Songs my mother taught me

for Martin from Brno, like Magdalena

Not just a beautiful woman, Magdalena Kozena is the biggest mezzo-soprano of our time. Sublime czech language in my ears, an exquisite way to pronounce the words, supreme eloquence and inner noblesse. My best cd for Christmas eve IF my daughters allow to listen this... Savoured with a glass of the big wine of your taste and the warm presence of your beloved.

Merry Christmas to you all!..

Paul Krugman

This is the blog I never miss, I read it every single day. Inspiring thoughts, deep knowledge of economics and today problems and transmission of this knowledge with a few words.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

Paul Krugman published a very good book last year with the same title.

Two more nice blogs : http://fistfulofeuros.net/ is about european countries and their problems, and http://blogs.lexpress.fr/attali/ , Jacques Attali's thoughts and comments (in french).

Scalping, chess, life

When I tried scalping for the first time, I was impressed by the analogy between scalping and fast chess ("blitz"). In fast chess , like in scalping, you have to act very quickly, based on intuition, experience and intelligence. There is no place for endless analysis.

-

How life imitates chess is an excellent book from the former world champion, Garry Kasparov. It's not about chess, it is an easy approach of very important subjects, like decision-making, strategy development, crisis managment, intellectual evolution, game theory, perception and intuition, and so on... A lot of ideas in 270 pages and for 10 bucks.. Very inspiring.

Carcassonne

An idea for a gift this Christmas : Carcassonne, an excellent strategy boardgame for adults and kids. Very amusing, very simple rules and countless possibilities, like in the japanese game of Go. Thanks to this game, my 5 1/2-years old got very deep notions of strategy in a weekend , she would need several months to match this level in chess learning . Now she wants to play online with "ranked players"... A lot of communities, forums, online versions for this game. Just google it.

Kirschbluten

for Christian

A splendid film from Germany, by director Doris Dorrie. Emotional and sincere, all the delicacy of humans and their sentiments, in this little masterpiece. And the human destiny is treated seriously (german way) and poetically at the same time, with feminine touches. Splendid images too, I never saw Japan filmed that way before. Don't miss it!

P.S. I have a serious problem, I admit it : I cry in the movies. I watched this film with my wife and her (many) sisters. I was the only one who cried during the film!.. Women are getting tough these days..

Nice Friday!

Santa Clauss (high volatility) came to town again bringing presents ...

I must close the week, my best ever (+105%), AT THIS POINT, because I am able to wipe out everything in a Friday afternoon, I have done this before. Better read something or play chess..

Volatility, the party continues

Easy money, going with the flow, in a high volatility day.

Eur/usd drops like a stone, like the good old eur/jpy...

Euro/dolar again

The party is here!

I had a look yesterday in the charts after FOMC announcement (smashing interest rates again in U.S.) and realised that the party is going to take place in the euro/dollar fields. So i switched today to this pair and had quite some pips in this NY session. I didn't catch all the move but i do not look for this. 110 pips won in total.

Bits

5 o' clock

I could have a better entry on this, anyhow some fast pips and good exit.

Had some small trades after that one, 8 winners and 2 losers in total today, 47 pips won, +13%. Done for the day. Must keep the maximum rate of 10 trades per day. A lot payed in commissions recently..

Love Mondays (again)

Easy money on (almost) every Monday London opening.. I will stop here till 10:00 EST (17:00 my time).

Never (trading) on Friday!

Lesson learned from last week..

Continuation

It took some time to take off and have this +18. Before this I had a faulty reversal trade as i didn't waited the break of previous low and trend line. But it was closed in time, for a change...

Risky, risky...

Forcing things..

The conviction that price SHOULD resume down gave this late exit.

Slice of bread

I didn't trusted this earlier, so i got just a portion of the downfall.

Closed early

Closed early, although this is my preferred (safest) setup and i trust it.

Earlier today

Nice London opening effect. Second trade could be closed at breakeven.

Life (and passion) goes on..

Still alive and trading..

Under fire

Athens is under fire tonight. Our house, which is centrally located, is 100 meters from the fires. Heavy smell of police chemicals. Total chaos and fear here...

How to wipe out your gains

Friday afternoons can be tricky.. Large swings around London closing time today, big nervosity and indecision in the market gave me this disastrous finish of the week. In 3 lousy trades I managed to wipe out the 20% weekly gains I had before these. Price went very clearly against me and I could not close.. I can find excuses : I was very tired, the kids were making a lot of noise and so on... But the fact is there. An ugly way to waste one week's efforts...

Easy money makes you greedy

Easy money again today, by just following the direction of the markets at their opening. If European markets open down, eur/yen goes also down (the opposite is not always valid). This can produce a dangerous confidense sometimes and this is visible on the third trade on the chart... 12 trades in total, 10 winners, 2 losers. +7,5% on account and then i stopped for today, and was happy to do this.

I wanted to share this because there is a striking difference with my attitude yesterday. Yesterday it was an identical market, I made a fast 10% on the London opening, by following the DAX...The easy money made me greedy, I wanted more, I continued in the afternoon and was trapped in a consolidating market. Result : I gave back the nine tenths of the gains, little by little.. My frustration was bigger than the lost gains..

We learn something every day, each day adds to the big unwritten archive named experience or screentime ot whatever you like...

I love Mondays!

A love supreme

I have been recently in Paris for a short visit and, suddenly, i got a kind of nostalgia for my first stay in this city, as a student, some 25 years ago. It was hard time for me but I learned a lot there. Among other things i discovered music in Paris, the big, the divine one.

My "saints" were Coltrane, Mahler, Miles Davis, Glenn Gould, Bach or Wagner. I wanted to buy all their albums, I remember me sparing money from my food to do this. Records, or the first published cds at this period, were expensive for the average student in the 80's. A not so great edition of Parsifal costed me one week's meals in 1983..

I remember especially the nights I passed in my tiny chambre de bonne, listening for hours Coltrane or Mahler discs, while i was litteraly starving... Most of all, A love supreme, 48 minutes of pure ecstasy (whithout drugs!) in my earphones, listened again and again..

Today, a 20 years-old guy can download this masterpiece from Emusic for 35 cents! He can also search among 100 other Coltrane's albums and out-of-print editions . That means progress to me. The only problem is that, although (or because) the purchase of music is so easy, there is no devotion to the music saints anymore.

Or i am wrong : there must exist out there boys and girls with the same love for the music, the great one..

Sublime!

-for Andrea

"To make a movie based on Andreotti's life and political career was more than a challenge and Sorrentino, choosing a surreal and grotesque key to narrate the story, achieve an extraordinary artistic quality that leave you astounded. The movie is a triumph on so many levels (also the choice of the music is weird and original) that probably deserves more than a single view to be fully appreciated. "

A genious orchestration of optical and sound materials and loans from any possible art, like opera, danse, theater, etc. Done with an incredible maestria, so big that it is irritating sometimes.. A net advance in cinematography and film directing. Unforgettable film... I could not sleep yesterday night after the projection, thinking of Servillo's achievement...

Late entry in a strong trend

(Very) late entry on this, i was lucky enough to cope with a strong trend and that only gave a nice profit, as on the chart.. Otherwise i could get an easy rebound on the trendline and 8-10 pips loss.

Fast 10

Fast 10 pips, based on CCI exhaustion, closed as soon as possible.

Solid base

Nice unfolding rainbow and solid base (several supp lines) gave this healthy uptrend and 34 easy pips.

Second entry is risky

First trade gave 11 pips but weren't enough. I re-entered on the same move and this second trade (third here) is always risky. Result : -14 pips. Net :-3.

Uptrend

Nice uptrend with many pips, i took a little portion of them.

Reversed valley setup

Had this reversed cup or valley today, with good entry/exit. one of the easiest (to trade) setups.

Temporal exhaustion

A counter -trade on signs of temporal exhaustion. Exhaustion is announced here by 3 consecutive lower highs and divergence on CCI. On these trades, i get some pips and get out quickly, because the resume of the trend can kill me anytime.

Strong pattern

one of my strongest setups, when price leaves the range and the "valley" , signing a strong reversal.

Hesitation killed the sparrow

I had a few seconds of hesitation to close or not this short who turned badly. That was enough to give me a -63 on the face. High volatility, high gains, high losses.

210 pips won today. My best day/week/month so far. But we live/trade in abnormal times.

Drop, drop, drop!...

103 pips in no time!.. exited waiting an equally strong reaction, but it was more there... Not complained for this..

Nice morning

i was really happy with this, so I didn't care much to take also the second leg down.

Madness

This the chart of my equity's change in %, during the day. Overtrading (50 trades in total!) drove performace back and forth between 0 and 15%, closing the day around 12%. Complete non-sense and very stressfull. Patterns and trendlines apply here too...

Last trade

...and finally took back the lost pips, late in the evening, with a lot of stress.

A capital mistake

This short went to +8, not closed, not even at break even and was left to move quickly against me. Negligence? Stupidity? Egoism and incapacity to accept the obvious? Check all the above.

2 trades

2 more trades.

The art of giving (back)

..the reversal took place some minutes later, little by little and I was insisting to be short. This is the art of giving back some of the previous gains..

Slices of thr trend

3 shorts in this big drop. There is an important empty space between the 2nd and the 3rd, marking my hesitation to re-enter for the 3rd time. I finally reentered a lot of pips below the 2nd exit, making this trade risky, as the downtrend was exhausting and could have a strong reversal an any time..

Contra

The "You will miss the party" trade

i was busy with my dayjob during the move down, and when back to trading, i wanted to get on the train at any price. The result is allways a bad entry. I was trapped in a ranging market and lost 13 pips.

Risk taken

Risk taken again, risked 15 pips to win 7,5. Bad ratio indeed!...

Pre-London

Last trades for today

Decent catch of the drop, closed on time.

Just a slice

I was busy and missed the previous entries but I don't complain. A sparrow needs just one bit :) And bit after bit..