping the price low...And based on the demand-supply analysis, doesn't the fact that there is inflation mean either there is overly-high demand or low supply in the US. Both doesn't seem to be true with the emergence of China and India. Both of which have been the fav target of US critiscism for some time for their unfair trade practices and such which affects the US economy adversely.

Or it might be because we are still in a boom cycle since 2001. Well, I'll get to study all those data and trends and theories when I go to varsity anyway.

For now, I'm toying with the idea if it is possible to properly administer and discipline my trading to a single system. Recently I got involved in an investment which earns from international horse betting. And the basic idea is to increase their bets such that they can earn the same profit for all the lost matches before at one go whenever they lose the preceding bet. Call it risky, but that decision made me 55% returns this month. And I think it can well be applied to my forex trading. Takes loads of discipline. Now I regret now having some sort of martial arts background.

A Very Good Morning!!

If you wanna guess what could make your morning(or my morning in this case), just ask yourself what would be more refreshing/soothing/enjoyable to do to kickstart your day. And for me, it was a visit to Starbucks. Cliche again? Yeah sure, of course that is cliche, if it is otherwise, this company that sells coffee at exorbitant prices would collapse. And that would have occurred far too many years ago.

But it's really a very personal thing. My love for Starbucks developed during my A levels days. And you know what won me over? It's really not the coffee, and no, not the brand name (I don't give two hoots about whether people see me drink Starbucks coffee), but really the service. It is pretty much a personal bias since, when it comes to relationships, no one can be objective in determining the strength of the bonds, or even the degree of "friendliness".

And, as everyone says, it's the small things that matter. The all-embracing smile, in today's context, is known as a hidden dissatisfaction. Which means the customers aren't happier because they see you smile, but they would in a foul mood (well, at least they would notice and be negatively affected) if the service provider doesn't do it.

Of course, other details do have some positive effect though. And that "hidden dissatisfaction" theory doesn't work so well for me. I had no further contact with Starbuck's staff beyond the sales counter this morning. But the smile, or rather, that joyful and energetic greeting of "good morning" made my day. The smile comes with it of course. Can't quite imagine a grumbly service personnel who whines that greeting, can you?

And they wouldn't mind, as with my previous encounters at other outlets, to customise your coffee or add additional stuff(like more caramel or chocolate syrup) if you asked for it, even if you're already halfway thru with your drink.

I thoroughly enjoyed my Caramel Machiatto today I must say. In fact, I feel so rejuvenated that I feel like it's time to start working on my economics game and forex trading again after a pretty sluggish week.

Here's wishing a great morning to all of you! (Share it with me in the comments, if you will, too!)

I have a dream!

Well...that's cliche yeah? These words were immortalized by our dearest Pastor Martin Luther King. And boy, one should really go download and listen to the speech sometimes.

And I don't quite have a dream...but what I wanna talk about today...is Charity. I don't know if you guys are aware, but I set aside a very slight portion of my income for purposes of charity. And I realised that I never quite knew what I am supposed to do with it. But that is fine, because I know I can take out a bit of cash if there's any worthy cause that comes along the way.
But I realised that money sometimes isn't sufficient. And to fulfil the cliche-ness of this post, the other component shall be time or effort. These 2 days I was recommended 2 tuition assignments for economics. One was from my ex-classmate in junior college and the other from an agent. And the similarity? They were offering below market rates. Of course the issue of my value, and how much is it relative to market rate, is a consideration. But I doubt my time is worth little given my passion and ability to explain concepts in econs(I'm still trying to hone my skills in engaging and inspiring my students though).

And I, honestly, go by my girlfriend's policy. I wouldn't lower rates even if my student's a relative of some sort. I don't want to end up making tuition a "favour game". Business is, afterall, still business. Should my rates be discounted on the account of relationships, would that then incur the beneficiaries of the discount some gratitude towards me? To me, that's not a good way to build relationships. It'll be even worse if there's no sense "thank you"s at all. So that's my policy now, it's all or nothing. (Nothing doesn't necessarily mean no tuition, it could mean no fees, again the turmoil of the "gratitude" issue.)

But this 2 assignments make me rethink part of that policy. Have I forgotten that not everyone can afford the standard market rates? Does it mean they shouldn't be provided for with any assistance, if they do deserve and need it, in education, or life in general? Do things all carry a price that reflects its full value?

Well, anyway, I took the one from the agent on the assurance that the student is hardworking and conscientious. And I dare declare it here, that I wouldn't mind giving this tuition up if the student isn't worth my time. And yes, I didn't say if the money's not worth my time, I said student. And I think I'll want to teach my ex-classmates recommended student over a meal or something. She said she found interest in the subject. I think, when one is earning a relatively comfortable salary, it does allow one to engage in efforts which provide more than material compensation.

So the dream is this: To someday have enough cashflow, so that I can do things without being bounded by considerations for my livelihood. To live as passion and a higher purpose would guide me. To be of assistance to those who are willing to work for their ends in mind.
Now, would you care to take a ride with me on this journey?

(PS. Lionel, my campmate during my NS days, and my understudy for my position in the unit, just landed a job with a very reputable firm at a good position, congrats to Lionel! Have a drink someday Bro!)

And I got my first interest payment from my risky venture! It's 50% man! Who would dream of that? For a "safe-safe" investor, that would take at least 5 years to build. Total working time: less than a day and a wait for 10 days.

Growth in Visitorship

Thanks to various recent actions, especially having my gf setting up a blog and linking it to mine, there was a improved daily visitorship of this blog.

To be dead honest, it's something I don't even dream of till it happened, but I suppose my gf's network of close friends did, thankfully, visited my site. (I sure hope it wasn't boring since financials aren't the most interesting for most people, unless we're talking about what one can do with money). By the way, could I extend my most sincere invitation for any and everyone to leave comments and such?

And that brings me to the next point...social networks...Well, definitely everyone has their own circle of friends and family and associates and such. But it troubles me that I don't quite have a big or strong network. Or at least I think so. Even the thought of that statement being true is disappointing. And so I am supposed to go to orientation to start my varsity life proper? Would I survive?

One of my colleagues (well, improper use of term, cos they are permanent staff while I'm gonna be here for only the next 2 months or so) told me that I should seriously consider staying on campus. She said it'll "colour my life," and I responded with "What if I aren't colourful enough?" Wanna guess her response? She said "Don't worry, they'll(I suppose it means the rest of my varsity mates) will colour you(or me really)."

And I dunno if that will happen? Me? Colourful? Those who know me probably can see the improbability of that. Think about this, when everyone's thinking about celebrating their 21st birthday with one big bash, I, almost, can't be bothered. Neither can or will I come up with anything impressive if I tried.

Having said that, it kinda bothers me. It's like I don't have a life, but I think I've gotta admit it anyway. In fact, I just made my first memorable attempt at looking good last friday. And, no, it didn't turn out well.

Makes me wonder if I should bother thinking about grooming and image and stuff. I even wanted to call the director of a PR company to see if they have any personal grooming courses. So what sort of bearing will this issue have on my life in varsity for the next 4 years? Will I still be a lone ranger?

Or will I choose to make friends, and build very strong friendships?

May Day! MAY DAY!

To be utterly honest, I haven't felt any urge to write since my last entry...after all, great things can't be happening everyday right? (Otherwise my life would still be boring...since there's no variation)
Well...but I do have a comment on the news report last night on our local english channel, Channel 5. Oddly, I heard nothing much other than labour strikes and protests last night. The report just jumped from the States, to UK to Indonesia. And then I realise that it's because of Labour Day. Well, in Singapore, we'll be much more willing and obliged to have a great day to rest (or party, for some) and complain about wages or labour conditions over a drink.

Call it apathy, it's really more like we know things can't quite change unless the National Wages Council tries to push for it...and it has met limited success(in my opinion) with regards to its push for the flexi-wage reform. I guess, in economic terms, the opportunity cost (the cost of the 2nd best alternative foregone) of spending time foregone is just way too high. Well, come to think of it, we don't even have a minimum hourly wage legislation to ensure no exploitation of inexperienced or temporary labour.

Of course the flip side of the story is that the minimum wage would kill the labour market's flexibility in responding to demand conditions of goods and services. But a slightly deeper probe would ensure the surfacing of this question: "Are those at fast food chains fairly paid?"

I really wonder...
At the same time, this has some implications for my economic board game...(I should really get it a name)...coupled with whatever I've been telling my students in writing and responding to economics essay questions: The ball is in your court, you set the parameters. And I realise, just like Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow game, I have to limit my game to a fixed set of (lesson) objectives and, therefore, game structure.
I have this strong feeling that Kiyosaki would have liked the game to be more flexible and reflect the real world of investing even more closely, which led him to design Cashflow 202, the advanced version of the basic Cashflow game, called 101. And I think he would have liked to taught people how bank loans and negotiations and financing and property checklists and advertising for buyer (and a whole lot of other stuff one has to learn in doing real estate and asset management) are done. Well, yeah, I'm complaining that why aren't all this in the game!
Guess what, I'll meet the same objections with my game. The fact is, a board game, to achieve its purpose of teaching certain principles or policies or evaluations, can't be fully "practical", ie. a good part of it is theoretical in nature. And the complexity of the game would depend on how "realistic" I want it to be. In a very fundamental economic way, I now have to make choices. Because there would be both costs and benefits to choosing "complexity with realism" or "simple but theoretical". In fact, Kiyosaki already influenced me and convinced me of a need for a advanced board, although, in my mind, I can build that into the current game just by changing the cards.
Well, for now it'll be some mauling over the cards for the first basic set! (Now who is gonna test run the game?)

Financial Planning and Advisory

Hahaha! Gone are the days when insurance agents con me into believing they are "financial advisors". It's really quite crappy when the agents who talk to me about life-planning only manage to bring across one point - Please Buy Insurance.
One even admitted, when I ask for investment opportunities and didn't want it attached to an insurance policy, that "insurance is their key business" and there is no way they would offer any sort of investment or subsidary schemes without insurance attached.

But anyway, like I said, that's all in the past for me. Just yesterday I took an entire day of work to go to varsity to do a body checkup to make sure I'm healthy (apparently the varsity administration wants to ensure I won't die in the midst of a 3 year course), meet a financial advisor from FinExis, and go back to my army camp to collect all my stuff that I left in my store since...Nov 2006.

Come to think of it...it's been an entire 5 months since I finished my national service...but only managed to squeeze salaries out of 4 months.
Back to the topic. I met Isaac from FinExis, a comprehensive financial advisory firm that doesn't align itself with any single insurance, investment, banking or financial firm. Instead, they do a complete analysis of their clients short-medium-long term goals and current financial status and then recommend a path to ensure suitable and sufficient protection, auccumulation and distribution.

But be prepared to sit down and talk for 4 hours or more to complete this "health check," so I really went through 2 checkups yesterday. And maybe some of us would have to take time to develop a trusting relationship with the financial consultants since one would essentially be revealing all of one's financial data to them. Isn't an issue to me though...since I'm quite proud of my efforts in the past 3 months to properly manage my income and investments. Never quite bothered curtailing expenditure though.
Despite the long long long time I had to talk to Isaac, I really learned alot. The greatest fact that striked me is...Mutual funds and unit trusts can actually be quite profitable. But besides that I know that I do have to have an executive's pay package to achieve all the goals I have in the medium to long term. But for now I'll just wait for the report and see what it says.
Also, I realised I really wasn't covered enough in case any accident or major illness strikes me, not to mention death. After all, I can just pay pretty low premiums since I'm still quite young and continue paying that amount until the policy is underwritten again.

So do tell me if you guys have any desire to take charge of your financial future yeah!

Sketches of my game are out!

Let me first start with a negative note. I feel kinda lost with my forex trading. No doubt, yesterday I read the indicators and felt that the short term trend for G/U is to head south, supported by the daily stachostic crossing over and gap widening since 21st April. So I shorted the G/U twice at peaks to gain 30 pips each time.
The thing is...is this the right way to go? I have a mentor, Clarence, who revealed a basic system of setting up indicators and a host of readings to improve my forex trading...but I failed to use all that information...I am still doing alot of "experimentation - freestyle" on my own with no purpose other than to see if my "luck" is good enough to get me some winning trades...

After I confirm that the first "draft" of my game is pretty much done, I'll really go back to run the system and read those books. This isn't procrastination but focusing. (Although NOT spending enough time and effort on developing the game IS procrastination!)

But well, back to the game, I got my first sketch of what the game looks like now. The general flow of game is also determined. The next step is to design the cards and play the game myself to see if everything works fine. Then it would be back to school to see if I can work anything out with my previous econs tutors...

And if I spend enough time dreaming and nuturing big dreams...I might well be building an educational game to sell to MOE to employ in teaching macroeconomics. But that aside, my motivation is still to benefit my students (so that they can learn the same principles without hearing me repeat them verbally).

I realised, though, that I need to tweak the designing to have some sort of way to show the progress of the player. It is part of making the player feel good and to enhance competition. A physical representation that indicates progress would make it obvious how well one and other players are doing. That competition would then make the game more than just economics. But nevertheless a measure of economic understanding and luck would be required.

But well...I've still to work on the cards first...so here I go...

Books Bonanza

Was at Plaza Singapure where's there's this huge "warehouse sale" put up by Carrefour...prices are really pretty low...the books were going for 3 bucks each, but of course one had to spend the time to fish for worthy ones.

So I got a few titles...one was the famous (meaning I think I heard of the title before) "Why do Bad things Happen to Good People"...and I go the "Go-Getter"...that one I could finish in an hour...basically tells a story of a war veteran who lost half the functions of his body but perseveres and never gives up on a "impossible" task set by an incredible Boss.

One important lesson in that title is the concept of "degree of the blue vase." The impossible task is as such, the man being tested for his capabilities would be asked to fetch a worthless blue vase sold at USD 2,000. Now, to make things difficult, he was given the wrong address to buy the vase from, no means of forking out the cash, an impossible time limit, and the "examiners" would even tweek details like the shop owner's name and contact number.

Well...in any case...he managed to get the "degree"...which proved his persistence and resourcefulness. And what is the lesson? It is summarised in the phrase "It'll be done."
And that brings me to the point...how many times have we seen something worth doing and say "It'll be done" regards of all the current restrictions and barriers? How willing are we to abandon our comfort zones to brave the world to try for a home run?(My apologies, that's really just questioning myself)

I know I haven't...at least not to the extremes. The closest I came to do that is when I was super-motivated by one of my BMT platoon mates to run personal bests for 2.4km run and our Standard Obstacle Course. He went on to OCS anyway, and he definitely deserved that!

In some sense, I feel like an untested stone. And I sure hope that's I'm a gold ore.

Anyway, other than that, I chanced upon another opportunity. Just moments back was chatting with Eusof (who is in Uni now) and he said he wants to take up a sales job during his 2-odd month break...and I was commenting that I think I knew what I am good at selling. I term it "unsecured investments."

So happens that I came across My Winning Funds on the forum I frequent. It's an open program that basically uses a mathematical approach to betting on horses. I didn't quite know the admin so I called them up and checked out if this is for real. Actually the concern here is capital protection. I wouldn't mind no or minimal returns, but I don't expect my money to disappear overnight.

I think I've secured enough trust to invest with them, which would add to my portfolio of assets.

So for now, it is to quietly watch the cauldron and stir it once in a while to make sure nothing goes wrong. Of course, every and anything can go wrong, but that investing...and I can't manage the risk, but I at least do understand how my money is managed.

Conclusions

I did abit of thinking and found that I don't quite have any need for the detailed expenditure listing I am doing now. After all, I don't do budgeting and I really don't like to limit how much I spend, since my expenditure is pretty consistent (except for the occasional splurge on food).

So I decided I shall give up noting down the nitty gritty I spend on. But as long as, for these few months till late July, I don't go into more than what my expenditure account holds...then that's fine. Would still be ok for me to dig a bit deeper into a negative 100+ region as long as I can foresee I can earn enough to get it out of the red.

Thinking of my game now...my gf said I should start by "playing the game"...meaning design what the gameplay is like and then derive the rest...

So my next step is to sketch out the game I suppose? But I realised different game models are designed to get at certain aims...so I do have to give some thought to the most fundamental aims of my game...ok...so that's the task for today: 1. Sketch the game & 2. Think of the aims

Can I handle 2 major goals in a day, or even a week? I wonder...

My accting book went missing!

Haha...I am really laughing at this situation...I misplaced my small little accounting book which I record my daily expenses and bank account balance.

And I honestly thought that it is "life-threatening"(meaning I panicked and worried about the issue) to have lost that book. After all, l had that with me for more than 2 months and the book is symbolic in that I started properly watching my expenses and cashflow with it's establishment.

But...as always, things aren't so bad. And I found a better way out...And that solution is called and computer and Excel Sheet. Haha, so now all I have to do is write a formula once and copy it all over the place. That kinda saves me time from punching in numerous figures into the calculator...but I sometimes enjoy that process of seeing numbers grow...

Haha...in any case, the loss of the book led to greater growth and efficiency, which is pretty desireable. Just one issue left to settle: should I continue with the daily expenditure recording? I suspect I won't be doing so, but I have to give it some extra thought.

Anyway, I managed to type out the draft agreement for investors in the AHF and will be sending it to Kiat Loong.

Customer Service! (Lessons applied)

I love my weekend! I can't help but shout that out. Cos I gotta do a roadshow on friday and saturday. Well...to be honest(I phrase I commonly use at the roadshow) I enjoyed friday's more than saturday's...not because it is slacker(less busy) though...

But because the lesser volume left more alot of time to spend with customers with whatever assistance they need. Similar one earlier roadshow, I got some namecards from my customers. One namecard I got this time, however, established a strong relationship between the customer and I. For all my customers who enjoyed and allowed me to exercise quality customer service, a huge "Thank you" and note of gratitude to you guys!

Actually I'm pretty glad to be working in two positions within my company(both as temps)...One benefit is that I can assist my customers at the roadshow beyond the usual scope of advising on our services etc...Because of my admin job, I can actually offer to help with their problems, though still limited by my knowledge and authority.

mmm...if only we can have amazon.com's customer service staff's authority to make on-the-spot decisions. But at the very least, an espisode last thursday at my usual office job taught me how to bring problems to the official customer service people within the company. So that means I can help customers beyond my scope of duty should they require that in future.

For now...it is back to work...and to follow up on cases that I promised to get back on over the weekend!

Customer Service

I recently picked up a book I read years back (just a year back really, shows my penchant for exaggeration eh?) titled "amazon.com - Get Big Fast." And the most fascinating part about the company is its focus on customer service. This time round, I haven't quite come across my favourite example but I was so impressed I can literally share the story with you guys off-hand.

The story starts with a customer ordering a softcover version of a title and expecting it to be in the mail a few days down the road in his mailbox. To his surprise(well they never quite mentioned what the customer's reaction was) he found a hardcover version of the same title with a note, handwritten, informing the customer that amazon.com ran out of the softcovers for that title and is sending him a hardcover one at no extra charge!

Another story tells of a customer who sent a postal order to pay for his purchases...well honestly I can't tell the story as well...so here's the Robert Spector's version. "Soon after launching the site, the company received an order from a customer who lived overseas. The customer sent Amazon.com a money order that was for the wrong amount. "Then he cancelled part of the order, so that we now owed him(the customer) money," recalled Barton-Davis. "But he decided to order some more books. He wanted to merge that order into the one he had already put in, and he wanted to pay for it with the remainder of the money order and a new money order.""

Wanna guess the response? "Jeff's(Amazon.com's founder) response to this was that the customer gets it his way."

Can you imagine that, despite the massive accounting and financial headache such an event would cause, Amazon's vision is that the customer gets what he wants as long as it is physically possible with the system.

I'll be honest, I really like that attitude! There were many times in my part-customer-service-part-administrative-duties job when I wished I could do more for the customer. One of the point that baffles me is why shouldn't I (or anyone else in my position" shouldn't be equipped and trained to handle a wider-range of customer enquiries since we(I represent my company) are calling the customer in the first place. It is disappointing (read: sucks) that I had to trouble customers to call our hotline for simple issues which would have been logically under my duties.

But I do try to be more jovial and attempt to match the styles of the customers I speak to. If the customer is in a rush, I speak faster, or ask if there's a more convenient time to give him/her a call. And I would schedule calls way back to check if a problem is solved, which gives me more work, having to track all this "extra" tasks. But it really is important and great to have problems solved for the customer.

mmm...maybe I should send appeal to my superior regarding this issue. The very least I should do now is to give suggestions as to what we can improve on to make ours a truly exceptional customer experience!

Cashflow games

On first encounter with the game, I honestly thought it was all marketing and nothing very much in substance. (Sorry to Kiyosaki)

But nevertheless, I told myself I would play the game quite a few times(10 to be exact: to date i've been on 101 for...5 times, losing all games against 4 com players) and then write a review here.

After my first game, and ending up unimpressed, I met a friend online and asked if he had ever heard of or played the game. He has and I told him my first impression of the game, and he gave me an alternative view. Kris also mentioned that what he found most interesting is how players respond to and act in the game. I thought to myself(and replied similarly) that the game appears pretty simple and it is all about choosing the right investments with some luck.

Well...in any case, I thanked him and started playing with maximum number of computer players. Then I realised luck does play a very big part, but my mistakes and emotions started appearing as well! Of course the worst emotions surfaced since I couldn't win a single game and even got 0 passive income in one. I really felt luck was against me and gave me no good opportunities. But I also realised my formula for getting out of the rat race might be wrong. So far, I understand that to get into the fast track soon, I have to have some cash to buy into big deals without incurring negative cashflow because I took a loan to finance the downpayment. So I thought I should focus on capital gains first, by buying stocks and such...which the Mentor(Kiyosaki in disguise) actually approved of as long as the stock is trading at the low or lower than the trading range.

I need to start designing and sketching my own board game. And I got a positive affirmation from my econs student that a game should make econs more applicable and fun. But for now...it's more Cashflow 101 and 202 games for me...