time to blog

It has just been one of those days.  Yesterday I sold the EURUSD pair at 1.36 with the intention of buying back at 1.3370.  We have been working around the clock to get a new version of timetotrade ready for release and last night in a state of exhaustion I decided that I just didn’t want to take a loss on the trade so I lowered my stop to 1.3580 and reduced my buy to 1.3470 just in case the forex market moved during the night.

I woke up around 6am to find I had stopped out and with a small profit of 20pips.  As I lay in bed pondering whether or not to re-enter the sell order, I decided to wait for a few hours and set about testing the new version of timetotrade that went live at midnight.  Despite testing the new version heavily before it went live and even reaching a rare state of ‘zaro bugs’ (a mythical state in software development), this morning the new software load went pear-shape.

To make matters worse, last night’s closing buy order at 1.3470 was not cancelled when the stop triggered, which resulted in a 120 pip loss as I unwound the position. I was not impressed to say the least; I mean really really not impressed, especially when my initial strategy was bang on the money.  On a plus note I made 249 pips over the last few days, so I shouldn’t complain, but I really do hate losing so heavily over something so stupid as a wrong order entry.

So currently I’m now long on the GBPUSD pair at 1.4314 and debating what to do on the EURUSD pair.  When I say debating, it is more of a case of talking to myself, which probably isn’t very healthy.  As I ponder this the developers are busy debugging timetotrade and I’m writing this blog entry, to stop me hovering over them like an anxious Father waiting on a child to be delivered.   Oh, almost forgot to mention the new ezine that we have been working on; click here to check it out.

Every now and then you read something that just puts a smile on your face.  We are in the process of recruiting another developer and today a recruitment consultant sent me an email quoting Harvard business management logic as to why we should recruit even more people.. hmm.. so he is suggesting that we follow the steps of Harvard alumni such as:

• Stan O’Neal & John Thain - Chief Executives, Merrill Lynch
• Andy Hornby - Chief Executive, HBOS
• Christoper Cox - Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
• Jeff Skilling - Chief Executive, Enron
• Rick Wagoner - Chief Executive, General Motors
• George W Bush - need I say more?

and of course a very funny quote from Andrew Lahde, a hedge fund manager who made a fortune during the downturn, “The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking… All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I have some friends who have graduated from Harvard and they are lovely hard working people who deserve the success they have found, but none the less the recruitment consultant did put a smile on my face.