Managed Forex Commentary

Weekend

Devrim on or near his lows for the month, looks like he’ll finally have a down month and big one at that.

Went live with UFX today, first trade a winner, bodes well.  I like his record and will really like it if it proves to be true.  I think it will.

Triton no trading, collecting his thoughts, managing money for others is a different game with additional pressures that he didn’t have trading for himself.

Our old manager that made such consistent money is taking money again, Excited about that, sounds like it is closer to launch.

007 up over 4% on the month a client tells me, nice to see.

MWC going for their third down month in a row, ow.

Ian says he has some trades looking good for Sunday or Monday, excited to see those as well.

HVB up small today.

Off to the east coast tomorrow for a triathlon sunday, Nantucket visit, Lake George, and climbing Mount Marcy.  I’ll still be in touch but not as much next week.

Tough Month, Good Month

Many guys are struggling (but many aren’t, see below), Devrim most notably so.  Not sure what to say about his program except it would be real nice to have it back in the black.  Looking like his first down month may be inevitable, makes his record look more realistic.  Matador off 2% on the month.  ForexMax I hear is off 15% the last couple months, glad we got out when we did, he never made money in our time with him.  Triton off yesterday, positive today, he is distraught having come off his best month and going to his worst month just as he brought on clients.  He’s taking some time to get his head back on, pressure to run outside money and wants to impress so maybe pushing it more than normal, combined with his trades just not following through.  I think he’ll work it out and we’ll have a money maker on our hands.  Time will tell, maybe I’m being biased as we’re in a partnership and that is blinding me, hope not.  He did tone down his trading volume today, taking only one winner, nice to see, maybe a new pattern.

Good meeting with Paskewitz, also a large well-known futures third party fellow who’s been around 30+ years and raised boatloads of money, was great to meet him and have his support and hear some of his wisdom.

Ian tells me he is up 13.8% on the month - had the Eur/Cad on in addition to the Eur/Try, so made money on both.  His system makes so much sense to me.  He takes an opinion on a currency going off the country’s policies, interest rates, governement, economy, etc.  Then he looks at the intrinsic value of the currency that he figures out with his proprietary system, looks at the trend of that value, and then waits until it is overbought or sold versus TWO other currencies (in case one gets whipped around by news or whatever).  He only places trades with positive carry. (gets paid interest to sit in the trade)  So he gets as much as possible in his favor and only then will place his trades.  Seems a sound system to me.

Starting Rove, we’ll see how they do.  I like that they are at Oanda, low trading fees are always good, they are only getting paid if they make money for me.  Need some time to research all these other names I have, if anybody has any winners would love to hear, I’ll keep them to myself if you’d like.

Mcelhannon to new equity highs he tells me on the Premium program.  And another impressive positive trader, 007 is up about 2% on the month.  After reading through, actually a number of traders are doing just fine or better than fine this month.

Forex Traders…

Always looking for new traders it seems, or rather promising new talent is always knocking on our door, and one has to look.  Have George, Roberto, Ben Song, Capital Ventures, Mango, Rove, David all on the list and most coming from solid sources.  We shall see if any shake out.  If anybody has experience with any of these traders I’d love to hear, will save us time and effort and money.

Devrim making some smaller profitable trades but his major AUD position still hurting us quite a bit.

Ian says he has some trades shaping up for Wednesday after the fed meeting, looking forward to that.

Triton off today, no trading yesterday. 

MFA in town this week so meeting with some solid players over the next few days, looking forward to it.

I can see how tempting it is for these forex folks and brokers.  Post huge returns, people believe them, keep opening new accounts and cleaning them out thru losses and commissions, and keep posting great numbers even though you are losing clients’ money, or post real numbers after your system has worked for quite a while, many fail, it’s the nature of trading systems to run in cycles.  With no regulations, it’s easy for them, people want to believe, including myself, and will send money.  The lesson being: start with what is a small account to you, get referrals from long-time clients, do your due diligence, and be careful, move slowly.  Another lesson: treat traders like trades, know where you are going to get out with each trader, and stick with your rules.  Don’t fall in love with a trader.

Managed FX

Devrim off again, down near his worst lows from earlier in the month, was recovering but now dips back down, arg.  I’ve lowered my margin on him.  That being said I still think he’s a talented trader but this is not fun.  Spoke with him for a while Wednesday night, markets are frustrating him (clearly).

Triton good news, three solid up days the last three days.  He has powered through on his own account and is now only down about 8%.  We had dropped our PFG leverage after a losing streak and have had a lot of execution issues so haven’t see the same numbers.  Going to Currenex Monday and bringing leverage back up some so all should be well, we’ll see.  Also going to add him at some other brokers, Gain, Saxo I expect, potentially Interactive Brokers though Triton is pushing Gain.  We’ll see what happens.

Ian was up over 10% on the month as of yesterday, I am watching the charts and I expect he gave some back but don’t know for sure.  Anyways impressive month for him.  Too bad we didn’t get the trades on, we now have Saxo and Citi accounts set up so will get the next trades for sure (will they be winners….?).  Also got things squared away at PFG so he has many more pairs to pick from, more opportunity, and we shouldn’t miss too many more going forward.

HVB struggling lately, down this month.  No trading today due to quad witching.

Spoke with a good buddy who is a successful trader about Triton and sticking with a program, powering through, keeping sizing consistent because you know and believe in a system.  He made some great points.

Have a handful of new guys we are going through and some pretty exciting relationships solidifying, we’ll see what transpires.

Ian up

Ian is now up over 8% on the month, just two trades, and very low leverage on them, 1:1. Impressive. EUR/TRY is still on. Met with him again yesterday, we have a deal done, so that’s good. Hope he pans out. Each trade has worked as he said to date, which is about par for his trading as the statements and numbers I’ve seen show. We shall see how the next trades go, I have leverage correct and have all the pairs available to him that we can.

Getting money going with UFX, he’s an Italian friend of mine running over 20 million Euros. He got sick of trying to find good managers to allocate to and decided to trade himself. Numbers are very good, we’ll see how he does in real time. Shouldn’t be much risk to find out if he is for real. Drawdowns look to be low. PFG program is Short Term, he also runs at Saxo.

Some of these guys I have deals with and some I don’t so take that into account when reading what I write about them - I do my best to be unbiased but clearly I’m not doing this for free.

Devrim still working his way back, off a bit today.

Triton off a little under a percent.

Mcelhannon to new equity highs on one of his products, good to see.

Looking at a new trader named Matador traded by Jason Forbes, have some history with him, numbers look decent, they are posted on www.ForexCTAs.com. Have statements, etc from him. He’s registered with the NFA and has all sorts of due diligence.

MWC off 5% today, ouch. Apparently Amar overtraded last night.

Managed FX

Just back from a long weekend of hiking with some buddies in the mountains on the Olympic Peninsula.

Traders have done well the last few days.

Triton up Friday and today, hopefully the beginning of a streak.

Devrim continues to fight back, about even for today so far.

Looking at a trader who is a good friend and business partner of a former business partner of mine who has been doing very well trading FX I’m told, solid returns with small drawdowns, up 8 of 10 months or something, waiting on supporting documents. Trader’s name is Jason. Will be captive at an FCM where my friend is now working.

MWC up Friday, no trading today.

007 up on the month about .5% last I heard, nice to see.

Devrim recovering

I don’t know how he does it, I’m showing him up 5 or 6% the last few days, now only off 6-7% on the month.  Still off, but impressive recovery.  May be worth it to add more to accounts when he’s down and time him, seems like a regular occurence.  Risky though potentially quite profitable.

Triton still getting chopped up, see below for an update from him.

MWC has a decent day.  Ian set up at Saxo and Citi now, and also getting him squared away on having access to more pairs at PFG.

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Just 3 trades today, lots of movement today with most of the action seen in the Asian session which means for me reduced trading potential.  Pairs ive got trades on are still bogged down at the moment. Time will tell as always

GBPJPY

New trade

-35

new trade

open -15 current risk will look to lock something in as it presents itself later

EURJPY

New trade

open +10 locked in, will look to lock something in as it presents itself later

Triton Update

Below from Triton for today’s trading (guess a daily resolution’s not so bad).  Heard some more very positive comments about him from the owner of a big FX firm today who has been working with him for years.

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Another mixed bag of trading again today, but at least we are seeing some profits all-be-it small ones being locked in to some of these trades indicating that the movements are finally opening up and we are seeing some follow through on the trade set ups.

There are currently some open profits which look reasonable so far.. it aint in the bank yet so lets not get excited about some small profits but at least its not as dire as last weeks situation

The result for today’s trading including previous trades that rolled over. Also keep in mind that I am reporting the “position” and not what you will see on the reports due to the way brokers execute trades and as previously stated some of the profit will already be booked on the accounts.

EURUSD

Roll over trade

2/3rds position +15

last 1/3rds split

2/5ths last 1/3rds – open locked in 75

3/5ths last 3rds +45

new trade today

2/3rds position +15

last 1/3rds split

2/5ths last 1/3rds – open

3/5ths last 3rds +35

GBPJPY

2/3rds +25

last 1/3rds split

2/5ths of last 1/3rds +30

3/5ths of last 3rds 0

2/3rds +20

last 1/3rds split

2/5ths of last 1/3rds - open

3/5ths of last 3rds – open looking to lock some profit on this later in the day

GBPCHF

6/6ths -65

CADCHF

6/6ths -35

6/6ths -21 (1pip slippage)

USDCHF

6/6ths -26 (1pip slippage)

2/3rds +20

last 1/3rds split

2/5ths of last 1/3rds -2 (2 pips slippage)

3/5ths of last 3rds – open to be held overnight

EURJPY

2/3rds +15

1/3rds -30

add in

2/3rds +20

1/3rds -38 (3 pips slippage)

re-entry

2/3rds +20

last 1/3rds split

2/5ths of last 1/3rds - open

3/5ths of last 3rds – open looking to lock some profits in later in the day

Devrim up Triton up Ian up

Better day than Friday for sure.  I need to blog less often and give these guys some space, daily resolution is great but weekly or monthly is more the timeframe most managers are on.

Triton up day, great to see.  Spoke with my friend who was in his chatroom for over a month from 1am on - says he watched Triton go though a rough patch of a couple weeks and he held his iron discipline, stuck by his guns and kept on trading the setups that have always worked for him.  Well done, and I shall do my best to watch and keep the faith, was just hard to hit a bad drawdown nearly out of the chute.  I asked the trader how long he thought it would work, if there was shelf-life to his strategy - he told me one he found a reference to back in 1880…  That’s a good ways back…  He also adapts as time goes on, changes and tweaks to adapt to the market’s changes.  Love the daytrading and low leverage usage.  Some overnights but on small leverage.

Devrim nice recovery, not smart to bet against him after all the big recoveries he has had.  In the past when he’s been down he’s gotten angry and it’s worked for him in terms of being able ot pull money out of the market.  Down 13 or 14% now instead of 20%.

And Ian got a nice trade in USD-TRY on, up 1.5% already.  Trade is only at Saxo, PFG doesn’t offer that pair.  Saxo and Citi have more pairs than anybody else, and Ian trades just about everything.

Looking at G5, Mango, a robot, but focused on Ian and Triton, if either pan out we’re all going to be pretty happy.

Triton update:

Little bit choppy on the signals today but at least seeing some follow through with some small profits being seen at last.
 
Lots of slippage today which is I thought a little outrageous prices were, in fairness, jumping around all day. Slippage on both side of the trades very frustrating to see but as prices were jumping around all day I’m not sure we can point the finger to anywhere other than the market being skittish at the moment.
  
 
EURUSD
2/3rds +10
1/3rds -21
 
3/3rds -43
 
2/3rds position +15
last 1/3rds split
2/5ths last 1/3rds – open
3/5ths last 3rds +45
 
 
USDCHF
 
6/6ths position -26
 
2/3rds position +10
last 1/3rds split
2/5ths last 1/3rds –1
3/5ths last 3rds +24
 
 
EURJPY
2/3rds +20
last 1/3rds split
2/5ths last 1/3rds –3
3/5ths last 3rds +25
 
 
GBPJPY
2/3rds +19
1/3rds -1
 
GBPCHF
6/6ths -21
 
 
slippage – market has been jumping around and skipping prices all day
eurusd – 10 pips total over 3 trades
usdchf – 3 pips total over 2 trades
eurjpy – 3 pips total
gbpjpy – (12 on a news spike) 5 pips total normal market conditions
gbpchf – 6 pips total on 1 trade (the entry!)
 

Devrim down down

Arg.  Not feeling too well after Friday’s big drawdown on my Devrim accounts.  Looks like b and Robert were right, so much risk.  We’ve been in a similar situations before but not as bad.  I think we’re showing what, 20% down or something with a bunch still on.  I usually drop guys when they exceed their max drawdowns, but with so much experience with Devrim and his style and making good on these drops, and barely exceeding his worst.  Will definitely drop the leverage down when he comes back, and may drop it before.  Undecided.  Probably some more heat to be taken too. 

So hard to find solid reliable consistently profitable traders that are scalable and willing to manage money for others and will take small test accounts and share fees - I suppose that is a lot to ask for.  Got my friend with a manager making money most every day he tells me, but high minimums there, no fee sharing and a fund structure.  HVB is actually pretty solid to date.  Triton - hope he has a good week, and Ian would be great if he proves out, excited for his next trades.  Got him an account going at Saxo and Citi in the works for him, also doing a company with him.  So still guys in the pipeline.  Plus the Managed Forex Pro guys, Won and QFXMA, we’ll see how those do.