Olympic Strength!--IFCN Wk 36 -Fri- Equity: $841.14.

The dollar's strength continued all week. If the currency's performance this week were in the Olympics, the dollar would have been the uncontested winner in every event.

Most in the financial world attributed much of it to the instability of the former Soviet Union made obvious by fresh news of continued fighting. Perhaps.

The news is fickle and loves to attribute one trouble to another. It likes to make a tidy package. The reality is likely closer to this concept-- the US economy isn't and hasn't been as bad as the news about it trumpeted over the last many months, and the rest of the world has over emphasized how much better they've had it. Reality eventually rights all things.

For a few years in the late '80's, the “civilized” world believed that Japan would own the world because of the Japanese economy's undaunting strength. At the time, the Japanese property valuation of Tokyo alone exceeded by a large margin the total American valuation of every square inch of property in the US!

Eventually, reality caught up with the imaginary valuations and fixed the irrational views by sending losses to the deluded.

This is the way of free markets. They tend to be wrong long enough to allow the very gullible to own the worse values. The word to the wise is – don't allow yourself to be gullible.

2 + 2 always equals 4.

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Here's the week's recap:

The data below is as of Friday's close, Aug. 15, 2008:

Start of week equity: $869.12

OneNightStand Exit(s) on 08/11/08 :
*Eur/Usd: Short @ 1.5192 –Exited at 1.4979 for 213 pips profit.
*Gbp/Usd: Short @ 1.9269 –Exited at 1.9194 for 75 pips profit.
*Usd/Chf: Long @ 1.0714 –Exited at 1.0814 for 100 pips profit.
*Usd/Jpy: Long @ 109.89 –Exited at 110.05 for 15 pips profit.
Total Profits: $ 30.22

Completed FirstStrike trades this week:
Eur/Usd: Short @1.4935, stopped out at 1.4995 for a 60 pip loss.
Gbp/Jpy: Short @210.57, stopped out at 211.47 for a 90 pip loss.
Gbp/Usd: Short @1.9148, stopped out at 1.9208 for a 60 pip loss.
Usd/Chf: Short @ 1.0764, stopped out at 1.0824 for a 60 pip loss.
Usd/Jpy: Short @ 109.56, stopped out at 110.16 for a 60 pip loss.
Total losses: 330 pips
Total profits: 0 pips
Net loss: 330 pips

OneNightStand 08/15/08 entry(s):
*Eur/Usd: Short @ 1.4753
*Gbp/Usd: Short @ 1.8619
*Usd/Chf: Long @ 1.0984
*Usd/Jpy: Long @ 110.41
All above to be exited Monday morning, 00:01 CST
Unrealized Profits: $ 5.51

End of week equity: $841.14(includes unrealized P&L)
Total Loss for Week: $27.98 (3.2% weekly decrease)

It would have been great if the account could have retaken some of the FirstStrike trades when they “re-Struck” to the downside. We would have doubled the account easily.

With markets like this for a while, anything is possible. Anyone trading viable methods in the shorter terms have had a cornucopia of profit opportunities. Any upticks in the eur/usd and gbp/usd have been good sells for the last week.

We'll see what the next week will bring.

As an additional note, 7 experienced IFCN subscribers attended a workshop this weekend in Minneapolis concerning trading London Squeeze, a robust daily volatility-breakout method that has been effective for decades. It has proved itself effective trading simultaneously with FirstStrike and OneNightStand.

It was a fantastic gathering, with everyone getting a chance to describe their experiences and successes (or lack of success) trading forex. I definitely enjoyed meeting such a determined and intelligent group of traders whom I am confident will excel in coming months.

I'll keep you posted as I hear of their success. Or lack of, as the case may be. Trading is a challenge despite the determination we bring to it.

Looking forward to a new week.

Joel Rensink
www.infiniteyield.com

PS: To receive the FREE! trading rules for the Infiniteyield Forex Challenge ($499 value) and the semi-monthly newsletter about this challenge, send an email to: newsletter@infiniteyield.com and tell me to which address you would like it sent. Please do not use AOL, Hotmail or Yahoo addresses. They've been known to filter out more good mail than actual spam. Try a Gmail address. It's free, simple and perfect for traders!