DON'T HUNT TRADES !!!!!!

You don't have to hunt profitable trades, if you will wait, they will come to you. LET PROFITABLE TRADES FIND THEIR WAY TO YOU!!!!!!!!!

The difference between the consistently profitable trader and the trader who is struggling is that the profitable trader has learned to let profitable trades come to her/him. The profitable trader waits for a proper trade set-up and is anticipating it, the most important thing about a consistently profitable trader is that she/he is willing to forgo a trade that does not show a clear advantage.

Great trading is more about waiting for proper trade set-ups and opportunities than it is about being smart. If you wait, proper trades will seek you out, begging you to come in and enjoy and partake of the profits. That is the master discipline that MUST be developed if you are to enjoy a good living trading.

It is hard if you feel the need to constantly be in the market. The more you are in the market the more you are exposed to risk and the more you expose yourself to risk the more likely you are to be bitten and bitten hard. You have got to develop 'THE ART OF WAITING', it is one of the master trading arts along with confidence and disciple.

YOU CAN DO THIS (^_^). Start with learning your candlestick psychology and force yourself not to trade unless you can see a clear trading advantage. Use your demo to help develop this discipline if necessary. Your charts will tell you more truth than any other source learn to read it like you read your favorite book.

Lastly WAIT for profitable trades to COME TO YOU!!!!!!!!

YOU CAN DO THIS (^_^)

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ANTICIPATE

One of the biggest mistakes traders make is jumping in at the end of a price move. Once price has a direction, we expect for price to move that way forever, and either fail to secure our profits, or try to keep riding a profit train that has come to the end of the line.........



This is a costly error. Price does not continue on forever; at some point it is going to turn against the current trend. Believe me, I love to ride a good profit train and hate to get off of it, but price is only going to go to it's next destination before returning to the station or moving to a totally different one.



Your current trend will not go on forever no matter how good the news or the economy is, at some point trends like rivers develop bend and curbs and ultimately reversals. It helps if you know where the river banks are. That is where your support and resistance come in, price may turn at a resistance/support point or it may simply move sideways before finding a way to follow the current trend. These are areas that you want to pay particular attention to price action.



Most of the time, your candlesticks will show you the direction you must take at these areas. Learn to anticipate where your price is going to move. That is how your trend line, candlesticks and support and resistance work together to help show you the most profitable trades. If you are trending, buy pullback/sell rallies in harmony with that trend. If you hit a resistance, then look for a validate candlestick reversal before shorting that resistance, if you are at support begin to look for a valid candlestick reversal pattern to bounce off of that support area. If you don't get these patterns and price keeps going then it is time for a new strategy, but following your trend is going to yield your most profitable trades.



Follow where your price leads, but your trading tools help you to predict where price maybe headed. Anticipations makes for some very lucrative and profitable trades.........



YOU CAN DO THIS (^_^)





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A smarter investment than gold

A couple of quotes from Andy Smith's Precious Thoughts commentary 19 April 2010 I like:

"the euro, still, arguably the most toxic structured product built by man"

"But this [SEC vs Goldman Sachs] is a never-ending story: The Inquisition -> Salem -> McCarthy -> Spitzer -> and here we are. It's about politics/power/control. Guilt/innocence bit players."

"Goldman were arguably the hub in the wheel [or at least the ball bearings; so this is not Lehman 2, but Lehman *2?]. Big Gov is about to put a boot in the hub. Watch what happens to the spokes: - 'Counterparty' a dirty word? We are closer to that Indian village end-game; extended families the only circle of trust, assets you can sleep nights over and on, in your mattress, the only rational investible products. The opposite of ‘synthetic’ is ‘real’."

If indeed counterparty becomes a dirty word, and people won't trust gold ETFs/GoldMoney/Perth Mint Depository or any other custodial facility, the problem is that the minting and refining industry as a whole does not have the production capacity to meet retail/mass market demand for coins and bars in my view. Look forward to high premiums and/or rationing of production. See my posts:

FUD. Fear, uncertainty, doubt. and
Why are there not enough coins?

Remembering that the ones who made money from the gold rushes were those selling picks and shovels to the prospectors, then if I am right the smartest investment will not be gold, but minters and refiners of gold.

Life in the Ant Farm

The 21st Century Bank Run

London unallocated: Fractional Fubar or Benevolent Banking?

A number of readers of my blog have asked me to comment on the 100:1 comment by Mr Christian of CPM Group in his CFTC testimony and whether London unallocated metal accounts are fractional. Well short answer is no, they are only 10:1 fractional. Do you feel much better now?

The 10:1 statement was made by Mr Christian in a April 10 interview with Jim Puplava of Financial Sense. Mr Christian is interviewed at the 26 minute mark and explains his 100:1 statement at the 36 minute mark. However, it is the comments at the 44 minute mark that are most illuminating, which I have transcribed below:

If you are a bank in the United States and you take in a deposit the office of the controller of the currency says you have a reserve requirement of 12.5% or something which means that for every dollar you take in deposits you can lend out 8 and that's how the money in banking 101 works.

Now if you're a bank in the United States and you take in gold and silver deposits not on an allocated basis but on an unallocated basis the same way you take in dollars when you put them in – when people put money into a savings account or a chequing account that's an unallocated account and the bank is allowed to lend it out. If they put the money in their safety deposit box that money belongs to the investor and the bank can't lend it, the bank can't hypothecate it, it stays there, and it means nothing to the money in circulation.

In the gold market if you put your gold and silver in a safety deposit box or an allocated account the bank can't touch it legally but if you put it in an unallocated account that is now an asset on the bank's book, they have a liability to give it to you if you ever want it back but in the meantime they can lend it out. Now if you give the bank in the United states money the law, the office of the controller of the currency says the bank can lend it out 8 times. If you give it gold and silver the office of the controller of the currency says the bank can lend it out in a “prudent fashion” and the bank has the discretion to decide what's a prudent multiple for its credit lending. Most of the banks I know, commercial banks, 8, 10, maybe 12 as a leverage factor.

AIG was not a bank, was not a commercial bank, and under the US laws non-commercial banks don't come under the law, the guidance of the office of the controller of the currency. AIG used a leverage factor of 40, so if people gave them a million ounces of gold to hold for them, they could lend out 40. I mean, I have friends who are metals traders who were looking for job years ago and, you know, they went to AIG and AIG said “we use a leverage factor of 40” and the trader is a seasoned guy and he's worked at major banks and investment banks, he said “I can't operate at that level of leverage its just too risky more me” and AIG trading said “well this is what we do”, right, so there is a loophole in our regulatory system, its doesn't really have anything to do with gold and silver per se but it allows non-banks to participate in banking activities in a way that skirts banking regulations that are designed to promote stability in the banking system.

In the interview, Mr Christian recommended that listeners go to the CPM Group website where there was a free download Bullion Banking Explained. I took him up on the offer. Below are are some extracts that fill out his statements above.

This article may help to clarify the complex world of commodity banking, in which gold, silver, and other commodities are treated as assets, collateralized and traded against. When we explain these processes to clients, we often refer to the same mechanics as they are applied to deposits, loans, and assets by commercial banks in U.S. dollars and other currencies. Banks treat their metal deposits in much the same way as they do deposits denominated in money, as the reserve asset against which they lend additional money to borrowers. ...

Many banks use factor loadings of 5 to 10 for their gold and silver, meaning that they will loan or sell 5 to 10 times as much metal as they have either purchased or committed to buy. One dealer we know uses a leverage factor of 40. (Long Term Capital Management had a leverage factor of 100 when it nearly collapsed in 1998.)

A bank does not even have to be buying gold at a particular time to be able to use it as collateral against which it can trade, sell forward, and lend gold. If a bank has gold held in an unallocated account, or a forward purchase on its books committing a producer to sell it gold later, it can use these gold assets as collateral for additional gold trades.

Is London unallocated fractional fubar or just benevolent banking? Maybe this statement by Mr Christian in a presentation to the International Cotton Advisory Council in October 2002 will help you decide:

A producer should use an advisor such as CPM Group, which is not trading against the producer. Banks and dealers have a conflict of interest between their own trading positions and the hedges they advise their clients to take.

Or maybe Recent Lessons Learned About Hedging (January 2000):

Hedgers should not rely on their trading counterparts for hedging strategies. These entities take the opposite side of the hedge transactions, have inherent conflicts of interest, and always keep their own best interests in mind, even if these are the short-term best interests and arguably not in the banks’ own long term best interests.

GOLD & MONEY: More Than Meets the Eye

LISTEN TO THE WISDOM OF THE CANDLES

Your candles always have a tale to tell and you would be very wise to listen as they whisper hints about what is going on in the market. In order to trade your very best, it is very very important for you to learn to properly interpret the language of your chart. Now you can use either the bar or candlestick chart to do this, there is really no real difference in the information between the two, but the candles give you a clear immediate visual advantage over your bars. Whether you use bars or candles isn't as important as being able to understand what they are saying to you.

Learning to properly interpret this language will save you hundreds to several thousands of dollars. The trader who has taken the time and patience to learn this language heaps huge rewards as a benefit, but those who don't suffer the wrath of the market time and time again.

Now it is possible to have a perfect understanding of the market and still miss it. All the proper interpretation does is give you an advantage that will put profits in your pocket most of the time.

Your charts are always telling a story and if you can properly interpret that story the market will pay you big dividends for that knowledge.

Here is one of my favorite beginner candlestick video:



Also pick up Steve Nison's candlestick book at your local library: THE KNOWLEDGE IS THE POWER IN TRADING, and having it is the difference between going broke and thriving.

YOU CAN DO THIS (^_^)

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King World News & Scotia Certificates

*Updated table on 14 Feb 2012 with 2011 figures*

In this interview, Lenny Organ (son of Harvey Organ who was at CFTC hearing) recounts how at a recent visit to the vaults of ScotiaBank they saw little physical precious metals and had to go to some trouble to get physical.

I analysed Scotia's annual report back in September 2009 after seeing a blog by ispeakofpeak on the issue. At that time the annual report revealed that Scotia only had 43% of its gold and silver certificate liabilities backed by physical metal. The table below updates that post with the most recent report (note: Scotia's financial year end is 31 Oct, figures in millions of dollars).

Year
Ending Liabilities Assets Physical cover
Oct 11 3,931 9,249 100%
Oct 10 5,153 6,497 100%
Oct 09 3,856 5,580 100%
Oct 08 5,619 2,426 43%
Oct 07 5,986 4,046 68%
Oct 06 3,434 3,362 98%
Oct 05 2,711 2,822 100%
Oct 04 2,018 2,302 100%

It appears that the physical backing was running down from 2006 but is now back to 100%+, with $5.58 billion of physical. This contrasts with Lenny Organ statement. Either Scotia have run down a lot of physical in 6 months or it is stored elsewhere.

I do find it interesting that the gold and silver certificate liability has declined from $5.619b to $3.856b in the past year, a year when most ETFs, GoldMoney and BullionVault and Perth Mint have shown increasing amounts of metal held.

I agree with Adrian Douglas' statement in the interview that many storage providers "are very vague about what is backing their paper certificates and if they are vague I think you should not give them the benefit of the doubt". Contrast this statement from Scotia about their unallocated:

"Scotiabank gold certificates are backed by the assets of The Bank of Nova Scotia. Unallocated gold is a claim on The Bank of Nova Scotia for the ounces entitlement to a specific quantity of gold bullion."

with the Perth Mint's:

"With unallocated storage, also known as a metal account, clients purchase an interest in a pool of precious metal held by The Perth Mint. The Mint purchases an ounce of precious metal from the spot market for every unallocated ounce it sells to clients. Accordingly every unallocated ounce is 100% backed. ... The Perth Mint is not a bullion bank and does not provide project financing or bullion lending/derivative services to mining companies or other entities. It does not lend client's unallocated metal to support short selling transactions or other derivative activities. The unallocated metal is utilised solely to fund the Mint's operations."

You should always read the fine print.

The Mysterious Mr Maguire's Message of Metal Manipulation

"Since criminal prosecution is only a remote threat, and since the fines and damages are generally paid by the companies, not by the individuals, the question is: what’s to keep a Sumitomo from happening again, perhaps in precious metals?" - Modern Market Manipulation by Mike Riess, International Precious Metals Institute 27th Annual Conference, 16 June 2003.

The recent statements by Mr Maguire may well prove Mr Riess right. It is well worth reading Mr Riess' presentation. It is not long and neatly identifies the factors that contributed to the copper manipulation, factors that also apply to the metals markets.

For the young'uns, "a Sumitomo" refers to the case where, as the CFTC itself found: "the principal copper trader for Sumitomo engaged in a scheme, in conjunction with an entity operating in the United States, with the intent of manipulating the price of copper. In particular, during 1995 and 1996, Sumitomo, acting through its agent or agents, established and maintained large and dominating futures positions in copper metal on the London Metals Exchange ("LME"). In the fall of 1995, Sumitomo stood for delivery on a significant percentage of its maturing futures contracts. It thereby acquired a dominant and controlling cash and futures market position, which directly and predictably caused copper prices, including prices on the United States cash and futures markets, to reach artificially high levels. ... Sumitomo intentionally exploited these artificially high prices in order to profit on the liquidation of its large portfolio of futures contracts and holdings of LME warrants."

It is because of the Sumitomo case that I am not surprised by the revelations of Mr Maguire. However, the question for me is what sort of manipulation are we talking about? It is being spun as proof of GATA's claim that the gold market is manipulated by the US Government via bullion banks in an attempt to support the dollar. While I don't begrudge GATA some PR mileage, at this time all that Mr Maguire has is potentially another "rouge trader" case, only affecting the silver markets. He is not providing any evidence about gold market manipulations or Governmental involvement.

This may come in due time if the CFTC investigate further but that does beg the question of why rely on the Government. If they are ultimately party to the manipulation, will they not make the issue go away in a backroom deal? Alternatively, if the CFTC presses on and does find something initially in the silver markets, will it just be explained away as a rogue trader who will take the fall?

In this case it may be best to fight fire with fire, in a way. GATA would achieve more, and quicker, by doing a roadshow with Mr Maguire to hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, etc and making its case that the market has been manipulated via the surreptitious leasing and selling of central bank gold that is now all used up and hence there is a large short position that can be squeezed. The standard of proof would be much lower, just enough to convince an investor that the odds are in their favour.

Would it not be better to use brawn rather than bureaucracy? Only if you're sure the bet your pitching won't turn bad, because then your buddies will be blue (to put it mildly).