Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Is the US dollar’s decline since January 2017 a ‘Black Swan’ event?


The OmicronFX algorithmic Forex trading system is proving its reliability by being consistently profitable throughout 2017. It was able to ride out a long-term extreme global economic event, and still show profits.

The US dollar decline as an extreme economic event

The US dollar has been in a prolonged fall since the start of the year. On July 23rd last, Morgan Stanley said that “Our MS positioning indicator shows the most extreme USD bearishness since its inception in 2009”. According to The Wall Street Journal on Aug 7th, the US dollar has been “… suffering through one of its worst stretches in years”. The reasons for this fall have to do with political events in Washington as much as with economic announcements from the Federal Reserve - specifically, the belief by the markets that Donald Trump will not now be able to carry out his tax reforms because of the difficulties he is having with the US Congress, and even the Republican Party, for which is supposed to hold the presidency. It is now also understood that the Trump administration has come around to the belief that a weak dollar is good for the US. However, there are real signs now that the Greenback has reached a significant low, and is starting to rise again. Fundamentals, including payrolls, retail sales and even GDP in the US are showing increasingly valid signs of what could be termed robust good health.

The factors for success

The success of the OmicrFX system in coming through this event was a combination of (1) the capital retention policies we have always used, (2) the price action experience gained over the long development period of the software, (3) as much diversification as was possible (bearing in mind that ALL currencies ultimately respond to what is happening with the US dollar), (4) the fundamental principle that the system incorporates of always playing both sides of a move, so that there will be hedges in place for much of the time, and (5) last, but not least, patience and perseverance during drawdowns. This last was made possible by careful monitoring of the key indicators of leverage used and drawdown size, to ensure that positions were never in danger from elevated gearing.

The system is now well developed

It is important to state that this is not a solicitation for investment. We cannot do that until such time as we are regulated. However, through our professional advisors, we have engaged with the Central Bank of Ireland with a view to becoming regulated under MiFID, the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive of the European Union, to allow for trading on behalf of clients throughout the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA). This process is both expensive and time-consuming.

If you would like to receive regular updates on the performance of the various Forex trading accounts that we operate, as well as our progress towards regulation, please send an email to the following address: seamus.mckenna@omicronforex.com, or sign up to receive occasional emails by clicking here: http://ethicalhft.com/Managed.html

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Forex can seem easy, but consider that an amateur has never won the US Masters

Two amateurs are invited to take part in the US Masters golf tournament in Augusta every year. They are the winner and runner-up of the United States Amateur Championship, known as the U.S. Amateur for short.

Although there are many well known names among these invitees, those who went on to turn professional and carve out a niche in golfing history for themselves after they did so, such as Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, none of them managed to win the Masters while they were still holding amateur status.

There is a good reason for this. Professional golf requires extreme reserves of mental strength and stamina, as well as a total dedication to practice and training.

It is the same with succesful Forex trading. For a newcomer, Forex can seem disarmingly simple. How hard can it be? After all, currency pairs can only go up or down, and you do not have to be correct all of the time. But people quickly find out that nothing could be further from the truth. For the unwary, the market is getting ready to chew up these newbies and then spit them out again, minus their equity.

But Forex can be very profitable. For those who have served their time putting in the training, and who have studied how best to give themselves an edge, that is. And that is what we have done here at EthicalHFT. Please feel free to browse our site and find out how we operate. Do not forget to read the pages about the risks that are involved.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Most retail traders lose money: regulators

www.ethicalhft.com


The Central Bank of Ireland, the financial regulatory authority for the Irish Republic, has issued a consultation paper on some topics that concern retail investors, mainly as they relate to trading Contracts of Difference (CFDs). The regulators have put forward the possibility of banning trading in CFDs altogether, although it is probably more likely that they will stop short of that and put in place safeguards for retail investors in Ireland that are more stringent than at present.

One of the things that bothers the Central Bank is the use of leverage. They make the very valid point that allowing clients to purchase instruments with a total value approaching 50 times their initial deposit is setting those clients up for failure in most cases. That some brokers allow leverage of up to 400 times the initial deposit means that customers who take anything close to maximum advantage of this are almost certain to lose.

According to the consultation paper, the Central Bank of Ireland, the Autorité  des Marchés Financier (AMF, the French regulator) and the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK have all done research that shows that anything between 80% and 89% of retail investors lost money in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Here at EthicaHFT, we are very careful about the use of leverage. The absolute maximum we can go to during the week the 100 times equity. At weekends this reduces to 30 times so, as we hold positions over the weekend, our maximum is 30 at all times. In practice, we rarely make use of more than 15% to 20% of that lower leverage allowance.

Among other things, the Central Bank of Ireland is considering making it a compulsory requirement that traders cannot have more than 25 time their initial deposit as leverage. That is fine with us.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

The power of compounding

When people trade Forex they often forget about the power of compounding. Some brokers even inadvertently make it difficult to get the benefit of this very powerful force, by insisting that all trade sizes have to be in ‘lots’ or ‘micro lots’. This means that position sizes can only be incremented in large amounts, so that compounding can only be done on long time scales, such as every month or so, if it can be done at all.

The compound interest formula is one of the simplest there is. To make it work, it is only necessary to know the starting amount (which we designate to be ‘P’, which stands for Principal), the number of compounding periods, which we call ‘t’, for time, and the interest rate to be applied on each occasion the amount is compounded. This means, for example, that if we compounded each week for a year, we would have 52 compounding periods, but if we compounded each month the number of periods would be 12. The interest rate in the first instance would be the profit rate achievable per week, and in the second case it would be rate we could reach every month.


Here is the formula (‘A’ is the amount we will arrive at when the compounding is complete):
In plain English: Amount equals principal, multiplied by one plus the rate, to the power of the number of compounding periods.

The more often compounding can be carried out, the more the effect will be seen. That is not all. Compounding also has a beneficial effect on the downside. On those occasions when a drawdown takes place in the account (and they will occur), our software reduces the amount of the position size using the same principle as when compounding on the upside. This has the effect of reducing the amount of drawdown during those periods when it happens. 


Monday, February 20, 2017

High Frequency Trading had a bad name



















High Frequency Trading (HFT) has been given a bad name by the activities of certain users of the technique who have been guilty of obtaining an unfair advantage through the use of secretive, high-tech methodologies that remove the risk from their operations, to the detriment of others.

When a company can trade any commodity, especially currency pairs, and boast that it never made a daily loss in years of activity, one can be sure that its "traders" are bending the rules. Many of the nefarious practices that have come to light are detailed in Michael Lewis’s famous book, “Flash Boys”. The good news is that the regulators have now woken up to what was happening, and have used their powers to create a more level playing field for all.

The use of computers and computer software to interact with the market, often known as “algorithmic trading”, is of course legitimate. Here, the edge is provided by the experience and skill of the practitioners, and by their willingness to put in the effort to use all the resources at their disposal to learn about the price action of currency pairs, and their reaction to fundamental events.

That is what we do here at Ethical HFT (www.ethicalhft.com), the managed Forex account arm of OmicronFX Limited. We call it ethical because we do not indulge in practices that are illicit in order to get our results, while at the same time we make the very best use of modern technologies and systems.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year | The commentary will be on holidays from today

OmiCronFX and Seamus wish all readers, wherever they may be, a very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year in 2016

We will be on holiday from today, and look forward to being back in the New Year.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

No surprise: US Fed raises rates | Will inflation take over from jobs as the key indicator to watch?

The first interest rate rise in nearly a decade took place in the US yesterday, after being really well-signalled in advance. Now the focus of market participants and commentators must turn to the expected size and frequency of rate rises each time the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets through 2016 and beyond.

Many commentators expect that there will be a new rate rise after every second meeting of the committee, making for a total of four rises expected during next year. Experience would dictate, however, that fundamental economics are not normally that well-mannered and predictable. And the Fed is on record as saying, many times, that its decisions on interest rates and stimulus in general will be “data dependent”. That, of course, is good news for currency traders, who thrive on the levels of uncertainty that can lead to long-term volatility in Forex.

The rate rise yesterday had a tentative feel to it. Economic stimulus, in the form of the re-investment of the proceeds from maturing bond holdings that are left in the Fed’s treasury as an overhang from Quantitative Easing, will continue. Interest rate projections as far out at 2018 have been lowered by the Fed, and all the talk is of a very gradual and careful path back to normality. Expectations for GDP rises have also been curtailed slightly.

Inflation takes over from jobs as the key indicator to watch

But the biggest caveat of all has to do with inflation. The U.S., and the developed world as a whole, are a long way away from the 2% across-the-board rate of inflation that all would like to see. The downward pressure on consumer prices will continue for as long as energy and other commodities continue to fall, and yesterday oil took another sizeable hit (see chart above). A barrel of oil on the NYMEX exchange is now well below the $40 that many saw as a floor not too long ago.

The Fed has a dual mandate – it is responsible for controlling inflation as well as for stimulating and maintaining jobs. Up to now the U.S Non-Farm Payrolls figure each month has been the statistic that was most closely watched by the markets as the indicator of what the Fed might do. Are we likely to see the Consumer Price Index take over this role?