First QTD trade, 0.19% gain long EURGBP

My semi-automated trading system, Quantised Trading Desk, closed its first trade this week. I was bullish EURGBP and USDJPY, and bearish NZDUSD as per the previous discussions. The QTD system saved me from the premature calls in both USDJPY and NZDUSD by not making any trade this week. That, in and of itself, has made me very happy with QTD’s first week of live trading. Particular in light of how fierce that USDJPY down move has been.

As a bonus, QTD entered a long position in EURGBP for a small 0.19% gain as illustrated below. My parameter were a maximum of 0.25% risk per position. The gain could have been better if it weren’t for that 61% retracement. Not that I’m complaining as I haven’t even looked at the market this past couple of days while the system is trading for me.

USDJPY touched my threshold support price 80.70, my bullish sentiment needs to be reevaluated. NZDUSD just cracked a higher high (marginally though), so I’m easing on the bear button for now. EURGBP is testing some resistance to, so I’m not so eager to dive in again. Overall, I’ve been 2/3 wrong. I’ve told you before that I’m very bad at timing the market. That’s why I developed QTD to trade for me.

Seeing that it’s a long weekend, and I’ll be way from town, I’m just going to shut down my remote trade server in London until next week when I can have some time to re-do my analysis.

EURGBP, hourly

Sold 200 LLL.TO @ 48.00, Profit +1.9%

I’m out of my Lululemon position minutes prior to the close. Holding time was just a day. I would have liked to hold this position for longer but the market is directionless. In addition, the stop hunt on the shorts in LLL.TO is unmistakable as seen in Figure 1.

Option expiration is this Friday. So I’m taking my profit now prior to expected volatility. A reward/risk of 2 to 1 is too tempting to let go. However, LLL.TO is pushing higher into the close. So perhaps this is yet another lack of patience on my part. Update Nov 18: Yes, I was too early indeed. LLL.TO gapped upward the day after my exit.

Option pain is pegged at $45 on the American shares (NASDAQ:LULU). LULU is trading just above $47 as I close my position.

Lululemon (LLL.TO)

Profit is ($48.00 – $47.04) * 200 = $192 – $9.90 commission = $182.1 = 1.9% of account.

It’s fortunate that I’m able to bounce right back to regain most of my losses in my worst trade this year within a week.

Covered 4 MFC 11JAN Puts 14.00.MX @ 0.45, Mark 14.80, Loss -2.3%

The S&P500 is filling its gap from that big up move on November 4. EUR/USD is bouncing off a long term support around 1.3600. Thus I’m covering my short in Manulife Financial (MFC.TO) before the weekend. This position turned out horribly.

I’ve been waiting for MFC.TO to print 14.50, just above its 38.6% Fibonacci retracement level at 14.40 on the recent spike. But 14.80 doesn’t seem to budge even today with all that bearishness floating around. Intraday volume is also decreasing on every new test of this intraday support. So I’m throwing in the towel here.

Loss is ($0.45 – $0.93) * 4 * 100 = -$192 – $27.90 = -$219.90 = -2.3% of account.

Manulife Financial (MFC.TO)

Sold 300 HOD.TO @ 9.12, Loss -0.6%

Update: Crude is making a dive. This might be the move that I waited but got stopped out.

I shorted crude oil on Friday afternoon below the 82 resistance. It was an undocumented trade. Now I am closing at a loss. It’s a slap on the hand for breaking my own trading rules.

Oil broke above 82 over the weekend. Fortunately, the opening gap was filled before noon and I took the opportunity to cover my short. I was down 1% at the open. Good thing I didn’t panic and waited patiently (with a hard stop just below the opening low) for a more rational exit. My planned stop was $9.15, the opening low was $8.87, and I covered at $9.12. Just a tad under my plan but a lot higher than the low so far.

Figure 1 is a chart of U.S. Oil Fund (USO) at the time of my exit. I traded the Horizons BetaPro Oil Bear Plus ETF (HOD.TO) as a vehicle for shorting crude oil. The chart of USO is a better proxy of crude oil prices as it’s a few magnitudes higher volume (i.e. more popular) than HOD.TO.

From the looks of it, I will stay on the sideline until at least the midterm election in the United States next week.

Loss for this trade is ($9.12 – $9.29) * 300 = -$51 – $9.90 commission = -$60.90 = -0.6%.

U.S. Oil Fund (USO)

Sold 300 HOD.TO @ 9.40, Profit +0.5%

I got whipsawed out of my crude oil short as the market consolidates. Seeing that the G20 is meeting in Seoul today and tomorrow, not much is happening on this flat Friday. EUR/USD is in a 100 pips range. S&P 500 is in a 5 points range. Maybe something will happen near the close, but I won’t be around for it as I have no position in the market anymore.

Crude oil is still looking bearish though as it is crawling on its short term support line (Fig. 1). Perhaps my stop was just too tight as I moved it up a couple of times to lock in some profits.

Profit is ($9.40 – $9.19) * 300 = $63 – $9.90 commission = $53.10 = 0.5% of account.

Crude Oil